Ribagorçan (autonym: ribagorsanoorribagorzano)[a] is a number of Romance dialects spoken in the modern territories of the medieval County of Ribagorza, in northern Spain.
| Ribagorçan | |
|---|---|
| ribagorsano, ribagorzano | |
| Native to | Spain |
| Region | Aragon, Catalonia:
|
| |
| Dialects | Several Catalan and Aragonese transitional dialects, such as Benasquese |
| Official status | |
Recognised minority | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
arg-eas Aragonese Ribagorçan | |
cat-rib Catalan Ribagorçan | |
| Glottolog | None |
| This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. | |
The area corresponds to the modern administrative units of Ribagorza/Ribagorça and La Litera/La Llitera, in the province of Huesca, Aragon, and Alta Ribagorça in the province of Lleida, Catalonia. Today, depending on provincial and regional perspectives, Ribagorçan may be described in Aragon as transitional to Catalan, or in Catalonia as transitional to Aragonese. Eastern dialects in the area tend to be classified as Catalan, and western dialects as Aragonese, with a small central area of more difficult classification.
Historically, the county and its dialect was influenced by its political alliances, conquerors and rulers—ranging from the Romans to the Goths, Navarrese, the Franks, Moors, Castilians and Catalans. As such, the spoken language evolved from a variant of Vulgar Latin and was influenced along the way by its geo-linguistic neighbors—Basque, Gascon (Occitan), Castilian, French, Aragonese and Catalan.
Being predominantly a spoken language, written documents are scarce, but they do exist—most notably, the Pastoradas of Benabarre compiled by Ricardo del Arco as well the writings of Tonón de Baldomera and poetry of Cleto Torrodellas; and more recently works by Ana Tena Puy, Carmen Castán and Bienvenido Mascaray Sin.
With the recognition of Aragonese as a language in 2003, intra-regional identities, among them Ribagorçan, have gained strength, and there is renewed interest in preserving, teaching and developing the local dialects commonly referred to as fabla.
In Aragon, the dialect in Ribagorza can be clustered into two main groups: Upper and Lower Ribagorçan defined by an isogloss line running east–west from the Turbón mountain. However locals prefer to demarcate three subdialects:
InCatalonia the Ribagorçan dialect spoken in the county of Alta Ribagorça, is also clustered. A dialectal variant exemplified by the Ribagorçan speakers of Pont de Suert, is Catalan dominant transitional to Aragonese with some traits of Aranese Gascon.
Some features include: