The Present State of Aragonese

La corónica: A Journal of Medieval Hispanic Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, 2021

The aim of the Regional dossiers series is to provide a concise description of European minority languages in education. Aspects that are addressed include features of the education system, recent educational policies, main actors, legal arrangements and support structures, as well as quantitative aspects such as the number of schools, teachers, pupils, and financial investments. Because of this fixed structure the dossiers in the series are easy to compare.

This chapter uses a sociolinguistic and glottopolitical approach to examine the Romance languages in Spain. The theoretical framework positions language conflict as an analytical instrument, to the extent that the current language distribution is considered not to be a result of consensus but one of control by authority that gives way to a four-tier linguistic hierarchy: official language, co-official languages, protected languages and unprotected languages. A critical evaluation of the situation for each language in the different territories in which they are spoken is presented, and the chapter concludes with a brief discussion of the emergence of the minority language "new speaker", a social (and political) subject who, with their praxis, is responsible for the future of some of these languages.

International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 2004

Asturian is a Romance language spoken in the territory of the Principality of Asturias (Spain), nowadays in decline due to the strong pressure of Castilian. Although in the last few years some protective and linguistic planning measures have been taken, the Asturian language does not yet enjoy the o‰cial status of other Spanish languages such as Catalan, Basque, or Galician since the advent of democracy and the autonomous system in Spain. The Asturian situation is, in fact, paradoxical, since, in spite of sociological studies evincing a general support in society for o‰cial status and linguistic normalization this demand is thwarted by the averse attitude of certain political, social, and academic local élites who block, by means of their influence, any advancement in this direction. This article analyzes the historical and sociological keys of linguistic shift in Asturias exemplified by the peculiar situation of Asturian Language Teaching at the University of Oviedo, which has recently been in danger of becoming banned.

International Journal of The Sociology of Language, 2008

Journal of the School of Language, Literature and Culture Studies , 2004

1994

This paper examines the linguistic and legal framework in Spain and its attempts to define nationhood and a collective identity that encompasses its three major linguistic minority groups. The four major language groups of Spain are discussed with regard to official language policy and legislation. Article 3 of the 1978 Spanish constitution was heralded as a radical new recognition of linguistic rights and cultural pluralism, so long denied by the Franco dictatorship. Yet careful analysis of this article reaffirms that the politics of language in Spain remain contentious and ambiguous; in part because of the very language of politics itself. The pull between consensus and ambiguity is examined as is how'this represents tensions between the core and periphery of the Spanish state and within the European Community. It is in the three major, non-Castilian territorial identities/cultures that the greatest activity in language planning efforts is taking place. Catalonia is the most a...

La Guerra De La Independencia Estudios Vol 1 2001 Isbn 84 7820 618 3 Pags 73 104, 2001

* Names of individuals are listed who are professionals involved part-time or full time in different parts of the program.

Catalan Review, 2006

Previous attempts to understand the usage of the terms Catalan, Provençal, Occitan, and Limousin and the languages these designations represent have fallen short of any real analysis. Most scholars to date have either presented historical data without linguistic explication or have attempted to use the data to argue for particular political views on the question of Catalan and its many names. The present srudy of the names used for Catalan in different regions and at different times helps us understand the relationship of diglossia that existed between the Occitan and Catalan languages for about two hundred years and bears witness to the emergence of linguistic consciousness in Catalonia and in Valencia from the early Middle Ages to the Nineteenth Century. It is common knowledge among scholars of Catalan that the language came to be known as llemosí and that this designation is frequent in the literature of the nineteenth and ear1y twentieth centuries. It is less evident, however, exactly how and when Limousin, a dialect of the Occitan language in southern France, came to be associated with Catalan, except that the troubadour poets are somehow to blame. The present study provides textual evidence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries to illustrate the evolution of the term llemosí as a linguistic designation.

Estudis. Revista de Historia Moderna, n.º 40 (2014), pp. 191-212, 2014

La documentación del siglo XVI abunda en noticias sobre la existencia de bandoleros en Aragón, y algunos testimonios coetáneos consideraron que la legislación regnícola hacía de este territorio un espacio apetecible para los forajidos, pues facilitaba su impunidad. Esta imagen reforzó la «interpretación aristocrática» de los fueros aragoneses, compartida por muchos autores que en los siglos XIX y XX valoraron el régimen que sustentaban como un sistema arcaico, cuya existencia solo interesaba a los grupos privilegiados, que gracias a él fueron capaces de frenar los intentos de los reyes de modernizar el cuerpo político de la Monarquía Hispánica. Partiendo de la crítica de esta idea, el presente artículo ofrece una aproximación al bandolerismo aragonés considerando su existencia en un contexto más amplio, pues en realidad se trata de un fenómeno que conoció un gran auge en el ámbito mediterráneo durante la decimosexta centuria. Así, se tienen en cuenta las aportaciones de la historiografía precedente, de las que se da sucinta noticia, y se recurre a estudios recientes que han reflexionado sobre la extensión y la naturaleza del bandolerismo, así como sobre el interés que a veces podía reportar a la Corona. No en vano, se ha llamado la atención sobre la frecuencia con que los monarcas tomaron bandoleros a su servicio, especialmente en misiones militares y de espionaje, y también se ha sugerido que en ocasiones los bandos fueron asumidos por la corte como mecanismos suplementarios para resolver conflictos políticos y sociales al margen de la jurisdicción regia. En este sentido, identificar Aragón como «tierra de bandoleros» no supone subrayar la excepcionalidad de este reino, sino más bien resaltar sus semejanzas con muchos otros territorios de la cuenca mediterránea que conocieron este tipo de delincuencia. Sixteenth-century documentation contains a large number of news about the existence of brigands in Aragon, and some contemporary evidences considere that the legal system of the kingdom made it specially attractive for the outlaws, because it rendered them unpunished. This picture strengthened the «aristocratic interpretation» of the Aragonese Fueros, shared by many authors in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, according to which the regime which these Fueros sustained was an archaic system, whose existence only was beneficial for the privileged groups, because it provided them with a tool to stop the kings’ attempts to modernize the political body of the Hispanic Monarchy. Taking the criticism of this idea as a starting point, the present paper tries an approach to Aragonese brigandage, considering its existence in a broader context, because this phenomenon actually experienced a great growth in the Mediterranean space during the sixteenth century. Thus, we take into account the contributions by previous historiography, which are succinctly reviewed, and we resort to some recent studies that have reflected about the spreading and the nature of brigandage, and about the benefits which this could occasionally entail for the Crown. In fact, attention has been paid to the frequency with which the kings took brigands at their service, most of all in military and spying missions, and it has been also suggested that sometimes the court assumed factions like supplementary tools to resolve political and social conflicts outside regal jurisdiction. To this effect, considering Aragon as a «Brigands’ Land» does not imply to underline the exceptionality of this kingdom, but rather to emphasize its resemblances to many other territories of the Mediterranean basin that suffered this kind of delinquency.