Valencian - Valencian Subdialects

Valencian Subdialects

  • Transitional Valencian (valencià de transició or tortosí): spoken only in the northernmost areas of the province of Castellón in towns like Benicarló or Vinaròs, the area of Matarranya in Aragon (province of Teruel), and a southern border area of Catalonia surrounding Tortosa, in the province of Tarragona.
    • Word-initial and postconsonantal /dʒ/ (Catalan /ʒ/ and /dʒ/~/ʒ/) alternates with intervocalically; e.g. joc 'game', but pitjor 'worse', boja 'crazy' (Standard Valencian /ˈdʒɔk/, /piˈdʒoɾ/; /ˈbɔdʒa/; Standard Catalan /ˈʒɔk/, /piˈdʒo/ and /ˈbɔʒə/).
    • Final ⟨r⟩ isn't pronounced in infinitives; e.g. cantar (instead of /kanˈtaɾ/) 'to sing'.
    • Archaic articles lo, los ('the') are used instead of el, els; e.g. lo xic 'the boy', los hòmens 'the men'.
  • Northern Valencian (valencià septentrional or castellonenc): spoken in an area surrounding the city of Castellón de la Plana.
    • Use of sound instead of standard ⟨a⟩ /a/ in the third person singular of most verbs; e.g. (ell) cantava (instead of /kanˈtava/) 'he sang'. Thus, Northern Valencian dialects contrast forms like (jo) cantava 'I sang' with (ell) cantava 'he sang', but merges (jo) cante 'I sing' with (ell) canta 'he sings'.
    • Palatalization of ⟨ts⟩ /ts/ → and ⟨tz⟩ /dz/ → ; e.g. pots /ˈpots/ → 'cans, jars, you can', dotze /ˈdodze/ → 'twelve'.
    • Depalatalization of /ʃ/ to ; e.g. caixa → 'box'.
  • Central Valencian (valencià central or apitxat), spoken in Valencia city and its area, but not used as standard by the Valencian media.
    • Sibilant merger: all voiced sibilants get unvoiced (/dʒ/ →, /dz/ →, /z/ → ); that is, apitxat pronounces casa ('house') and joc ('game'), where other Valencians would pronounce /ˈkaza/ and /ˈdʒɔk/ (feature shared with Ribagorçan).
    • Betacism, that is the merge of /v/ into /b/; e.g. viu (instead of /ˈviw/) 'he lives'.
    • It preserves the strong simple past, which has been substituted by an analytic past (periphrastic past) with vadere + infinitive in the rest of modern Catalan and Valencian variants. For example, aní instead of vaig anar 'I went'.
  • Southern Valencian (valencià meridional): spoken in the contiguous comarques located in the southernmost part of the Valencia province and the northernmost part in the province of Alicante. This subdialect is considered as Standard Valencian.
    • Vowel harmony: the final syllable of a disyllabic word adopts a preceding open ⟨e⟩ or ⟨o⟩ if the final vowel is an unstressed -⟨a⟩ or -⟨e⟩; e.g. terra ('earth, land'), dona ('woman').
    • This subdialect retain geminate consonants (⟨tl⟩ /lː/ and ⟨tn⟩ /nː/); e.g. guatla 'quail', cotna 'rind'.
    • Weak pronouns are "reinforced" in front of the verb (em, en, et, es, etc.) contrary to other subdialects which maintains "full form" (me, ne, te, se, etc.).
  • Alicante Valencian (valencià alacantí): spoken in the southern half of the province of Alicante, and the area of Carche in Murcia.
    • Intervocalic /d/ elision in all instances; e.g. roda 'wheel', nadal 'Christmas'.
    • Yod is not pronounced in ⟨ix⟩ /jʃ/ → ; e.g. caixa 'box'.
    • Final ⟨r⟩ isn't pronounced in infinitives; e.g. cantar 'to sing'.
    • There are some archaisms like: ans instead of abans 'before', manco instead of menys 'less', dintre instead of dins 'into' or devers instead of cap a 'towards'.
    • There are more interferences with Spanish than other dialects: assul (from azul) instead of blau (or atzur) 'blue', llimpiar (from limpiar) instead of netejar 'to clean' or sacar (from sacar) instead of traure 'take out'.

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