Catalan, Valencian, Balearic. Independent languages, a single language and its dialects? But of course, what would be the dialects and what would be the language? Although, of course, what is a dialect? Or, rather, what is a language? Hello, good afternoon. Yesterday I got up and thought about making a video on a quiet topic: are Catalan and Valencian the same language? And then I said to myself “why not?” I feel like receiving some hateful comments and losing some subscribers… because yes, Catalan-Valencian-Balearic is the same language. [Dorotea] Mmm. I don't agree. [Dorotea] Valencian has its own literature, it has different words and grammar [Dorotea] and Pompeu Fabra already said that Valencian was totally independent from Catalan. [Dorotea] What's more, he invented Catalan. Let's see, I want to make it very clear that this The video will be developed in the most objective way possible. And before going into these arguments that you have said, some things must be made clear, such as what a language is and where Catalan, Valencian and Balearic come from. [Dorotea ] Well then, what is a language? Well, much to my regret, there is no fixed definition. To get closer to what what we call language really is, we must first unlearn everything we think language is. to eliminate the idea that a language is something independent of other languages and that it is an invariable block. Nothing of that. Languages can be very related to each other, they can form dialect continuums in which it is very difficult to differentiate where one begins and where another ends, and, as if that were not enough, there are many varieties within the same language, some with grammatical characteristics, phonetic and lexical very different from others. [Dorotea] Let's see, what is a dialect continuum? Let's see, normally it is very rare that there is a border between two languages and that we go from white to black. There are usually gray. Look at this invented map. Here we have four languages. Normally, the first has things in common with the second, the second with the third, the third with the fourth, but the first will have fewer things in common with the third and much less with the fourth. This is a dialect continuum. It is also true that the most normal thing is that this happens between languages that are from the same family and, even so, it may not always happen (because time, politics and languages can die or move geographically and change the initial situation). But hey, there are some varieties that are difficult for other people to understand within what is considered the same language, and then there are different languages that are very easy to understand for people from another linguistic system, such as Italian and Spanish. For this reason, it is sometimes preferred to study linguistic phenomena and group them into diasystems, systems or other classifications. [Dorothea] Huh? Do you want to know what a language is? [Dorotea] No… I want to know what a system and a diasystem are… No, you first want to know what a language is. [Dorotea] I already know what a language is... Well, the first thing you have to do is unlearn everything you think a language is (you and all the people watching this). What is a language for you? [Dorotea] Well, what the RAE says, [Dorotea] a verbal communication system typical of a human community [Dorotea] and that generally has writing. Well, we must clarify that the RAE dictionary gives us, mainly, the meanings that the majority of the community of speakers gives to things. In other words, for technical issues, they may be a bit short. This definition seems to coincide quite a bit with what most of us think of as language. However, buts could be put to the two great affirmations of this definition: that is, that it is a communication system and that it is written. [Dorotea] Why? Well, because there are many linguists who defend that the main objective of language was not communication between individuals, although it obviously has its value and was developed, in part, as such. If you think about it, the main use that humans make of language is not to speak, but to think. And, on the other hand, what about the languages that are not written? It seems to leave languages that do not have writing in the background or in a lower rank, when there is really no linguistic argument for this to be the case. Writing is not part of the language, in fact, all the languages in the world are spoken before they are written and they are already languages before they have writing. [Dorotea] Well, but it also tells us that [Dorotea] is a linguistic system considered in its structure. Well, this is much more technical, but I also find it much more accurate. It is a system (you already have here what you asked me before ;)), that is, a whole that works and that can be divided into parts that each have their function, and that is structured, that is, that is conformed, which have some parts that occupy their corresponding and functional place within that whole. The word "linguistic" makes it relate to the materialization of language capacity. We are going to stay with this last definition, although the subject of what a language is exciting, but it is also true that it is super large and lately the subject of the length of the videos is getting a little out of hand and I can already see that this it will be very long too... But, for example, depending on the point of view, some of the reasons for a language to be considered a language may be its number of speakers, its literature, political will, legality, social awareness ... but all these concepts are social and often escape empirical analysis, that is, linguistics as a science, and are based on the will, on taste, on appetite... So, we are going to reason everything in scientific, that is, linguistic, form. [Dorotea] Pfff, to me all this seems very impractical, really... Well, you're partially right. The concept of language is deeply rooted in society and we all have an idea of what it is, therefore, it is practical to use the word "language", and, as it is practical, it is also used in the most technical and academics. Each author gives his own definition of language. For example, José Luis Mendívil Giró, professor of General Linguistics at the University of Zaragoza, believes that each person has their own particular use of the language, therefore, there are as many languages as there are people. And what is popularly called language, are abstract groupings of those individual languages. [Dorotea] So, the speeches of Valencia, Catalonia and the Balearic Islands are a dialect system? Exact. Because the grammatical and lexical distance is not greater than what we can find between the internal varieties of other languages and because the general operation of this system is, with nuances, the same in all three places. Does this mean that what the Catalans, Valencians and Balearic people speak is the same? Obviously not. There is controversy over the name, so, for a few decades, linguists have been using the Catalan-Valencian name. Some even say Catalan-Valencian-Balearic. Needless to say, languages have nothing in themselves that makes one name "better" than another. Just as a stone would remain the same thing if we call it stone or if we call it cuchuflucu. [Dorotea] Man, I think that “cuchuflucu” has a lot more flow than “piedra”, [Dorotea] I'm telling you too… Well, the language would be the same calling it Catalan, Lenvantino or Ventolero. We put the names on them for extra-linguistic reasons. Calling it Catalan, Valencian, Balearic or Limousin (as it was also called for a long time) or in any other way changes nothing. If we call Spanish or Castilian the same language, it does not change. And if tomorrow we decide that Spanish is going to be called Atlantic, it will continue to be the same language. In fact, language names change over time, they are not fixed, and nothing happens. By tradition, in Valencia they call their language Valencian, in Catalonia, Catalan and in the Balearic Islands, Majorcan, Minorcan... but the political and linguistic borders do not coincide. We call Catalan-Valencian-Balearic the linguistic system that goes from the Pyrenees Mountain Range to the autonomous community of Murcia (Carxe region), in addition, it is spoken on the northern slope of this mountain range, in France, it is the official language of Andorra (the only one) and it is also the official language of the Italian city of Alghero, in Sardinia, a survivor of the Aragonese expansion in the Mediterranean during the Middle Ages. And it is also spoken in the eastern fringe of Aragon. With how big this region is, it is normal and understandable that there are many local varieties and speeches, if we think about it, as in any other language. But, as I said before, linguistic and dialect borders do not have to coincide with political ones, and as you can see on this map, a Catalan from the south of Tarragona will speak more similarly to one from Castellón than one from Barcelona. [Dorotea] But give some examples, that is, [Dorotea] what are the differences between the east and the west? Well, there are many… But an important difference is the pronunciation of the unstressed [e] (that is, those [e] in which the stressed syllable does not fall, regardless of whether we have an accent mark or not). For example, in the word Enric, the stressed syllable is “ric”, it is the one with the force, so the initial “e” is unstressed. So that name, well, in general, those unstressed [e], in Western Catalan they remain more or less like the [e] in Castilian [en.'rik]. However, in the eastern zone, they are pronounced neutral or directly open (as I have pronounced them, because you already know that I have a C2 in Catalan and my accent is that of Barcelona): /ən 'ři k/. [Subsection: This is explained in a very simple and imprecise way for it to be understood. And I don't have a C2 in Catalan, okay? That's a joke that no one is understanding...] [Dorotea] But let's see, the Catalan-Valencian-Balearic language of Valencia and the Balearic Islands [Dorotea] is very different from that of Catalonia... It depends, but yes, of course. In areas of Valencia (in the southern part of the autonomous community) the <v> is pronounced as a sound labiodental <v> and this is something unique in the Iberian Peninsula (well, except in Portuguese because, of course, I said peninsula Iberian). Another interesting feature of Valencian, specifically the one from the central area of Valencia, is that it has the famous phenomenon called “apitxat”. [Dorothea] Huh? That is, they pronounce this as the Spanish sound of <ch>, which in Valencian-Catalan is written with tx or ig. And, on the other hand, in the Balearic Islands, the "article salat" is used, that is, the articles are quite different: sa-es-ses In addition, Valencian has a verbal conjugation in which many endings are different from those of Catalan. And also in the Balearic Islands they have many peculiarities with the verbal system. But it is that not even within Catalonia or within Valencia all say the conjugations the same (although it is written the same in each autonomous community on its own). [Dorotea] Do you mean that people use it as they have heard it at home, [Dorotea] but then when a Valencian studies it, [Dorotea] the same thing is studied throughout the Valencian community [Dorotea] and with Catalan the same thing happens, but in Catalonia? That is, no matter how you say it, you are going to write it in the standard you have learned: Catalan, Valencian or Balearic. Furthermore, Valencian has three forms of demonstrative adjectives, and Catalan has two: Este, eixe, esel aquest, esel These are few differences and we have seen them very briefly, we could talk much more about the ones we have just seen and we could name so many others, especially on the phonetic level. But what interests us here is to see that there are many differences, right? There are lexical, morphological, syntactic and phonological differences. So now many people will think that this is enough for them to be two different languages and we would go back into subjective questions, but entering this game, I am going to ask you a question: do you think that these differences are greater than those that exist between a Spanish-speaker from Madrid and one from Buenos Aires? The variables, the phonetic, lexical and grammatical distance that separates the varieties from Valencia and Catalonia are not enough, from a linguistic point of view, to consider that they are different systems and structures. If you see a classification made by a linguist or a philologist, you will rarely see that they come separately. [Dorotea] Okay, but, let's see. Historically speaking, [Dorotea] wasn't she born in one place, was a language formed and dialects came out of it? Mmmmm… No. The Catalan language was born in an area that goes from the Pyrenees to the current city of Barcelona, more or less. In other words, what is known as Old Catalonia. From there it spread to the north, overcoming the Pyrenees mountain range, and to the south. In the 12th century, the queen of Aragon married the count of Barcelona and thus began a dynastic union known historiographically as the Crown of Aragon. And well, broadly speaking, let's say that Jaime I the Conqueror (Jaume Primer el Conqueridor) throughout the 13th century conquered almost all of Valencia and almost all of the Balearic Islands. The only thing missing, more or less, was the current province of Alicante, which at the end of the same century would be conquered by its descendants. Until the 13th century, most documents of the Crown of Aragon were written in Latin, which was the predominant language in the texts, but we also find documents in Catalan and Aragonese. From then on (S. XIII) began to write more in Catalan until Castilian began to be the language of culture and the upper classes in the fifteenth century. Traditionally it was thought that the areas of Valencia that are currently Catalan-speaking were repopulated by Catalans, and those that are not, by Aragonese. But the truth is that things do not seem so simple. In the repopulation processes of the so-called Reconquest, either in Aragon or in Castile, both vassals of the conquering kings and people from other kingdoms participated. French, Portuguese, Flemish, Italian, German and even Slavs participated in the battles and in the repopulation of the newly conquered areas. When Jaime I conquered the kingdom of Valencia, in a first wave not only Aragonese peasants were distributed throughout Valencia, but also lords. Of course, it seems that in the following migratory waves the arrivals of Aragonese began to be scarce and, now, they settled mainly in the interior. [Dorotea] Well, I think you've already generated enough 'hype'… Let's see, what are the arguments that defend that Valencian and Catalan are NOT the same language? [Dorotea] Valencians have their own literature. What is own literature? Federico García Lorca can be considered Spanish literature, why not Andalusian? Is Borges Spanish literature? I think that here a great confusion is created between the language in which the literature is written and the original state of the author. Borges is literature in Spanish, but he was Argentine. Tirant lo Blanch is a work written by a Valencian, but that does not prevent it from being written in the same language as in the neighboring territory. But hey, it is also that the production or not of literature has nothing to do with the consideration or not of language, we are talking about linguistics, not art. So next. [Dorotea] Well… [Dorotea] but Valencian was already spoken in Valencia when the settlers arrived. No, and there is no document that proves it. What was spoken was Arabic and some Christians, some form of Mozarabic or Andalusian romance. Next. [Dorotea] But, Valencian has different words and grammar Let's go to Cádiz. In Puerto Real, a few kilometers away, they already have different words for certain things. The Andalusian speeches have grammatical differences with the speeches of the north of Spain, the speeches of the Río de la Plata, with those of the mountains in Ecuador... It is normal that there are grammatical differences within the same system. In fact, the grammatical differences occur within Valencia itself, within Catalonia itself, and there are phenomena that parts of Catalonia have in common with parts of Valencia and not with other parts of Catalonia, and vice versa. Following. [Dorotea] Pompeu Fabra invented Catalan [Dorotea] and, moreover, said that Valencian was a totally different thing. Yes, Pompeu Fabra set the standard for Catalan (nothing was invented, there was already a lot written in Catalan before he was born), but come on, I guess nobody thinks that he really invented something, like the RAE "invented" Spanish . Yes, Pompeu Fabra eliminated some elements that he considered vulgar or popular from the Catalan standard, just as the RAE has done. Yes, Pompeu Fabra wanted to eliminate all possible Castilianisms from the Catalan standard. Just as the RAE has done and continues to do with the standard foreign influence of Spanish. You just have to remember wonders like whiskey, cederrón or yins. Pompeu Fabra did what any standardization process does for any language. He also said that Valencian was something else, it's true, and it was an unwise statement. As we can see in the dialectal map of the Catalan-Valencian speeches, the dialectal borders do not coincide with the political border of Catalonia and Valencia. A person from the south of Tarragona speaks more like a person from Castellón than a person from Barcelona. So, Pompeu Fabra's phrase is neither technical nor exact. (Come on, it was a shit). [Dorotea] Well, okay, those are arguments from people in general, [Dorotea] but one of the biggest defenders that the Valencian was not Catalan [Dorotea] was Vicent Giner Boira, lawyer and writer. [Dorotea] He said that Valencian could not come from Catalan [Dorotea] basically because the Catalan language did not exist before 1238, [Dorotea] that is, when the city of Valencia was conquered. Well, let's start by clarifying that this man belonged to a political party that defends that Valencian is a separate language from Catalan (because the motives of these people are almost always political and social, so their linguistic comments are pseudo-arguments). In 1238 Catalan existed. Of course it existed. As we have already mentioned in other videos, the Romance languages are considered to have been born between the 7th and 9th centuries. The first words in Catalan that have come down to us are from the middle of the 11th century, the names of some trees, and we have larger texts prior to 1238, such as the Homilies d'Organyà, a fragment of the translated Forum iudicum. Therefore, to say that Catalan did not arrive in Valencia because it did not exist is simply a lie. [Dorotea] Well, but the settlers of Valencia were not Catalan, [Dorotea] so they couldn't speak Catalan. Here it begins by stating that Lérida and Tortosa were from Aragón, not Catalonia, in 1238. Ramón Berenguer IV, Count of Barcelona and Prince of Aragón, conquered both cities and founded the Marquis of Lérida. The Marquisate of Lleida was not part of the Kingdom of Aragon or Catalonia, which did not yet exist politically (they were a series of vassal territories of the Count of Barcelona. The term Catalonia did exist, but did not yet have political value). It was a territory that depended on the monarch of the Crown of Aragon, as we would say now. But it is that in reality all this does not matter, because it does not matter if the settlers were Aragonese, Catalan or Brazilian, the important thing is the language they spoke. If today the moon were populated with Spaniards, not only would Spanish be spoken on the moon, Galician, Basque, Valencian-Catalan, among other languages, would be spoken. Therefore, to say that they were not Catalan does not mean that they were not Catalan speakers. In fact, many of them were. In the arguments of this lawyer, double meanings and information gaps are played many times to justify arguments and positions that have no basis or value. The discussion about whether or not two languages are the same language has many connotations and, most of the time, it moves away from the linguistic spectrum to be an eminently social or political issue. But, let's see, the problem between Catalan and Valencian is not something extraordinary, the same thing happens with Portuguese and Galician, Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian, with some Low German languages and Dutch, with Dalecarlian and Swedish and with many other speeches and languages from all over the planet. Behind a language there are many ideological, political and economic interests. For this reason, many times the most intelligent position from linguistics is to let others fight their foreign wars that have a very specific objective and far from serious and empirical knowledge and study the phenomenon without making noise. An example of this is probably all the negative comments that this video is going to have. One of the best definitions of what a language is is attributed to the linguist Max Weinreich: A language is a dialect with an army and a navy.