Valencian language

Official status

The official status of Valencian is regulated by the Spanish Constitution and the Valencian Statute of Autonomy, together with the Law on the Use and Teaching of Valencian (ca).

Article 6 of the Valencian Statute of Autonomy sets the legal status of Valencian, establishing that:

• The native language of the Valencian Community is Valencian.
• Valencian is the official language in the Valencian Community, along with Spanish, which is the official language of Spain. Everyone shall have the right to know and use them, and to receive education on Valencian and in Valencian.
• No one can be discriminated against by reason of their language.
• Special protection and respect shall be given to the recuperation of Valencian.
• The Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua shall be the normative institution of the Valencian language.

Passed in 1983, the Law on the Use and Teaching of Valencian develops this framework, providing for the implementation of a bilingual educational system, regulating the use of Valencian in the public administration and judiciary system, where citizens can freely use it when acting before both, or establishing the right to be informed by media in Valencian among others.

Valencian is also protected under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, ratified by Spain. However, the Committee of Experts of the Charter has pointed out a considerable number of deficiencies in the application of the Charter by the Spanish and Valencian governments.

Distribution and usage

Distribution

Unlike in other bilingual autonomous communities, Valencian has not historically been spoken to the same extent throughout the Valencian Community. Slightly more than a quarter of its territory, equivalent to 10-15% of the population (its inland and southernmost areas), is Spanish-speaking since the Middle Ages. Additionally, it is also spoken by a small number of people in the Carche comarca, a rural area in the Region of Murcia adjoining the Valencian Community. Nevertheless, Valencian does not have any official recognition in this area. Nowadays about 600 people are able to speak Valencian in Carche.

The Valencian language is traditionally spoken along the coast and in some inland areas in the provinces of Alicante and Castellon, from Vinaròs (northernmost point of the extension of Valencian on the coast of the Valencian Community) to Guardamar (southernmost point of Valencian). It is spoken by approximately 2 million people (2008).

Knowledge and usage

In 2010 the Generalitat Valenciana, or Valencian government, published a study, Coneixement i ús social del valencià (Knowledge and Social Use of Valencian), which included a survey sampling more than 6,600 people in the provinces of Castellon, Valencia, and Alicante. The survey simply collected the answers of respondents and did not include any testing or verification. The results were:

• Valencian was the language "always, generally, or most commonly used":
  • at home: 31.6%
  • with friends: 28.0%
  • in internal business relations: 24.7%
• For ability:
  • 48.5% answered they can speak Valencian "perfectly" or "quite well" (54.3% in the Valencian-speaking areas and 10% in the Spanish-speaking areas)
  • 26.2% answered they can write Valencian "perfectly" or "quite well" (29.5% in the Valencian-speaking areas and 5.8% in the Spanish-speaking areas)

The survey shows that, although Valencian is still the common language in many areas in the Valencian Community, where slightly more than half of the Valencian population are able to speak it, most Valencians do not usually use Valencian in their social relations.

Moreover, according to the most recent survey in 2021, there is a downward trend in everyday Valencian users. The lowest numbers are in the major cities of Valencia and Alicante, where the percentage of everyday speakers is at single-digit numbers. However, the percentage of residents who claim to be able to understand and read Valencian seems to have increased since 2015.

Due to a number of political and social factors, including repression, immigration and lack of formal instruction in Valencian, the number of speakers has severely decreased, and the influence of Spanish has led to the appearance of a number of barbarisms.

Features of Valencian

This is a list of features of the main forms of Valencian. There is a great deal of variety within the Valencian Community, and by no means do the features below apply to every local version. For more general information about other linguistic varieties, see Catalan language.

The Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua (AVL) specifies Standard Valencian as having some specific syntax, vocabulary, verb conjugations and accent marks compared to Standard Catalan.

Phonology

Vowels

Notes:

• The stressed vowel system of Valencian is the same as that of Eastern Catalan:
  • , , , , , , and (with and being considerably lower than in Central Catalan).

Close (and close-mid) vowels

• The vowels (pronounced like GA free) and (like GA boot) are more open and centralised than in Spanish.
  • This effect is more pronounced in unstressed syllables, where the phones are best transcribed (e.g., xiquet 'boy').
    • (Due to the proximity of unstressed close and/or close-mid/mid vowels, non-standard colloquial Valencian may feature further lowerings producing vowel alterations or metathesis; e.g., piscina → *pescina 'pool').
• The vowel (pronounced like GA they, but without the final -y sounding) is somewhat retracted and (like RP yawn, but shorter) is somewhat advanced both in stressed and unstressed syllables: metro ('subway/underground', also a colloquial substitution for metre 'meter'). Note this is mostly ignored in most transcriptions.
  • - and -centralisation can be more noticeable in unstressed position ().
  • and can be realised as mid vowels in some cases. This occurs more often with (e.g., amor 'love'). (For simplicity, this is ignored in most transcriptions).

Open vowels

• The so-called "open vowels" (i.e., near-open), and , are generally as low as in most Valencian dialects. The phonetic realisations of approaches (similar to GA lad) and is nearly as open as (as in traditional RP dog). This feature is also found in Balearic. For a list showing the frequency of these vowels, see cases where /ɛ/ and /ɔ/ are found in Valencian.
  • is slightly more open and centralised before liquids (e.g., univers 'universe') and in monosyllabics (set 'seven').
  • is most often a back vowel (soc 'clog', bou 'bull').
    • In some dialects (including Balearic) can be unrounded (, ).
• The vowel is slightly more fronted and closed than in Central Eastern Catalan (but less fronted and closed than in Majorcan). The precise phonetic realisation of the vowel in Valencian is [ ~ ] (sounding similar to nut or father in many English dialects), this vowel is subject to assimilation in many instances.
  • Stressed can be retracted to in contact with velar consonants (including the velarised ): pal ('stick'); and fronted to in contact with palatals: nyap ('botched job').
    • The palatal pronunciation of may merge with by some speakers: raig ('ray').

Vowel reduction

• There are five general unstressed vowels (rare instances of and are found through compounding and vowel harmony). Although unstressed vowels are more stable than in Eastern dialects, there are many cases where they merge (see also, vowel reduction in Valencian):
  • : final unstressed may have the following values: [ ~ ~ ] (phonetically fairly close to , and traditionally transcribed without diacritics and/or atypical characters: for simplicity), depending on the preceding sounds and/or dialect (see "vowel harmony" below).
    • In some regions of the Valencian Community (especially Southern Valencian) unstressed followed by stressed becomes : raïm ('grape'). Beltran i Calvo (2000) states, that final is close to in some towns of Marina Alta: xica ('girl').
  • : unstressed and may be realised as , , , etc. (depending on the following or preceding sounds) in initial position in contact with sibilants, nasals and, sometimes, in some environments before any consonant (e.g., escoltar 'to listen').
    • Similarly (although not recommended by the AVL), unstressed and merges with (phonetically ) in contact with palatal consonants (e.g., genoll 'knee'), and especially (in this case it is accepted) in lexical derivation with the suffix -ixement (e.g., naixement 'birth'). Rarely initial es- can become ; e.g., estiu ('summer'), and it may alternate with the more frequently sequence (and sometimes also ): .
      • In the standard ( ) is only accepted in words with the suffix -ixement.
  • : it is more open and centralised in unstressed position.
  • : unstressed and may be realised as () before labial consonants (e.g., coberts 'covered', 'cutlery'), before a stressed syllable with a high vowel (e.g., sospira 'he/she sighs') and in some given names (e.g., Josep 'Joseph').
    • Note in some colloquial speeches initial unstressed can diphthongise to (phonetically ); e.g., olor ) 'smell (n.)'. This is regarded as non-standard.
  • : it is more open and centralised in unstressed position.

Vowel harmony

• Many Valencian dialects feature some sort of vowel harmony (harmonia vocàlica). This process is normally progressive (i.e., preceding vowels affect those pronounced afterwards) over the last unstressed vowel of a word (note that the unstressed vowels produced by vowel harmony can be centralised: and/or . Diacritics are ignored outside of this section); e.g., tela > 'cloth', 'fabric', hora > 'hour'. However (although regarded as non-standard), there are cases where regressive metaphony occurs over pretonic vowels; e.g., afecta > 'affects', tovallola > 'towel'. For an in-depth explanation of this phenomenon see Valencian vowel harmony.
  • Vowel harmony differs greatly from dialect to dialect, while many varieties assimilate both to the height and the quality of the preceding stressed vowel (e.g., terra 'Earth, land' and dona 'woman'); in other varieties, it is just the height that assimilates, so that terra and dona can be realised with either ( and/or ) or with ( and/or ), depending on the region and speaker.
    • In some subvarieties the unstressed vowels produced by vowel harmony may actually be higher than the stressed ones and/or without a marked centralisation (e.g., porta 'door').
• In a wider sense, vowel assimilations can occur in further instances (that is all or most instances of final unstressed , regardless of the preceding sounds and involving palatalisation and/or velarisation): xica or ('girl'). This is considered non-standard.

Elision and diphthongisation

• In certain cases, unstressed and become silent when followed or preceded by a stressed vowel:
  • Unstressed : quina hora és? or ('what time is it?').
  • Unstressed : este home ('this man').
• Valencian has many diphthongs with and (see also "semivowels"). Diphthongs can be falling (or decreasing), which glide from a higher or more prominent vowel to a lower or less prominent one (e.g., heroi 'hero'); or raising (or ascending), which move from a lower vowel sound to a higher one (e.g., iode 'iodine').
  • Occasionally, and may become syllabic and form diphthongs (synaloepha); e.g., ja hem parlat d'açò ('we already talked about this') and allà on vulgues ('there where you want'). Standard non-syllabic forms with and also diphthongise in colloquial Valencian (e.g., València, standard vs. colloquial 'Valencia').
  • In some accents, vowels occurring at the end of a prosodic unit may be realised as centring diphthongs for special emphasis, so that Eh tu! Vine ací 'Hey you (s.)! Come here!' may be pronounced . The non-syllabic is unrelated to this phenomenon as it is an unstressed non-syllabic allophone of that occurs after vowels, much like in Spanish.

Other sound changes

Vowel nasalisation

• All vowels are phonetically nasalised between nasal consonants or when preceding a syllable-final nasal (e.g., diumenge , colloquial 'Sunday'). Transcription of nasalisation is usually omitted for simplification.

Vowel coalescence and lengthening

• The linguistic phenomenon where two tonic (stressed) vowels or adjacent vowel sounds fuse into a single sound is found in Valencian: què has fet? ('what have you done?') is pronounced .
• Vowels can be lengthened in some contexts (e.g., coordinació 'coordination').

Notes:

Consonants

Nasals

• is bilabial, except before and where it becomes labiodental .
• is apical front alveolar , and laminal denti-alveolar before and .
  • In addition, is postalveolar or alveolo-palatal before , , and ; velar before and ; and labiodental before and , where it merges with . It also merges with (to ) before and .
• is laminal front alveolo-palatal .
• is velar and is only found in the coda.

Obstruents

• Coda obstruents assimilate to the voicing of the following consonant (e.g., anècdota 'anecdote'). In the standard, coda fricatives also assimilate to the voicing of the following vowel: els amics ('the friends'). In regular speech in some dialects (but not in the standard), final plosives may assimilate to the voicing of the following vowel (see "plosives").
  • Voiced obstruents undergo final-obstruent devoicing so that fred ('cold' [m., s.]) is pronounced with (or ) while fredes ('cold' [f., pl.]) is pronounced with . (See also "plosives" and "affricates and fricatives").

Plosives

• and are bilabial.
  • is lenited to the approximant (or fricative) (or ) in betacist dialects, after a continuant; i.e., a vowel or any type of consonant other than a stop or nasal (e.g., cabut 'big head, stubborn' vs. canvi 'change', standard without betacism: and ).
  • Voiced contrast is lost word finally, so cub ('cube') and cup ('winepress') are both pronounced with final (also represented as ).
    • Final may be lenited before a vowel: cap estret or ('narrow head').
    • Final after nasals is preserved in most dialects: camp ('field').
• and are laminal denti-alveolar and . After and , they are laminal alveolar and .
  • is lenited to the approximant (or fricative) (or ), after a continuant; i.e., a vowel or any type of consonant other than a stop or nasal (exceptions include after lateral consonants): fades 'fairies' vs. faldes ('skirts').
    • is often elided between vowels following a stressed syllable (found notably in feminine participles, → or , and in the suffix -dor); e.g., fideuà ( < fideuada) 'fideuà', mocador 'tissue' (note this feature, although widely spread in south Valencia, is not recommended in Standard Valencian, except for reborrowed terms such as Albà, Roà, the previously mentioned fideuà, etc.).
  • Voiced contrast is lost word finally, so sord ('deaf') and sort ('luck') are both pronounced with final (also represented as ).
    • Final may be lenited before a vowel: tot açò ('all this').
    • Final after nasals and laterals is preserved in most dialects: cent ('hundred') and molt ('very').
• and are velar.
  • and are fronted to pre-velar position [, ] before front vowels: qui ('who'). This is not transcribed in broader transcriptions of Valencian.
  • is lenited to the approximant (or fricative) (or ) after a continuant; i.e., a vowel or any type of consonant other than a stop or nasal.
    • In some dialects, may lenite in all environments (e.g., gat ), except after nasal (angoixa 'anguish').
  • Voiced contrast is lost word finally, so reg ('irrigation') and rec ('irrigation ditch') are both pronounced with final (also represented as ).
    • Final may be lenited before a vowel: poc alt ('not very tall').
    • Final after nasals is preserved in most dialects: banc ('bank').

Affricates and fricatives

• and are apical alveolar and . They may be somewhat fronted, so that the stop component is laminal denti-alveolar, while the fricative component is apical post-dental (according to Hualde (1992), and can be retracted: , ). is rare and may not be phonemic.
  • In the standard, intervocalic ; e.g., setze ('sixteen'), and ; e.g., potser ('maybe'), are recommended to be pronounced with a gemination of the stop element ( and , respectively. However this is not transcribed in standard transcriptions.
    • Note is deaffricated to in verbs ending in -itzar and derivatives: analitzar ('to analyse'), organització ('organisation'). Also in words like botzina ('horn'), horitzó ('horizon') and magatzem ('storehouse') (cf. guitza , 'kick' (from an animal)).
• , , (), and are described as back alveolo-palatal, or postalveolar.
  • Valencian has preserved in most of its varieties the mediaeval voiced pre-palatal affricate (similar to the j in English "jeep") in contexts where other modern dialects have developed fricative consonants (like the si in English "vision"); e.g., dijous ('Thursday').
  • Note the fricative (and ) appears only as a voiced allophone of (and ) before vowels and voiced consonants; e.g., peix al forn ('oven fish').
  • Unlike other Catalan dialects, and do not geminate (in most accents): metge ('medic'), and cotxe ('car'). Exceptions may include learned terms like pidgin ('pidgin').
  • Final etymological is devoiced to : lleig ('ugly').
• and are apical back alveolar and , also described as postalveolar ( and ).
  • In some dialects, is pronounced (or , often represented as ⟨ʂ⟩) after . In the standard only is accepted after (in the inchoative form with ), and after : ells ('they'). In the latter case and in some variants the result may be an affricate.
  • Final is devoiced to (also represented as ): brunz ('he/she buzzes').
• and are labiodental.
  • occurs in Balearic, Algherese, Standard Valencian (including Northern and Southern Valencian) and some areas in southern Catalonia (e.g., viu , 'he/she lives'). It has merged with elsewhere.
    • is realised as an approximant after continuants: avanç ('advance'). This is not transcribed in this article.
    • Final is devoiced to (also represented as ): salv ('save, except').

Liquids (rhotics and laterals)

• is apical front alveolar , and laminal denti-alveolar (or velarised ) before and . (In addition, is postalveolar or alveolo-palatal before , , and ).
  • is normally velarised (), especially in the coda, before nasals or a stressed vowel.
    • is generally dropped in the word altre ('other'), as well as in derived terms.
• is laminal front alveolo-palatal .
• is apical front alveolar and is apical back alveolar , also described as postalveolar ().
  • Between vowels, the two rhotics contrast (e.g., mira 'he/she looks' vs. mirra 'myrrh'), but they are otherwise in complementary distribution. appears in the onset, except in word-initial position (ruc 'donkey'), after , , and (folre 'lining', honra 'honour', and Israel 'Israel'), and in compounds (infraroig 'infrared'), where is used.
  • is a possible variant of the tap in all post-vocalic contexts in Valencian: encara ('yet, still'). can often be elided (e.g., → ).
  • (usually devoiced ) is mostly retained in the coda (e.g., anar , 'to go'), except for some cases where it can be dropped: prendre ('to take'), arbre ('tree'), and diners ('money').
    • In some dialects can be further dropped in combinatory forms with infinitives and pronouns (anar-me'n 'to go away, leave').
    • In other dialects, further instances of final (like nouns and/or infinitives, regardless of combinatory forms with pronouns) are lost: anar ('to go').

Semivowels

• The vowels and have as non-vocalic correlates the semivowels and , respectively, which form a diphthong with the preceding or following vowel (e.g., hiena 'hyena', feia 'I or he/she was doing', meua 'mine', pasqua 'Easter').
  • According Wheeler (2005), the sequences or are regarded as labiovelar phonemes and .

Notes:

Clusters

Clusters may consist of a consonant plus a semivowel (C, C) or an obstruent plus a liquid.

• Word-initial clusters from Graeco-Latin learned words tend to drop the first phoneme: gnom ('gnome'), mnemotècnia ('mnemotechnical'), pneumàtic ('pneumatic'), pseudònim ('pseudonym'), pterodàctil ('pterodactylus'), etc.
• Word-medial codas are restricted to one consonant + (e.g., extra ('extra').
• In the coda position, voice contrasts among obstruents are neutralised (see "obstruents" above)..
  • The pronunciation of final , , (e.g., camp 'field', punt 'point' and banc 'bank') is usually retained in the standard and most Valencian dialects, this includes plural forms (+ ): camps , punts and bancs . Medial ⟨mp⟩ before consonant merges with ; e.g., compte ('account') and comte ('count') are pronounced as .
  • Other clusters include (Calp 'Calp'), (alt 'high', 'tall'), (talc 'talc'); (serp 'snake'), (cert 'true', 'certain'), (marc 'frame'); and (cresp 'curly'), (casc 'helmet', (gust 'taste').
    • The final clusters sc (), st (), xt () add -os to form plural (grammatical number) in the standard: cascos ('helmets'), gustos ('tastes'), and textos ('texts'). In some varieties the form without -o- is more frequently found (thus; cascs, gusts, and texts).

Metathesis

• In some places, some terms can undergo sound changes (such as metathesis), like cridar → *crid(r)ar or quid(r)ar ('to call'). This is heard frequently in the term aigua (standard) → àuia (colloquial) ('water').

Morphology

• In gender inflection, the most notable feature is (compared to Portuguese, Spanish or Italian), the loss of the typical masculine suffix -o. Thus, the alternance of -o/-a, has been replaced by ø/-a (like the rest of Catalan varieties). There are only a few exceptions, such as nano/nana ('buddy, kiddo', 'dwarf'). Many not completely predictable morphological alternations may occur, such as:
  • Affrication: boig/boja ('insane') and lleig/lletja ('ugly') - Unlike Standard Catalan, Valencian does not contrast certain fricatives with affricates (i.e., there is a tendency to favour affricates, although there are exceptions).
  • Loss of final nasals: pla/plana ('flat') vs. segon/segona ('second').
  • Final obstruent devoicing: sentit/sentida ('felt') vs. dit/dita ('said').

Valencian has few suppletive couplets, like Italian and Spanish, and unlike French. Thus, Valencian has xic/xica ('boy'/'girl') and gall/gallina ('cock'/'hen'), whereas French has garçon/fille and coq/poule.

There is a tendency to abandon traditionally gender-invariable adjectives in favour of marked ones, something prevalent in Occitan and French. Thus, one can find bullent/bullenta ('boiling') in contrast with traditional bullent (for both masculine and feminine).

As in the other Western Romance languages, the main plural expression is the suffix -s, which may create morphological alternations similar to the ones found in gender inflection, albeit more rarely. The most important one is the addition of -o- before certain sibilants and consonant groups (e.g., after -ç: feliç/feliços 'happy'/'happies'; after -s: mes/mesos 'month'/'months', gos/gossos 'dog'/'dogs'; after -x: reflex/reflexos 'reflex'/'reflexes'; after -ig: roig/rojos 'red'/'reds', desig/desitjos 'wish'/'wishes'; after -ix: baix/baixos 'short'/'shorts'; after -tx: despatx/despatxos 'office'/'offices'; after -sc: disc/discos 'disc'/'discs'; after -st: cost/costos 'expenditure'/'expenditures'; and -xt: pretext/pretextos 'pretext'/'pretexts'), a phonetic phenomenon that does not affect feminine forms: el pols/els polsos ('the pulse'/'the pulses', both m. in Valencian) vs. la pols/les pols ('the dust'/'the dusts', both f. in Valencian).

• Note words ending in -o, such as nano ('buddy, kiddo', 'dwarf'), ferro ('iron'), puesto ('place' - instead of lloc, also 'place'), etc., are confined to recent loanwords and interferences, especially from Spanish.

• The present first-person singular of verbs (in indicative) differs from Central Catalan. All those forms without final -o are more akin to mediaeval Catalan and contemporary Balearic Catalan.

Notes:

• Present subjunctive is more akin to medieval Catalan and Spanish; -ar infinitives end ⟨e⟩, -re, -er and -ir verbs end in ⟨a⟩ (e.g., parle 'I speak', from parlar 'to speak'; bata 'I beat', from batre 'to beat'; tema 'I fear', from témer 'to fear'; and senta 'I feel', from sentir 'to feel' - inchoative -ir becomes patisca). In contemporary Central Catalan present subjunctive ends in ⟨i⟩ (e.g., parli 'I speak', bati 'I beat', temi 'I fear', and senti 'I feel' - inchoative form pateixi).
• An exclusive feature of Valencian is the subjunctive imperfect morpheme with -r- (-ra, -res, -ra, -rem, -reu, -ren): que ell vinguera ('that he might come'), instead of the forms with -s and -ss- from Catalonia and the Balearic Islands (e.g., que ell vingués).
• Valencian has -i- as theme vowel for inchoative verbs of the third conjugation; e.g., patisc ('I suffer'), patixes ('you suffer'), patix ('he/she suffers'), like North-Western Catalan. Although, again, this cannot be generalised since there are Valencian dialects that utilise -ei-; e.g., pateixes ('you suffer') and pateix ('he/she suffers').
• In Valencian the simple past tense (e.g., cantà 'he sang'), used mainly around the city of Valencia and its metropolitan area, is more frequently used in speech than in Central Catalan, where the periphrastic past (e.g., va cantar 'he sang') is prevailing and the simple past mostly appears in written language. The same, however, may be said of the Balearic dialects.
• The second-person singular of the present tense of the verb ser ('to be'), ets ('you [s.] are'), has been replaced by eres in colloquial speech.
• The infinitive veure ('to see') has the variant vore, which belongs to more informal and spontaneous registers.
• The usage of the periphrasis of obligation tindre + que + infinitive is widely spread in colloquial Valencian, instead of the standard haver + de (equivalent to English "have to").
• In colloquial speech the first person [singular] of the verb haver 'to have' (he), found mainly in the present perfect tense (haver + past participle), has merged with the third person [singular] (ha). Thus, m'he comprat uns calcetins ('I have bought some socks') becomes m'ha comprat uns calcetins.
• Some speakers confuse the verb posar with ficar. In Standard Valencian, posar is equivalent to the Spanish poner ('to place one object on top of another'), while ficar is equivalent to the Spanish meter ('to place one object inside another'). The synonym coŀlocar ('to put, place') is also found in Valencian.
• The verb estar ('to be') is commonly substituted by ficar or clavar in expressions like, on t'has ficat? and a on et claves? ('where are you?').

Clitics

• In general, use of modern forms of the determinate article (el, els 'the') and the third-person unstressed object pronouns (el, els 'him, them'), though some dialects (for instance the one spoken in Vinaròs area) preserve etymological forms lo, los as in Lleida. For the other unstressed object pronouns, etymological old forms (me, te, se, ne, mos, vos...) can be found, depending on places, in conjunction with the more modern reinforced ones (em, et, es, en, ens, us...).
  • Several local variations for nosaltres ('we'), vosaltres ('you [pl.]'): mosatros, moatros, matros, etc. and vosatros, voatros, vatros, etc.; also for the weak form mos/-mos instead of standard ens/'ns/-nos ('us') and vos/-vos instead of us/-vos ('you [pl.]'), the latter (vos, instead of us) is considered standard.
• The adverbial pronoun hi ('there') is almost never used in speech and is replaced by other pronouns. The adverbial pronoun en ('him/her/them/it') is used less than in Catalonia and the Balearic Islands.
• Combined weak clitics with li ('him/her/it') preserve the li, whereas in Central Catalan it is replaced by hi. For example, the combination li + el gives li'l in Valencian (l'hi in Central Catalan).
• The weak pronoun ho ('it') is pronounced as:
  • , when it forms syllable with a pronoun: m'ho dona , dona-m'ho ('he/she gives it to me')
  • or , when it comes before a verb starting with consonant: ho dona (or ) ('he/she gives it')
  • , when precedes a vowel or when coming after a vowel: li ho dona ('he/she gives it to her/him'), dona-ho ('you [s.] give it')
  • , when it comes after a consonant or a semivowel: donar-ho ('to give it').
• The personal pronoun jo ('I') and the adverb ja ('already') are not pronounced according to the spelling, but to the etymology ( and , instead of (or ) and ). Similar pronunciations can be heard in North-Western Catalan, colloquial Barcelonan and Ibizan.
• The preposition amb ('with') merges with en ('in') in most Valencian dialects.
• The compound preposition per a ('for') is usually reduced to p'a in colloquial Valencian.
• Valencian preserves the mediaeval system of demonstratives with three different levels of demonstrative precision (este or aquest/açò/ací, eixe or aqueix/això/ahí, aquell/allò/allí or allà, where aquest and aqueix are almost never used) (feature shared with modern Ribagorçan and Tortosan).
  • The colloquial variant of açò ('this'), astò, is heard frequently in Alacantí Valencian.

Vocabulary

Valencian vocabulary contains words both restricted to the Valencian-speaking domain, as well as words shared with other Catalan varieties, especially with North-Western ones. Words are rarely spread evenly over the Valencian Community, but are usually contained to parts of it, or spread out into other dialectal areas. Examples include hui 'today' (found in all of Valencia except transitional dialects, in Northern dialects avui) and espill 'mirror' (shared with North-Western dialects, Central Catalan mirall). There is also variation within Valencia, such as 'corn', which is dacsa in Central and Southern Valencian, but panís in Alicante and Northern Valencian (as well as in North-Western Catalan). Since Standard Valencian is based on the Southern dialect, words from this dialect are often used as primary forms in the standard language, despite other words traditionally being used in other Valencian dialects. Examples of this are tomaca 'tomato' (which is tomata outside of Southern Valencian) and matalaf 'mattress' (which is matalap in parts of Valencia, including the Southern Valencian area).

Below are a selection of words which differ or have different forms in Standard Valencian and Catalan. In many cases, both standards include this variation in their respective dictionaries, but differ as to what form is considered primary. In other cases, Valencian includes colloquial forms not present in the IEC standard. Primary forms in each standard are shown in bold (and may be more than one form). Words in brackets are present in the standard in question, but differ in meaning from how the cognate is used in the other standard.

Writing system

Valencian and Catalan use the Latin script, with some added symbols and digraphs. The Catalan-Valencian orthographies are systematic and largely phonologically based. Standardisation of Catalan was among the topics discussed during the First International Congress of the Catalan Language, held in Barcelona October 1906. Subsequently, the Philological Section of the Institut d'Estudis Catalans (IEC), founded in 1911, published the Normes ortogràfiques in 1913 under the direction of Antoni Maria Alcover and Pompeu Fabra. In 1932, Valencian writers and intellectuals gathered in Castelló de la Plana to make a formal adoption of the so-called Normes de Castelló (Castelló Norms), a set of guidelines following Pompeu Fabra's Catalan language norms.

The letters k, y and w only appear in loanwords. In the case of y it also appears in the digraph ny. Most of the letters are pronounced the same in both standards (Valencian and Catalan). The letters c and g have a soft and hard pronunciation similar to English and other Romance languages, ç (found also in Portuguese and French) always has a soft pronunciation and may appear in word final position. The only differences between the main standards are the contrast of b and v (also found in Insular Catalan), the treatment of long consonants with a tendency to simplification in Valencian (see table with main digraphs and letter combinations), the affrication () of both soft g (after front vowels) and j (in most cases), the affrication () of initial and postconsonantal x (except in some cases) and the lenition (deaffrication) of tz in most instances (especially the -itzar suffix and derivations).

Other combinations include:

• Double consonants like ⟨bb⟩ (e.g., subbètic 'Subbaetic') and (hobby 'hobby'); ⟨cc⟩ (acció 'action'); ⟨dd⟩ (adduir 'to offer') and (Eddie 'Eddie'); ⟨ff⟩ (office 'office'); ⟨gg⟩ (suggerir 'to suggest'), (burggravi 'burgrave'), and (ziggurat 'ziggurat'); ⟨ll⟩ (allegro 'allegro') and (ballet 'ballet'); ⟨mm⟩ (immens 'huge') and (Jimmy 'Jimmy'); ⟨nn⟩ (innat 'innate') and (Anne 'Anne'); ⟨pp⟩ (cappare 'main shoot' [botany]) and (hippy 'hippy'); ⟨tt⟩ (posttònic 'posttonic') and (dittografia 'dittography'); ⟨zz⟩ (mezzo 'mezzo'), (pizza 'pizza'), (jacuzzi 'jacuzzi'), and (jazz 'jazz').
• Some consonant groups in syllabic opening like ⟨bd⟩ , ⟨cn⟩ , ⟨ct⟩ , ⟨ft⟩ , ⟨gn⟩ , ⟨mn⟩ , ⟨pn⟩ , ⟨ps⟩ , ⟨pt⟩ or ⟨tm⟩ , found in learned words (e.g., bdeŀli 'bdellium', Cnossos 'Knossos', ctenòfors 'ctenophora', ftàlic 'phthalic', gnòstic 'gnostic', mnemotècnic 'mnemotechnics', pneumònia 'pneumonia', psíquic 'psychic', metempsicosi 'metempsychosis', psalm 'psalm', pterodàctil 'pterodactylus', Ptolemeu 'Ptolemy', tmesi 'tmesis').
• The graphic groups specific to other languages (see also double consonants) present in most non-adapted borrowings and in derivatives of foreign proper names (e.g., apartheid with 'apartheid', au-pair with 'au pair', chardonnay with or 'chardonnay', cognac with 'cognac', Coelho with 'Coelho', Dolzhenko with 'Dolzhenko', edelweiss with 'edelweiss', freelance with 'freelance', jazz with 'jazz', kirsch with 'kirsch', leishmaniosi with 'leishmaniasis, Luisinho with 'Luisinho', mousse with 'mousse', Philip with 'Philip', pizza with 'pizza', playback with 'playback', shakespearià with 'Shakespearean', zoom with 'zoom', etc.).

Notes:

Varieties of Valencian

Standard Valencian

The Valencian Academy of the Language (Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua, AVL), established by law in 1998 by the Valencian autonomous government and constituted in 2001, is in charge of dictating the official rules governing the use of Valencian. Currently, the majority of people who write in Valencian use this standard.

Standard Valencian is based on the standard of the Institute of Catalan Studies (Institut d'Estudis Catalans, IEC), used in Catalonia, with a few adaptations. This standard roughly follows the Norms of Castelló (Normes de Castelló) from 1932, a set of orthographic guidelines regarded as a compromise between the essence and style of Pompeu Fabra's guidelines, but also allowing the use of Valencian idiosyncrasies.

Valencian dialects

• Northern area:
  • Transitional Valencian (valencià de transició) or Tortosan (tortosí), also ambiguously termed Northern Valencian: spoken in the comarques situated between Castellon and the border, including towns like Benicarló, Vinaròs and Morella, as well as the contiguous areas to the north of the border: the Matarranya area in Aragon (province of Teruel) and a strip of southern Catalonia surrounding Tortosa.
    • Word-initial and postconsonantal (Catalan and ~ ) alternates with intervocalically; e.g., joc ('game'), but pitjor ('worse'), boja ('crazy') (Standard Valencian , ; ; Standard Catalan , and ).
    • Final ⟨r⟩ is not pronounced in infinitives; e.g., cantar (standard ) ('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 Valencian (valencià castellonenc): spoken in an area surrounding the city of Castellón de la Plana.
    • Use of sound instead of standard ⟨a⟩ in the third person singular of most verbs; e.g., (ell) cantava (standard ) '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').
    • Palatalisation of ⟨ts⟩ > and ⟨tz⟩ > (or ); e.g., pots > ('cans, jars, you [s.] can'), dotze > ('twelve'). Thus, this dialect may merge passeig ('walk') and passets ('little steps').
    • Depalatalization of to by some speakers; e.g., caixa > ('box').

• Central area:
  • Central Valencian (valencià central), or Apitxat, spoken in Valencia city and its area. One of the two most widely spoken dialects of Valencian, it is not however used as the main model for the oral standard in Valencian media and education, and is sometimes connated negatively.
    • Sibilant merger: all voiced sibilants are devoiced ( > , > , > ); that is, apitxat pronounces casa ('house') and joc ('game'), where other Valencians would pronounce and (a feature shared with Ribagorçan). The names apitxat, parlar apitxat and the verb apitxar all refer to this specific pronunciation pattern - as well as itself representing a prime example of devoicing, since devoiced apitxar is also a synonym of voiced pitjar.
    • Betacism, that is the merge of into ; e.g., viu (instead of ) ('he/she lives').
    • Fortition (gemination) and vocalisation of final consonants; nit (instead of ) ('night').
    • 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 area:
  • Southern Valencian (valencià meridional) or Upper Southern Valencian: spoken in the contiguous comarques located south of Valencia and north of Alicante, respectively, for example in the cities of Dénia, Gandia, Xàtiva and Alcoi, among others. This is the dialect which includes the largest number of general phonetic features considered proper to Standard Valencian, as well as being the second most widely spoken and located in the geographic centre of the country; it is therefore considered by some Valencians as a reference point for Valencian Catalan as a whole.
    • Vowel harmony: the final syllable of a disyllabic word adopts a preceding open ⟨e⟩ () and/or ⟨o⟩ () if the final vowel is an unstressed ⟨a⟩; e.g., terra ('Earth, land'), dona ('woman'). Further merges (such as and ) depends on the town and speaker.
    • This dialect retains geminate consonants (⟨tl⟩ and ⟨tn⟩ ); e.g., guatla ('quail'), cotna ('rind').
    • Weak pronouns are "reinforced" in front of the verb (em, en, et, es, etc.) contrary to other dialects which maintains "full form" (me, ne, te, se, etc.).
  • Alacantí Valencian (valencià alacantí) or Lower Southern Valencian: spoken in and around the cities of Alicante, Elche and the area of Carche in Murcia.
    • Vowel harmony like in the central Southern areas.
    • Intervocalic elision in most instances; e.g., roda ('wheel'), nadal ('Christmas').
    • Yod is not pronounced in ⟨ix⟩ > ; e.g., caixa ('box').
    • Final ⟨r⟩ is not pronounced in infinitives in some areas and/or contexts; 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) ('azure'), llimpiar (from limpiar) instead of netejar ('to clean') or sacar (from sacar) instead of traure ('take out').

Authors and literature

• Misteri d'Elx (c. 1350). Liturgical drama. Listed as Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.
• Curial e Güelfa (15th century), humanistic chivalric romance
• Ausiàs March (Gandia, 1400 – Valencia, 3 March 1459). Poet, widely read in renaissance Europe.
• Joanot Martorell (Gandia, 1413–1465). Knight and the author of the novel Tirant lo Blanch.
• Isabel de Villena (Valencia, 1430–1490). Religious poet.
• Joan Roís de Corella (Gandia or Valencia, 1435 – Valencia, 1497). Knight and poet.
• Obres e trobes en lahors de la Verge Maria (1474) The first book printed in Spain. It is the compendium of a religious poetry contest held that year in the town of Valencia.

Media in Valencian

Until its dissolution in November 2013, the public-service Ràdio Televisió Valenciana (RTVV) was the main broadcaster of radio and television in Valencian language. The Generalitat Valenciana constituted it in 1984 in order to guarantee the freedom of information of the Valencian people in their own language. It was reopened again in 2018 in the same location but under a different name, À Punt, and it is owned by À Punt Media, a group owned by the Generalitat Valenciana. The new television channel claims to be plural, informative and neutral for all of the Valencian population. It is bilingual, with a focus on the Valencian language. It is recognised as a regional TV channel.

Prior to its dissolution, the administration of RTVV under the People's Party (PP) had been controversial due to accusations of ideological manipulation and lack of plurality. The news broadcast was accused of giving marginal coverage of the Valencia Metro derailment in 2006 and the indictment of President de la Generalitat Francisco Camps in the Gürtel scandal in 2009. Supervisors appointed by the PP were accused of sexual harassment.

In face of an increasing debt due to excessive expenditure by the PP, RTVV announced in 2012 a plan to shed 70% of its labour. The plan was nullified on 5 November 2013 by the National Court after trade unions appealed against it. On that same day, the President de la Generalitat Alberto Fabra (also from PP) announced RTVV would be closed, claiming that reinstating the employees was untenable. On 27 November, the legislative assembly passed the dissolution of RTVV and employees organised to take control of the broadcast, starting a campaign against the PP. Nou TV's last broadcast ended abruptly when Spanish police pulled the plug at 12:19 on 29 November 2013.

Having lost all revenues from advertisements and facing high costs from the termination of hundreds of contracts, critics questioned whether the closure of RTVV improved the financial situation of the Generalitat, and pointed out to plans to benefit private-owned media. At that point, the availability of media in the Valencian language was extremely limited. All the other autonomous communities in Spain, including the monolingual ones, had public-service broadcasters, with the Valencian Community being the only exception despite being the fourth most populated.

In July 2016 a new public corporation, Valencian Media Corporation, was launched in substitution of RTVV. It manages and controls several public media in the Valencian Community, including the television channel À Punt, which started broadcasting in June 2018.

Politico-linguistic controversy

Linguists, including Valencian scholars, deal with Catalan and Valencian as the same language. The current official regulating body of the language of the Valencian community, the Valencian Language Academy (Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua, AVL) considers Valencian and Catalan to be two names for the same language.

[T]he historical patrimonial language of the Valencian people, from a philological standpoint, is the same shared by the autonomous communities of Catalonia and Balearic Islands, and Principality of Andorra. Additionally, it is the patrimonial historical language of other territories of the ancient Crown of Aragon [...] The different varieties of these territories constitute a language, that is, a "linguistic system" [...] From this group of varieties, Valencian has the same hierarchy and dignity as any other dialectal modality of that linguistic system [...]

— Ruling of the Valencian Language Academy of 9 February 2005, extract of point 1.

The AVL was established in 1998 by the PP-UV government of Eduardo Zaplana. According to El País, Jordi Pujol, then president of Catalonia and of the CiU, negotiated with Zaplana in 1996 to ensure the linguistic unity of Catalan in exchange for CiU support of the appointment of José María Aznar as Prime Minister of Spain. Zaplana has denied this, claiming that "[n]ever, never, was I able to negotiate that which is not negotiable, neither that which is not in the negotiating scope of a politician. That is, the unity of the language". The AVL orthography is based on the Normes de Castelló (Castelló Norms), a set of rules for writing Valencian established in 1932.

A rival standard, commonly known as Norms of El Puig, was established in 1979 by the Royal Academy of Valencian Culture (Real Acadèmia de Cultura Valenciana, RACV), which considers itself a rival language academy to the AVL, and promotes an alternative standard. The Royal Academy of Valencian Culture treats Valencian as an independent language, rather than a variety of Catalan. Compared to the current official standard Valencian, the RACV's Norms rely exclusively on genuinely Valencian linguistic solutions, excluding many words not used in the Valencian Community, and also prefer spellings such as ⟨ch⟩ for and ⟨y⟩ for (as in Spanish). Furthermore, these alternative norms are also promoted and taught by the historic cultural association Lo Rat Penat.

Valencian is classified as a Western dialect, along with the North-Western varieties spoken in Western Catalonia (province of Lleida and most of the province of Tarragona). The various forms of Catalan and Valencian are mutually intelligible (ranging from 90% to 95%)

Despite the position of the official organisations, an opinion poll carried out between 2001 and 2004 showed that the majority (65%) of the Valencian people (both Valencian and Spanish speakers) consider Valencian different from Catalan: this position is promoted by people who do not use Valencian regularly. Furthermore, the data indicate that younger people educated in Valencian speaking areas are considerably less likely to hold these views. According to an official poll in 2014, 54% of Valencians considered Valencian to be a language different from Catalan, while 41% considered the languages to be the same. Different opinions about the unity of the language are different between people with certain levels of studies and the opinion also differs between each of the Valencian provinces. The opinion agreeing on the unity of Valencian and Catalan has significant differences regarding age, level of education and province of residence, with a majority of those aged 18–24 (51%) and those with a higher education (58%) considering Valencian to be the same language as Catalan. This can be compared to those aged 65 and above (29%) and those with only primary education (32%), where the same view has its lowest support. People living in the province of Castellon are more prone to be in favor of the unity of the language, while people living in the province of Alicante are more prone to be against the unity of the language, especially in the areas where Valencian is not a mandatory language at schools. By applying a binary logistic regression to the same data, it was found that, among all these variables, the relevant ones are political ideology, educational level, geographical origin and identity: negative views on the unity of Catalan/Valencian were much more likely to be held among right-wing partisans, people with lower studies, people from the Alicante province (the one with percentually the fewest Valencian speakers, especially in the areas where Valencian is not a mandatory language at schools) and people who do not self-identify as Valencian.

Later studies showed that the results differ significantly depending on the way the question is posed; the findings of the most recent work on polling indicate that Valencians today do widely agree that Valencian and Catalan belong to the same language, but that the wording of the question significantly alters the result, even more so than other statistically significant factors - which are the respondent's ideology, language skill and use, and ethnic self-identification: thus, references to Catalonia produce a measurable downturn in support and mentioning diversity within the same language strengthens their agreement.

The ambiguity regarding the term Valencian and its relation to Catalan has sometimes led to confusion and controversy. In 2004, during the drafting of the European Constitution, the regional governments of Spain where a language other than Spanish is co-official were asked to submit translations into the relevant language in question. Since different names are used in Catalonia ("Catalan") and in the Valencian Community ("Valencian"), the two regions each provided one version, which were identical to each other.

Sample text

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Valencian:

Tots els éssers humans naixen lliures i iguals en dignitat i en drets i, dotats com estan de raó i de consciència, s’han de comportar fraternalment els uns amb els altres.

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English:

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.