Ribagorçan

Encyclopedia : R : RI : RIB : Ribagorçan

Ribagorçan dialect is a western variant of the Catalan language, which has some transitional traits to Aragonese:

Palatalization of L in PL, CL, FL groups, e.g. pllou ['pʎɔw] (it rains), cllau ['kʎaw] (key), an exclusive feature of this dialect, not shared by general Catalan nor Aragonese.
General loss of Latin final unstressed vowels but A, as in Catalan. Moving westward preserved final -O get more frequent.
Occasional diphthong ation of Romance short ɛ>ie,ɔ>ue, a feature shared with Aragonese. This feature gets more general moving westward. E.g. TERRA > tierra, terra; PONTE > puent, pont; FONTES > Fonts (documented ancient toponymic) > Fonz (contemporary toponymic) (this last one would have rendered *Fuenz in Aragonese).
Occasional interdental fricative as solution to Latin CE,CI, e.g. cinc [θiŋk] (five), a feature shared with Aragonese. This feature gets more general moving westward. (Contemporary Catalan has rendered [s] < [ts] < CE,CI).
Different results for 2nd person plural endings of verbs (< -TIS), from west to east: -z [θ] (as in Aragonese), -ts [ʦ] (as in Occitan and medieval Catalan), -u [w] (as in contemporary Catalan).
Different results for romance voiced prepalatal africate ([ʤ] < I-, Dj- Gj-), from west to east: [ʧ] (as in Aragonese and apitxat Valencian), [ʤ] (as in medieval Catalan and most of contemporary Valencian), [ʒ] (as in most of contemporary Catalan). E.g. [ʧ]ovens (West Ribagoza), [ʣ]ovens (East R.) (young ones).
Loss of final -R of infinitives and polysyllabic words, a feature shared with most of contemporary Catalan (except Valencian variants). E.g. MULIERE > mulle(r) (woman), *TRIPALIARE > treballa(r) (to work)
Past perfect of verbs formed with auxiliary forms derived from VADERE + infinitive e.g. van fer [ban 'fe] (they did), a feature shared with Catalan, and unknown in Aragonese.

It is spoken in the comarques of

Alta Ribagorça in the province of Lleida, Catalonia
Ribagorza in the province of Huesca, Aragon
La Litera in the province of Huesca, Aragon

Major towns of the area are: Tamarite de Litera, Benabarre, Pont de Suert, Benasque

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.