Algherese

Algherese (standard Catalan: Alguerès, Algherese: Alguerés) is the variant of the Catalan language spoken in the city of Alghero (L'Alguer in Catalan and S'Alighèra in Sardinian), in the northwest of Sardinia.Catalan invaders repopulated the town after expelling the indigenous Sardinian population in 1372, following several revolts.

Catalan was replaced as the official language by Spanish in the early 18th century following the War of the Spanish Succession, then by Italian, but its use remained widespread until at least the 1960s. Today it has semi-official status and appears alongside Italian on the city's official [http://www.ciutatdelalguer.it/comune_alghero.htm website] .

According to recent linguistic research, 22.4% of the population are first language speakers and above 90% have some knowledge of the language. [ [http://www6.gencat.net/llengcat/socio/docs/EULA2004.pdf Linguistic data from Generalitat de Catalunya] ]

Differences from Standard Catalan

The Algherese variant is classified in the Eastern Catalan block, but it has many differences from Central Catalan. Some of the most obvious:

*Coalescing of unstressed vowels IPA|/a/, IPA|/ɛ/ and IPA|/e/ to IPA| [a] (unlike the rest of Eastern Catalan that uses IPA| [ə] ).

*Algherese preserves IPA|/v/ as a distinct phoneme from IPA|/b/, like Balearic and most of Valencian.

*Mutation of intervocalic IPA|/d/ or IPA|/l/ to IPA| [r] ; e.g. 'Barceloneta' (little Barcelona): eastern standard IPA| [bərsəluˈnɛtə] , Algherese IPA| [balsaruˈnɛta] ; e.g. 'vila' (town) and 'vida' (life) are homophones in Algherese IPA| ['vira] .

*Mutation of syllable final IPA|/r/ to lateral IPA| [l] , and the possible resulting group IPA| [l] +consonant is further simplified to IPA| [l] ; e.g. 'forn' (furnace): standard IPA| [ˈforn] , Algherese IPA| [ˈfol] .

*Depalatalisation of syllable final sonorants: lateral IPA|/ʎ/ to IPA| [l] , nasal IPA|/ɲ/ to IPA| [n] ; e.g. 'any' (year): standard IPA| [ˈaɲ] , Algherese IPA| [ˈan] .

*Simple Past Perfect has been replaced by Present Perfect (present of HABERE + past participle), possibly due to Italian influence.

*Imperfect Past preserves etymological -V- in all the conjugations: 1st -ava, 2nd -iva, 3rd -iva (unlike modern eastern and western standard Catalan with has 1st -ava, 2nd -ia, 3rd -ia) (a feature shared with Ribagorçan Catalan)

*Large-scale lexical borrowing and calques from Sardinian, Spanish, and Italian.

Bibliography

* Josep Sanna: "Diccionari català de l'Alguer." 1988; ISBN 84-7129-391-9 [http://library.brown.edu/record=b3625192]
* SCALA LUCA "Català de l’Alguer. Criteris de llengua escrita". Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat 2003 ISBN 978-84-8415-463-1

See also

*Catalan language
*Valencian
*Balearic Catalan