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Southern Valencian

Southern Valencian () is a dialect of Valencian spoken in the south of the Valencian Community. It comprises two sub-varieties, Northern or Upper Southern Valencian (also known as proper Southern Valencian), and Southern or Lower Southern Valencian (traditionally known as Alacantí Valencian).

Southern Valencian is known for the presence of different types of vowel harmony.

Sub-varieties

Upper Southern Valencian

The variety of Upper Souther Valencian includes all the comarques south of the Xúquer river, up to the line that joins the town of Biar with Busot. This dialectal zone is also known as General Valencian.

Within the area of Upper Southern Valencian, there are further subareas:

  • The inland zone (the comarques of Costera, Vall d'Albaida, Comtat, and AlcoiÃÂ) has the following phonological and morphological features:
  • Final stops are elided after nasals and liquids ( 'field', 'hundred', 'very'); or the falling diphthong in ('boiled') and ('empty').
  • (or ) is used instead of ('we') and ('you') in reflexive functions, like Central Valencian: , instead of , ('we clean ourselves', 'you clean yourselves').
  • The coastal zone (the comarques of Safor and Marina Alta) has the following phonological and morphological features:
  • Final backs to ( > 'girl') and where are pronounced the stops of , , .
  • becomes silent in ('box') and ('fish'), and it is used in the diphthong in ('boiled') and ('empty')
  • Substitution of and for is less frequent, especially in the case of : 'we want us', (often simplified to mone) 'we're leaving' (inland zone: , ).
  • Some features of Mallorcan influence in Marina Alta and Tàrbena (Marina Baixa) are:
  • Final is unstable at points of the region: it is elided in Bolulla and Pedreguer, and is unstable in Dénia and Xàbia.
  • Elision of in the digraph : , . This elision also exists in the neighbouring region of Safor (except in Gandia).
  • Differentiated articulation of and between vowels: the affricated geminated sound of /, , as opposed to the simple affricate of /, . This is still active in some villages of Marina Alta (Benissa, Senija, Xaló, Teulada, etc.). In addition to this, two villages (Benissa and Senija) feature the deaffrication of /, like in Majorcan and Northern Valencian.
  • Apheresis of initial : instead of ('to go'), instead of ('to arrive').
  • Pronunciation of unstressed followed by stressed as : ('grape'), ('morning'). Final is close to in Benissa, Gata and Pedreguer: ('girl'), ('fly').
  • Vowel in fr'd ('cold') and prim'r ('first'), resembelling the Majorcan sound .
  • Move from tonic to , tr'ure ('take out'), m'ula ('trap').
  • Raising of unstressed > in ('to swim') and by extension in ('I swim'), ('you swim'), etc.
  • Alternation between the unstressed sounds and , resembelling the Majorcan mid central vowel : devant () 'in front', d'ecí () 'from here', caregol () 'snail', llevor () 'seed', al gos () 'the dog', as diu () 's/he's called', famella () 'female', etc.
  • Remains of the insularic consonantal assimilations: etzamen () 'exam', catsot () 'big headed', datsa () 'corn', dissatte () 'Saturday'.

Lower Southern Valencian

This dialect is called Alacantí Valencian () by some manuals of dialectology. To avoid confusion between the different dialectal realities of the comarques of this provincial demarcation, it is best using the term Southern or Lower Southern to describe the speeches that extend to the south of the line that links the settlements of Biar and Busot, that includes the south of AlcoiÃÂ, Alacantí and the valleys of the river Vinalopó.

Some distinctive features of this dialect are:

  • becomes silent in ('strip, girdle'), ('grid') and ('same') > faxa, rexa and matex; like in Safor and Marina Alta.
  • Final is maintained in the coastal regions, but similar to the Valencian spoken in Castellón de la Plana, it is elided when the verb is accompanied by enclitics (especially pronouns): ('greet you'), ('take away'). In Elx, it is also elided in the plain verbs of the second conjugation: , .
  • The diphthong of is falling , like in a large part of the Upper Southern Valencian dialect, and also in Catalonia and the islands.
  • Intervocalic is elided in the suffixes -ada and -ador, and also in -uda: ('dishevelled'), ('big-bellied'), etc. In Elx and Guardamar, almost every between vowels is elided, also by syntactic phonetics: El Nal que ve anirem a la boa d'exa ona grenyua que viu al carre(r) (d)e la Roa (Standard Valencian: ) 'The following Christmas we will go to the wedding of that dishevelled woman who lives in the street of the Wheel'.
  • The suffix -esa is commonly reduced to : bellea 'beauty'.

The region of the Vinalopó Valley and neighbouring areas form a dialectal zone within the Lower Southern dialect with the following phonological features:

  • Final elision: , .
  • Stops become silent in , and .
  • The diphthongs (phonetically ) and (phonetically ) become homophones as (transcribed as for simplicity). ('egg') is pronounced the same as ('bird') and ('well') the same as ('peace').
  • The diphthong in and is rising like in general Valencian, and it is not falling like in the rest of the Lower Souther dialect.

The Lower Southern dialect has the following morphological features:

  • The article is invariable for the masculine and the feminine: and for and .
  • is not present in the demonstrative system, there is only (proximal), (medial), and (distal). However, only and are used by the most conservative speakers.
  • The general demonstrative is replaced by , and the pronoun is changed to when pronouns are combined: se la donarem, dóna-se-la instead of ('we will give it to her'), ('give it to her').
  • The full forms of the pronouns , , , , , do never reduce, including in enclitic position: () 'It seems to me your aunt is sick, put yourself a jacket and let's go to see her'.
  • In verbal morphology, the suffixes -am and -au from the imperative and subjunctive (, ) have evolved to -em and -eu (diguem, digueu), except in Elx, where the original forms survive.

References

Bibliography