DOCSLIB.ORG

Northern Catalan: Language Shift Or Language Maintenance?

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Northern Catalan: Language Shift Or Language Maintenance? Olga Scrivner Tanya Flores Indiana University, Bloomington Northern Catalan: language shift or language maintenance? The geographical variant of Catalan spoken in southern France is known as northern Catalan or Roussillonnais. The region of Roussillon was annexed to France by Louis XIV under the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659. The imposition of the French language has led to a gradual language shift reinforced by the migration of rural populations seeking work in larger cities. In 2004, only 6% of the population spoke Catalan as a primary language. One may conclude that this contact situation represents a case of language shift, the abandonment of Catalan in favor of French. However, the Catalan speaking population considers the language to be maintained and stable. Current phonological descriptions of northern Catalan (Fouché, 1980) focus on the differences between this variety and central Catalan, spoken in Barcelona, in terms of vowel inventory and stress patterns; however, the variable presence of the uvular rhotic [ʁ] has not been analytically explored. The current study is an acoustic and sociolinguistic examination of this feature in the speech of native bilinguals (French and Catalan) of Roussillon. The data for this study comes from 12 online video interviews recorded in Perpignan, the capital of the region. Acoustic analysis of spectrograms based on F2 values will provide evidence for the three rhotic variants [r], [ɾ], [ʁ] found in the data. A variable rule analysis will also be conducted to determine which of the following linguistic and social factors favor the uvular productions: preceding and following vowel, and word position; sex, age, and cultural identification of the speaker. The uvular rhotic is not present in either central Catalan or Spanish; however, it is part of the standard French consonant inventory. Therefore, the uvular allophone in northern Catalan is likely due to French interference. Preliminary results indicate that the distribution of this feature will depend on 1) age - younger speakers are more likely to use the uvular form; and 2) identification with Catalan culture – speakers who self-identify as Catalan or have a positive perception of the culture are expected to use alveolar taps and trills more frequently than the French feature. Olga Scrivner Tanya Flores Indiana University, Bloomington Selected References: Associació de Sociolinguistes de Llengua Catalana. 2007. La situació sociolinguística als territoris de parla catalana a l’inici del segle XXI. Generalitat de Catalunya Bernardó, Domènec and Bernat Rieu. 1977. Diglòssia a Catalunya Nord. In Treballs de sociolingüística catalana, 1 edited by Eliseu Climent. 55-62 Enquesta d’usos linguístics a la Catalunya Nord. 2004. Generalitat de Catalunya Fouché, Pierre. 1980. Phonétique historique du Roussillonnais. Genéve : Slatkine Reprints Kostakis, Andrew. 2007. More on the origin of uvular [R]: phonetic and sociolinguistic motivations. IULC Working papers on-line, volume 7, 1-20 Muller, Daniela. 2005. La variacion allofonica de /r/ dins lo parlar de Montpelhièr. Lingüística Occitana 3. 13-27 Stewart, David. 1997. Assimilation and acculturation in seventeenth-century Europe: Roussillon and France, 1659-1715. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press Net TV Catalunya Nord. 2010. [Video website]. Perpignon, Roussillon. Online signals retrieved February, March 2010, from http://nettv.cat/ Verdaguer, Pere. 2002. The Roussillonnais dialect. Lenguas, 52. 13-30 .
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Bulls and Donkeys. National Identity and Symbols in Catalonia and Spain
    9TH ANNUAL JOAN GILI MEMORIAL LECTURE Miquel Strubell i Trueta Bulls and donkeys. National identity and symbols in Catalonia and Spain The Anglo-Catalan Society 2008 2 Bulls and donkeys. National identity and symbols in Catalonia and Spain 9TH ANNUAL JOAN GILI MEMORIAL LECTURE Miquel Strubell i Trueta Bulls and donkeys. National identity and symbols in Catalonia and Spain The Anglo-Catalan Society 2008 2 3 The Annual Joan Gili Memorial Lecture Bulls and donkeys. National identity and symbols in Catalonia and 1 Spain In this paper, after an initial discussion about what identity means and how to measure it, I intend to review some studies and events in Spain in which identity issues arise. The conclusion will be reached that identities in Spain, in regard to people’s relationship with Spain itself and with Catalonia, are by no means shared, and the level of both stereotyping and prejudice, on the one hand, and of collective insecurity (even “self-hatred”) on the other, are, I claim, higher than in consolidated nation-states of western Europe, with the partial exceptions of the United Kingdom and Belgium. Let me from the outset say how honoured I am, in having been invited to deliver this paper, to follow in the footsteps of such outstanding Catalan academics as Mercè Ibarz, Antoni Segura, Joan F. Mira, Marta Pessarrodona, Miquel Berga … and those before them. The idea of dedicating what up till then had been the Fundació Congrés de Cultura lectures to the memory of Joan Gili (Barcelona 1907 - Oxford 1998) was an inspiration. Unlike some earlier Memorial lecturers, however, I was fortunate enough to have a special personal relationship with him and, of course, with his wife Elizabeth.
    [Show full text]
  • Cultural Identities and National Borders
    CULTURAL IDENTITIES AND NATIONAL BORDERS Edited by Mats Andrén Thomas Lindqvist Ingmar Söhrman Katharina Vajta 1 CULTURAL IDENTITIES AND NATIONAL BORDERS Proceedings from the CERGU conference held at the Faculty of Arts. Göteborg University 7-8 June 2007 Eds. Mats Andrén Thomas Linqvist Ingmar Söhrman Katharina Vajta 2 CONTENTS Contributers Opening Addresses Introduction 1. Where, when and what is a language? Ingmar Söhrman 2. Identity as a Cognitive Code: the Northern Irish Paradigm Ailbhe O’Corrain 3. Language and Identity in Modern Spain: Square Pegs in Round Holes? Miquel Strubell 4. Struggling over Luxembourgish Identity Fernand Fehlen 5. Language Landscapes and Static Geographies in the Baltic Sea Area Thomas Lundén 6. The Idea of Europa will be Fullfilled by Muslim Turkey Klas Grinell 7. National identity and the ethnographic museum The Musée du Quai Branly Project: a French answer to multiculturalism? Maud Guichard-Marneuor 8. Främlingsidentitet och mytbildning av den utländske författaren [English summary: Mythmaking of the Foreign Author and a Reflection on the Identity as a Stranger: The Case of the Swedish Author Stig Dagerman in France and Italy] Karin Dahl 9. Den glokale kommissarien: Kurt Wallander på film och TV [English summary: Kurt Wallander on film and TV] Daniel Brodén 10. Staden, staten och medborgarskapet [English summary: Studying “undocumented immigrants” in the city with Lefebvre’s spatial triad as a point of departure] Helena Holgersson 3 11. Digging for Legitimacy: Archeology, Identity and National Projects in Great Britain, Germany and Sweden Per Cornell, Ulf Borelius & Anders Ekelund 12. Recasting Swedish Historical Identity Erik Örjan Emilsson 4 Contributers Mats Andrén is professor in The History of Ideas and Science at Göteborg University from 2005.
    [Show full text]
  • Judeo-Provençal in Southern France
    George Jochnowitz Judeo-Provençal in Southern France 1 Brief introduction Judeo-Provençal is also known as Judeo-Occitan, Judéo-Comtadin, Hébraïco- Comtadin, Hébraïco-Provençal, Shuadit, Chouadit, Chouadite, Chuadit, and Chuadite. It is the Jewish analog of Provençal and is therefore a Romance lan- guage. The age of the language is a matter of dispute, as is the case with other Judeo-Romance languages. It was spoken in only four towns in southern France: Avignon, Cavaillon, Caprentras, and l’Isle-sur-Sorgue. A women’s prayer book, some poems, and a play are the sources of the medieval language, and transcrip- tions of Passover songs and theatrical representations are the sources for the modern language. In addition, my own interviews in 1968 with the language’s last known speaker, Armand Lunel, provide data (Jochnowitz 1978, 1985). Lunel, who learned the language from his grandparents, not his parents, did not have occasion to converse in it. Judeo-Provençal/Shuadit is now extinct, since Armand Lunel died in 1977. Sometimes Jewish languages have a name meaning “Jewish,” such as Yiddish or Judezmo – from Hebrew Yehudit or other forms of Yehuda. This is the case with Shuadit, due to a sound change of /y/ to [š]. I use the name Judeo-Provençal for the medieval language and Shuadit for the modern language. 2 Historical background 2.1 Speaker community: Settlement, documentation Jews had lived in Provence at least as early as the first century CE. They were officially expelled from France in 1306, readmitted in 1315, expelled again in 1322, readmitted in 1359, and expelled in 1394 for a period that lasted until the French Revolution.
    [Show full text]
  • Variation and Change in the Romance Possessive Constructions: an Overview of Nominal, Adverbial and Verbal Uses1
    Variation and change in the Romance possessive constructions: An overview of nominal, adverbial and verbal uses1 MIRIAM BOUZOUITA Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin MATTI MARTTINEN LARSSON Stockholm University Abstract In this introductory article, we will first illustrate the great morpho-syntactic diversity that exists in the Romance possessive systems from a comparative perspective, and then detail the recent changes that have taken place. After discussing the various nominal patterns, the use of tonic possessives in the adverbial and verbal domain will be examined. Subsequently, the various contributions of this special issue will be summarized and evaluated. Keywords: Romance, possessive, noun, prepositional phrase, adverbial, verbal, analogical extension, reanalysis 1. Introduction Despite having a common ancestor, there are important morpho-syntactic differences between the various Romance possessive systems.2 While some possessives behave like adjectives, others function like determiners, and yet others as pronouns (e.g. Lyons 1985; Schoorlemmer 1998; GLA 2001:108; Ledgeway 2011; Van Peteghem 2012; De Andrés Díaz 2013:375, among others). Indeed, while Latin possessives are strong forms with a distribution similar to that of lexical adjectives, various divergent systems exist in the Romance languages (e.g. Van Peteghem 2012). To illustrate the great (morpho-)syntactic diversity that exists in the Romance possessive systems and the different recent changes that have taken place, we will give a broad comparative overview of the various possessive configurations in the nominal, adverbial and verbal domains (sections 1.1 and 1.2), detailing similarities and differences. We will focus especially on the Ibero- Romance varieties, albeit not exclusively, as they have received less attention in the 1 We would like to thank the participants and audience of the Possessive Constructions in Romance Conference (PossRom2018), held at Ghent University (27th-28th of June 2018) for their valuable input.
    [Show full text]
  • Intonation in Romance 1
    OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 7/5/2015, SPi Intonation in Romance Edited by SÓNIA FROTA AND PILAR PRIETO Material Copyrighted - Preview 1 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 7/5/2015, SPi 3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox26dp United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries # editorial matter and organization Sónia Frota and Pilar Prieto 2015 # the chapters their several authors 2015 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted First Edition published in 2015 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outsideMaterial the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2014954176 ISBN 978–0–19–968533–2 Printed and bound by 04 CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon crCopyrightedyy Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only.
    [Show full text]
  • Mooney, D., & Hawkey, J. (2019). the Variable Palatal Lateral in Occitan
    Mooney, D. , & Hawkey, J. (2019). The variable palatal lateral in Occitan and Catalan: Linguistic transfer or regular sound change? Journal of French Language Studies, 29(2), 281-303. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959269519000127 Peer reviewed version License (if available): Other Link to published version (if available): 10.1017/S0959269519000127 Link to publication record in Explore Bristol Research PDF-document This is the accepted author manuscript (AAM). The final published version (version of record) is available online via Cambridge University Press at https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959269519000127 . Please refer to any applicable terms of use of the publisher. University of Bristol - Explore Bristol Research General rights This document is made available in accordance with publisher policies. Please cite only the published version using the reference above. Full terms of use are available: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/red/research-policy/pure/user-guides/ebr-terms/ 1 The variable palatal lateral in Occitan and Catalan: Linguistic transfer or regular sound change? 1. INTRODUCTION This article examines the linguistic mechanisms governing the distribution of phonetic variants of the phonemic palatal lateral, /ʎ/, in two obsolescent Romance languages traditionally spoken in France: Occitan and Catalan. In both languages, the palatal lateral is realised as [ʎ] or [j] and this variability may be interpreted as an intermediate stage in a change which will lead to the phonemic merger of the palatal lateral with the palatal approximant (referred to as ieisme in Catalan), neutralising the /ʎ/~/j/ contrast and entailing loss of the lateral. The varieties examined in this study find themselves in long-term language contact with French, a Romance language in which the /ʎ/>[j] change has come to completion and which no longer contains a phonemic palatal lateral.
    [Show full text]
  • Spanish Velar-Insertion and Analogy
    Spanish Velar-insertion and Analogy: A Usage-based Diachronic Analysis DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Steven Richard Fondow, B.A, M.A Graduate Program in Spanish and Portuguese The Ohio State University 2010 Dissertation Committee: Dr. Dieter Wanner, Advisor Dr. Brian Joseph Dr. Terrell Morgan Dr. Wayne Redenbarger Copyright by Steven Richard Fondow 2010 Abstract The theory of Analogical and Exemplar Modeling (AEM) suggests renewed discussion of the formalization of analogy and its possible incorporation in linguistic theory. AEM is a usage-based model founded upon Exemplar Modeling (Bybee 2007, Pierrehumbert 2001) that utilizes several principles of the Analogical Modeling of Language (Skousen 1992, 1995, 2002, Wanner 2005, 2006a), including the ‘homogeneous supracontext’ of the Analogical Model (AM), frequency effects and ‘random-selection’, while also highlighting the speaker’s central and ‘immanent’ role in language (Wanner 2006a, 2006b). Within AEM, analogy is considered a cognitive means of organizing linguistic information. The relationship between input and stored exemplars is established according to potentially any and all salient similarities, linguistic or otherwise. At the same time, this conceptualization of analogy may result in language change as a result of such similarities or variables, as they may be used in the formation of an AM for the input. Crucially, the inflectional paradigm is argued to be a possible variable since it is a higher-order unit of linguistic structure within AEM. This investigation analyzes the analogical process of Spanish velar-insertion according to AEM.
    [Show full text]
  • Identity and Nation in 21St Century Catalonia
    Identity and Nation in 21st Century Catalonia Identity and Nation in 21st Century Catalonia: El Procés Edited by Steven Byrne Identity and Nation in 21st Century Catalonia: El Procés Edited by Steven Byrne This book first published 2021 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2021 by Steven Byrne and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-5275-7270-6 ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-7270-6 TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures.......................................................................................... viii List of Tables ............................................................................................. ix List of Images ............................................................................................. x Notes on Contributors ................................................................................ xi Acknowledgements ................................................................................ xvii Introduction ........................................................................................... xviii Steven Byrne Section One: Catalonia and Secessionism: Understanding Ongoing
    [Show full text]
  • Complete Paper
    Shattering Paradigms: An Attempt to Formalize Pressures within Subparadigms Maria Ohannesian and Clàudia Pons Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona 1. Introduction Paradigmatic pressures do not work in a homogeneous or symmetric way. As already noted by many scholars, factors such as the degree of phonological similarity, the degree of semantic closeness, the degree of productivity between the members of a paradigm, or the number of grammatical properties which these members share are directly correlated with the degree of phonological pressure exerted between them. Optimality Theory has built up many proposals to account for surface similarities between the members of a paradigm but none explicitly deals with the problem of inclusion, that is, with those cases in which given the paradigm set <A, B, C, D>, only a partial subset of the paradigm, say <A, B> or <A, B, C>, is under paradigmatic pressure. This paper is an attempt to deal with the notion of inclusion within paradigms. We show how the Optimal Paradigms model (McCarthy [2001] 2005) and the Transderivational Correspondence Theory (Benua [1997] 2000) can be extended to apply not only within flat paradigms but also within paradigms with an internal uneven structure, in such a way that nominal morphological categories like Gender and Number, verbal morphological categories like Tense, Number, Person, etc., or the productivity of a given derivative process are explicit in the formal machinery of the theory. Due to space reasons, we illustrate our proposal by focusing on two Romance phenomena – overapplication of cluster reduction in Catalan and overapplication of diphthongization in Spanish – but it can be extended to many other phenomena which will be referred to briefly when necessary.
    [Show full text]
  • The Catalan Language in Education in France
    The Catalan language in education in France European Research Centre on Multilingualism and Language Learning hosted by CATALAN The Catalan language in education in France | 2nd Edition | c/o Fryske Akademy Doelestrjitte 8 P.O. Box 54 NL-8900 AB Ljouwert/Leeuwarden The Netherlands T 0031 (0) 58 - 234 3027 W www.mercator-research.eu E [email protected] | Regional dossiers series | tca r cum n n i- ual e : Available in this series: This document was published by the Mercator European Research Centre on Multilingualism Albanian; the Albanian language in education in Italy and Language Learning with financial support from the Fryske Akademy and the Province Aragonese; the Aragonese language in education in Spain Asturian; the Asturian language in education in Spain (2nd ed.) of Fryslân. Basque; the Basque language in education in France (2nd ed.) Basque; the Basque language in education in Spain (2nd ed.) Breton; the Breton language in education in France (2nd ed.) Catalan; the Catalan language in education in France (2nd ed.) Catalan; the Catalan language in education in Spain (2nd ed.) © Mercator European Research Centre on Multilingualism Cornish; the Cornish language in education in the UK and Language Learning, 2019 Corsican; the Corsican language in education in France (2nd ed.) Croatian; the Croatian language in education in Austria ISSN: 1570 – 1239 Frisian; the Frisian language in education in the Netherlands (4th ed.) Friulian; the Friulian language in education in Italy 2nd edition Gaelic; the Gaelic language in education in the UK Galician; the Galician language in education in Spain (2nd ed.) The contents of this dossier may be reproduced in print, except for commercial purposes, German; the German language in education in Alsace, France (2nd ed.) provided that the extract is proceeded by a complete reference to the Mercator European German; the German language in education in Belgium German; the German language in education in Denmark Research Centre on Multilingualism and Language Learning.
    [Show full text]
  • Communication and Division on the Northern Border of Catalonia Between the 15Th and 18Th Centuries
    CATALAN HISTORICAL REVIEW, 11: 41-55 (2018) Institut d’Estudis Catalans, Barcelona DOI: 10.2436/20.1000.01.145 · ISSN: 2013-407X http://revistes.iec.cat/chr/ Communication and division on the northern border of Catalonia between the 15th and 18th centuries Patrici Pojada* Universitat de Perpinyà Received 20 August 2016 · Accepted 11 October 2016 Abstract Catalonia’s northern border underwent major shifts during the Modern Age. Wars played a significant role in these changes, as evi- denced by the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659, a stage in the process which led to the creation of an actual state borderline that the people gradually started to internalise. Nonetheless, the border dwellers still interacted with each other, making it a place of intense exchanges which included them within a larger cultural and economic framework in which they strove to live “as good neighbours”, as they themselves put it. Keywords: trade, conflicts, emigration, border Pyrenees Catalonia’s northern border underwent major changes same time. This is an ambiguous feature of the border as a during the Modern Age. All we have to do is recall the place of both intense exchanges (including clashes) and Treaty of the Pyrenees of 1659, which even today remains repulsion. Studying the northern border of Catalonia in a highly symbolic event. The northern border between the Modern Age through the lens of this apparent para- Catalonia and Languedoc did not shift, but this treaty cre- dox requires us to first question the elements that hin- ated a political border right in the middle of Catalan terri- dered communication, including everything that allowed tory by moving the boundary between the monarchies conflict to thrive on the border.
    [Show full text]
  • A Catalan Broadcast Conversational Speech Database
    Proceedings of the I Iberian SLTech 2009 A Catalan Broadcast Conversational Speech Database Henrik Schulz, Jose´ A. R. Fonollosa Department of Signal Theory and Communications Technical University of Catalunya (UPC), Barcelona, Spain [email protected], [email protected] Abstract usually interrupted once by a commercial, the final recordings Data driven methods in speech and linguistic research, and do not contain them. system develoment require appropriate speech databases. A The debate generally comprises spontaneous speech, new Catalan speech database has been developed with a partic- whereas the introduction of topic and participants features ular emphasis on broadcast conversational speech. The article planned speech. Both differ significantly acoustically and lin- describes origin and nature of the broadcasts and its acoustic guistically. environment. Annotation and transcription provide statistics on Catalan - mainly spoken in Catalonia - exhibits substantial specific phenomena of exhibited speech, speaker characteristics dialectual differences, dividing the language into an eastern and and acoustic events. It concludes with perspective uses and lim- western group. The eastern dialect includes Northern Catalan itations. (French Catalonia), Central Catalan (the eastern part of Catalo- Index Terms: Catalan, audio video speech database, broadcast nia) and Balearic. The western dialect includes North-western conversation, literal transcription, spontaneous speech Catalan and Valencian (south-west Catalonia)[1]. The origin of the recorded Catalan participants suggests a predominant Central Catalan dialect. Furthermore, the rare se- 1. Introduction lection of alternative pronunciations other than those equal to State-of-the-art empirical and statistical data driven methods in Central Catalan during the alignment of acoustic data while speech processing depend to a large extend on sufficient and building ASR acoustic models supports this impression.
    [Show full text]