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 .