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Aranese is fairly normal Gascon speech, I don't think it qualifies as its own subdialect [1]. This being said, there's something to be said about Gascon as a whole potentially being its own language, as is considered Catalan. Among Occitan dialects, it's highly eccentric.
As for Aranese speakers, to me (I have some amount of Limousin and Provençal) native ones [2] are understandable to the same extent as other Gascon speakers, but new speakers who bring Castellan phonological features are incomprehensible. If it manages to survives in this environment, it could truly be a new language in the making.
[1]: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Isoglosas_gasc%C3%B3...
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There's a pretty apt phrase that applies here: a language is a dialect with an army and a navy
Compare with the Serbian/Croatian "languages" that are far more mutually intelligible than varieties of the Chinese "language".
I've heard that Arabic also has far more variance than is between Serbian and Croatian. Even though we often refer to it as a single language, it's actually a very diverse selection of varieties that are not all mutually intelligible.
In short, the distinction is pretty arbitrary.
It's the same with Scots (as opposed to Scottish Gaelic). Is it a dialect or a separate (although closely related) language to English? If Scotland becomes independent, Scots would very likely gain full language status for as much political as linguistic reasons.
Then we have "Italian" and "German". If these countries had not undergone unification in the 19th century would Duolingo be offering courses in Venetian and Bavarian?
when you compare serbian and croatian and find them fairly similar it's worth keeping in mind that only holds true for the standard versions of those languages.
thing is these standard versions were developed and agreed upon more or less at a time -- mid 19th century and the whole nationalist movements thing in europe -- when there was a unitarian tendency among south slavic nations. so the standard versions are (1) essentially artificial, and (2) politically motivated to an extent.
once you get on the ground level of spoken language you find far more variance within each of the two -- the regional and even local dialects are very different from each other, to the point of seemingly being whole different languages were it not for the developed standard versions that tie them together.
They used to say "Serbo-Croatian" before the war.
>In short, the distinction is pretty arbitrary.
Linguistically, the distinction is much more objective (also it's not always clear cut, because there are asymmetries between speeches in terms of how understandable they are to each other) : two kinds of speech that are not inter-comprehensible are different languages. Dialects and sub-dialects are defined by isoglosses, see the map I link in my original post.
Arabic is, much like Chinese, both a linguistic group and a language (Modern Standard Arabic).
Imagine my first time discovering when I found out that Limousin(car) (apparently)is named after a region and that there is language named Limousin.
It's also the name of a cattle breed that's native to the region [1] and famed for its meat, as well as the name by which the very language discusses in this thread used to go by during the Middle Ages (as the Limousin dialect formed the basis for the normalized form of Occitan, that was used by the Troubadour movement ever since its inception by Eble II of Ventadorn).
I mean, it's only a Limousine if it comes fron the french region of Limousin. Otherwise it's just an unnecessarily long sparkling car.
The funny thing is that Aranese is an official language at Val d'Aran, with all of the requisite legal protections to speakers. This makes Spain the only country where Occitan/Gascon (assuming with you and others that it is the same language; some apparently disagree) is an official language.
Your second link is catalan to me... I could understand 100% and I don't know any Gascon language...
He's got a somewhat Catalan accent and Catalan itself used to be part of Occitan, the boundaries aren't quite clear where they meet (whether in Aran or in Roussillon). It became its own language after Peter the Catholic died at the battle of Muret. Catalonia became culturally and politically cut out from Southern France and Catalan developed its own standard in isolation from the other courts it previously was affiliated with.
I dont know how it is in other European countries, but at least in Spain, the slightest change in dialect+ some geographical distance will make people call their dialect a different language, and they may even not be wrong. And it is funny because that guy has a very marked Catalan accent, but they say it is the French side that brought French phonology to Occitan making it very difficult to understand.
This only applies to "regional" languages though. For example, Spanish has different dialects yet nobody would suggest Andalusian isn't Spanish, but an entire different language. The political motivation is clear.
There are some other languages in Spain like Basque (pretty well known), Galician and Aragonese https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aragonese_language
Let's not forget Valencian, which if I understand correctly the Catalans gently pat on the head and say "there, there dear, if you want to pretend to be a different language from Catalan, we won't get in your way", while the Valencians irritatedly insist "It's not Catalan! It's a different language!"
It’s complicated than that. Valencian is at best a dialect of Catalan, the differences are not significant enough to considere them two separate languages.
The rejection of considering Valencian as Catalan has some links to Blaverism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaverism a “weird” Spanish nationalist movement from Valencia with marked Anti-Catalan character.
Oficial languages in Spain are Basque, Catalan, Galician and Spanish (obviously). They survive others such as Aragonese, Bable or Extremeñu. Plus the Spanish dialects such as the Southern ones.
As a non-Spaniard, I find the feud amusing.
> [...] when the European Union wanted to approve the European Constitution, the Valencian Government did not recognise the official translation wrote in Catalan from Barcelona and forced to have one in Valencian. To preserve the language unity, the Catalan Government accepted the Valencian translation has the official Catalan translation.
Total big brother move.
I'm from the Balearic Islands, Catalan (from Minorca) is my mother tongue. I aced the highest level Valencian (Nivell Superior) exam without studying. You judge if it is the same language or not.
Valencian is another name for the same language as Catalan. Those who disagree do so for political reasons, not actual linguistic reasons.
Some sentences in both "languages" and English. Catalan/Valencian/English
Bon dia/Bon dia/Good morning
Avui fa bon temps/Hui fa bon temps/The weather is good today
Volem acabar amb la COVID19/Volem acabar amb la COVID19/We want to end COVID19
Sembla que plourà/Pareix que plourà/Looks like it's going to rain.
There are two difrent words in 4 sentences. I can't really see how that makes them separate languages.
When I walked the Camino de Santiago (Catholic pilgrimage across Spain) there was one segment near the Pyrenees where lots of aggressive graffiti seemed to warn that "you are in Basque country now!"
Basque nationalism was quite a thing a few decades ago. I recall once my grandparents driving us from Pau in France down to Bilbao to see the Guggenheim, at one point we drove past the bombed out remains of a politicians car that had happened recently enough that it was still smoking.
> Val d'Aran is the only community within Spain's contiguous borders that's located on the northern slopes of the Pyrenees.
That seems to hint at something not in the contiguous borders - but Llivia is still on the southern slopes from what I can tell.
In fact, they're wrong because of a much more subtle and little-known example. The village of Luzaide/Valcarlos (Basque/Castilian names) in Navarre is actually on the northern slopes of the Pyrenees by a tiny bit:
I think maybe they meant Catalonia and failed at rewording Wikipedia [1], which says: "This valley constitutes the only contiguous part of Catalonia located on the northern side of the Pyrenees."
Your point still stands, that the wording is strange in Wikipedia, and River Runner agrees [2] that Llívia is on the south side. I think the BBC's wording is doubly incorrect, as there are other places in Spain north of the Pyrenees, e.g. Irun [3].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Val_d%27Aran
[2] https://river-runner-global.samlearner.com/?lng=1.9755776875...
Fun fact: The Catalan Government gave Aranese the same recognition as Catalan, so the small minority of Aranese speakers in Catalonia can communicate and do business with the Govt. in their language.
Note: only in use by the Catalan Govt. Not the Spanish Govt.
Another fun fact: the name Aran, like many place names in the western half of the Pyrenees (especially north Aragon), derives from proto-Basque languages that used to be spoken in the broad area. In particular, the name Aran comes from "haran" which means "valley", making Val d'Aran (or "Aran Valley") a tautological placename:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tautological_place_nam...
There is a similar situation in northern Italy, where there is an area known as Val di Non. Their dialect sounds as much French as Italian, even though it's south of Innsbruck, far from France.
These things seem to have one thing in common — they are areas historically isolated from one another, usually by mountains or valleys. Before cars (or even roads) were common, you could almost throw a rock at the next town over, but to actually go there would take a day or more.
Any other aranese speakers in HN?
Beth aranés més per ací?
To make the matter even more interesting, the term "Aran" is a basque toponim for "valley". So, Val d'Aran means "Valley of valley". It seems that basque was spoken there between XII and XIII according to wikipedia
ara ara
Another language that is kept in life support with the taxes of all the citizens of the country for no clear benefit to the country as a whole.
Apparently, maintaining a historical and cultural element such as a language is not worth spending a neglectable amount of tax money because... it doesn't provide monetary returns?
Nothing that we pay for with our taxes provides a monetary return. That doesn't mean we should waste money, especially in a country like Spain.
I'd argue that if a language needs to be subsidized its going to die off anyway. But whatever money has been spent on dumber things.
> Another language that is kept in life support with the taxes of all the citizens of the country for no clear benefit to the country as a whole.
Just because you don't see the benefit of the language and culture of a distinct region being maintained by its own people, doesn't mean there isn't any.
The world would certainly be worse off if we lost all the diversity in it because people only see things in terms of investment/gain but are blind to the richness of allowing people to maintain their heritage.
Besides which the only part of the article that mentions taxes is when aomeone mentioned Andorra being an independent nation and paying less taxes to be autonomous than the people of Val d'Aran pay to Spain. Additionally Catalonia, where they speak Catalan, has been trying to separate from Spain. If anything, these languages are not in "life support" at the cost of all the citizens of the nation, they are actually paying more taxes due to being a part of said nation and have all the right to keep their language- especially so given the history of the region when it comes to their treatment by "the country as a whole".
> Besides which the only part of the article that mentions taxes is when someone mentioned Andorra being an independent nation and paying less taxes to be autonomous than the people of Val d'Aran pay to Spain.
Nitpicking: Andorra doesn't "pay tax to be autonomous" to Spain, nor to France for that matters. Andorra is the oldest country in Europe whose borders haven't changed since it was created (1278). It's a tiny country but it's a sovereign country. It has its own parliament and its official language (which is neither spanish nor french but catalan).
Andorrans pay less taxes because Andorra is autonomous.
Catalonia hasn’t been trying to separate from Spain. Some Catalans have been trying to separate from Spain.
In the las regional elections party with the most votes was a non-independence party: Ciutadans.
With such chauvinistic attitude there is "no clear benefit" for tourists to visit Spain and leave money, that adds to taxes.
There is a Georgian saying for this type of behaviour: do not disgrace your whole nation(with your personal arrogant attitude).
Then I suppose the planet should just switch en masse to English or Mandarin...you know, for beneficial "efficiency" because that is the sole purpose of human existence.
This but unironically. Languages are tools for communication. If you want the best future for your children, focus on giving them access to the most widespread languages with the broadest and deepest literary cultures.
Historically, those taxes had been used to pay for wars and other acts that were used to spread Castillian in regions it was not spoken. Both in the Peninsula and South America.
Nowadays, taxpayers money funds institutions that preserve and promote Castillian.
Maybe don’t try to kill languages and life support won’t be needed.
Also, it makes more sense to spend in preserving something fragile than to promote something already popular and strong.
I am inclined to think it is not the taxpayers money that you are after
A classic of Spanish nationalism: produce laws/actions that create obstacles in the use of other languages, leading to Spanish being overwhelmingly used. Then those asymmetries in use are utilized to justify other laws that further deepen the inequality.
Maybe look on that as compensation for decades of suppression by the central government?
By this train of logic, Greece should bulldoze the Acropolis and turn it into a hotel.
The Acropolis benefits the nation of Greece significantly. If this is the reductio, I guess the point stands.