alright, i've been doing some reading, and have found that there are four different languages of Spain...i'm slightly worried about this. What is the difference between them? Do they share a common thred? I can understand some italian, because I know Spanish, is it like that? or are they totally different?

Good question!
The main four languages are:
-Spanish
-Catalan
-Galego
-Basque

The three first are derived from latin and are similar, the most different is Catalan, it would be harder for you to understand, but like Italian, it's strongly related to Spanish.
Galego shares some similarities with Portuguese but it is easily understood.

But Basque... that's another matter!
Basque (Euskera) is unrelated to any language in Europe...well, to any language in the world BTW.
It's believed that it's a very ancient language.
And there is NO WAY you can understand it.

Example: Good night--->
Spanish: Buenas noches
Catalan: Bona nit
Galego: Boas noites
BASQUE: GABON

Hey...WorriedaboutSpain...You forgot about

Aranese (spoken in the Valle D'Aran, Catalunya)
Aragonese (Spoken in Aragon)
Leonese (spoken in Castilla y Leon)
Asturian(u)(spoken in the Principality of Asturia)



Don't worry...these are all local Latin-based languages used in private conversations...

Don't be sorry worried about Spain...it will be fine...

By the way, aranese, aragonese, leonese and Bable (asturian) are not languages, but dialects from catalonian(in the case of aranese) or spanish (the rest). They don't have the entity of languages due to the lack of own vocabulary and literature.

In medieval times there were thses languages in the Iberian Peninsula: Galaico-portuguese, astur-leonese, castilian, basque, navarre-aragonese and catalonian. Every language (except basque) developed to the south with the defeat of moslem kingdoms.

Castilian spread through comerce to the nearby regions. The dialect spoke in Asturias (bable) is what remains of astur-leonese, but the base is that of castilian (spanish). Navarre-aragonese has dissapear, though people from Aragon and east Navarre still have certain words and gramatical constructions taken from that ancient language.

As for aranese, it is a variety of catalonian that has evolved in a distinct way than the rest of catalonian language. Still, it is a dialect of a common language, the same way there are dialects of lathyn (spanish castilian, catalonian, galician, french, italian,...).

Fernando

Don't be worried. Everybody speak spanish(castellano) even if they have a local lenguage.

Hi!

Bable (Asturian) is a language itslef, with literature and vocabulary. Indeed, there's a Language Academy which preserves the language:

Bable

Nonetheless, Bable is not included in our constitution as an official language. Anyway, English is not included neither but it doesn't mean that it's not a language, does it?

Aranese is an old Langue D'Oc dialect; thus it's somehow similar to Català. It's the same thing with Aragonese.

Bable is not a language. And I don't mean to insult anyone.

It is a dialect of castilian and its roots come from the ancient medieval language called astur-leonese. It has had almost no literature for centuries, remaining a dialect spoken in some localized zones of Asturies.

Fernando

Hi Fernando.

You don't insult anyone ; but it's your personal opinion. There are hundreds of reasons to consider Bable a language.

I suppose you're quoting directly from the RAE when it says that Bable is a dialectical variant of the old Astur-Leonese (not Castillian), but as a professor from my university (UCM) used to say: "the RAE doesn't normally go beyond Castillian" and she was being ironic since she could have said Spanish instead.

The tendency nowadays is to become more accurate (Descriptive Linguistics) with languages. In fact, the term dialect has sometimes been criticised for several reasons, but I'm not going deeper into this topic.

Human Language is nothing but a set of sounds, rules, etc... that we use in order to communicate. It entails some cultural aspects too. But if we follow the RAE's own description; Bable, although it's labelled as dialect, should be considered a language, isn't it contradictory? Yes Indeed.

The fact that it has had almost no literature for centuries doesn't mean anything. I could start mentioning hundreds of Languages which lack, not only literature, but a written code as well. That concept is related to Prescriptive and Diachronic Linguistics and is considered old-fashioned.


Bable is not a dialect from Castillian. In the Middle Ages there was a period of Diglossia between Castillian and Bable; linguistically speaking, this would mean that they were different languages. Thus, if we had to keep on using the term dialect, we'd better say that Bable is a dialect from Astur-Leonese due to the fact that Bilinguism takes place between two different languages.

It's a bit messy because you're playing around with the term dialect and mixing Astur-Leonese with Castillian and Bable.

I know it's hard to believe, but the RAE has changed its views upon words constantly and it will go on like this because languages are constantly "evolving".
Decades ago Català was not even considered a proper language. Now, if we know that Bable has a lingusitc corpus, a thesaurs, a lexicon, dictionaries, a grammar, morphological and morphosintactical rules (essays on it), a group of speakers, it's institutionalised (Language Academy, Universities, Newspapers, etc), literature, historical background and variants within it, what else do we need? .

The problem here is that I can only see it from a linguistc point of view.

I think both Amleth and Fernando bring up some very interesting points on what exactly constitutes a language and what constitutes a dialect. It is true that many languages today were once considered dialects basically because the dominant language's speakers said so. The fact that Catalan and Gallego had a history as old as Castilian didn't seem to make a difference. Believe it or not, in Madrid there are still people who consider these two (and even Basque!) dialects when they are official languages in Spain.

On the other hand, the fact that the national government hasn't given a certain language the status of a language does not mean it isn't one. Ironically, the government actually did the exact opposite with valenciano. "Valenciano" is simply the name in Valencia for Catalan, but for a number of reasons (politics being one of them), it was given a separate distinction. When the European constitition was translated into the five official languages of Spain, the Catalan version and the Valencian one were literally identical! They share the same grammar. If anything, assuming there are some differences between the two, you could argue that Valenciano is merely a dialect of Catalan, and yet it was called a different language up until a few months ago.

Bable may possess characteristics of both. Many don't consider it a language, but that doesn't necessarily mean it isn't one. It's equally valid to say that just because the Academia de la LLingua Asturiana says it's a language doesn't necessarily mean it is. I can see Castilian there, I can see Gallego. Then I can see words that are typically Asturian. But I do agree with Amleth in that today there are a lot of factors that experts consider before whether a dialect is a language or not. Its history, evolution, grammatical uniqueness, literature, etc.

I'm inclined to think that there is enough personality in Bable to say it's its own language, but in a practical everyday sense there must be lots of dialectual differences from town to town making it hard to pin down where the real language is actually spoken. But this is a huge subject and I could go on forever...so I'll pass the ball back to one of you.

Just two more things:
You've all forgotten to mention the often overlooked Extremeño, "language/dialect" spoken in Extremadura and whose roots go back to Gallego and Astur-leonés.

Also, today (May 17th) is Día Das Letras Galegas celebrating the Galician language and its literary legacy. Un brindis pola lingua galega!

Funnily enough, bable is official not in Spain but in Portugal where it is known as "llingua mirandesa".