Aragonese

Last Updated: 2020-06-25

Background

Language family: Indo-European / Italic / Romance / Italo-Western / Western / Pyrenean-Mozarabic / Pyrenean

• Aragonese is spoken in Portugal and Spain.

Phonology

Consonants

	Place of Articulation
Manner of Articulation	Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar
Stops	p b	t̪ d̪				k ɡ
Affricates				tʃ
Fricatives	f	θ	s	ʃ
Nasals	m		n		ɲ
Flaps			ɾ
Trills			r
Approximants			l		ʝ ʎ
Note: For phonemes that share a cell, those on the left are voiceless and those on the right are voiced. Both palatal approximants are voiced, but the one on the right is lateral.

Vowels

• There is an abundance of diphthongs and triphthongs in Aragonese; however it is unclear how they are treated (e.g. as complex phonemes or sequences). Mott (2007) explains that in order to preserve the CV syllable structure, thus avoiding "vowels in hiatus," diphthongs and triphthongs are present whenever juxtaposing vowels are in succession (pp. 108-110). On the other hand, Estudio de Filología Aragonesa (2017) explains that consecutive juxtaposing vowels are not always part of the same syllable, implying that vowel combinations can merely be sequences (p. 4). Because of this ambiguity, diphthongs and triphthongs will not be represented in the rules.

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		u
Mid	e		o
Low		a

Alphabet

• ⟨k⟩, ⟨j⟩, and ⟨w⟩ appear in loanwords (Ledgeway 2016, 393–95).
• Stress is denoted by accented vowels; however, we have chosen not to account for stress, so accented vowels will be transcribed to their plain counterparts.

Grapheme	Phoneme	Comment
a	/a/
b	/b/
c	/k/; /θ/	/θ/: preceding front vowels
d	/d̪/
e	/e/
f	/f/
g	/ɡ/
h	∅
i	/i/
l	/l/
m	/m/
n	/n/
o	/o/
p	/p/
r	/r/; /ɾ/	/r/: word-initially
s	/s/
t	/t̪/
u	/u/
v	/b/
x	/ʃ/	may be realized as [ks]
y	/ʝ/
z	/θ/
Digraph
ch	/tʃ/
gu	/ɡ/; /ɡu/	/ɡ/: preceding front vowels; /ɡu/ preceding back vowels
gü	/ɡu/	preceding front vowels
ll	/ʎ/
ny	/ɲ/
qu	/k/; /ku/	/k/: preceding front vowels; /ku/ preceding back vowels
qü	/ku/	preceding front vowels
rr	/r/
tz	/θ/	word-finally

Lenition Rules

• /k/ is often deleted word-finally (Sánchez Pitarch 2010, 5).
• Voiced stops become fricatives between vowels (Mott 2007, 104–5).
• /d/ is often deleted completely between vowels (ibid.).
• In syllable-final positions, /s/ may become voiced preceding voiced consonants (Ledgeway 2016, 389).

Misc. Rules

• Very often, the voiced approximants in Chistabino are reduced to zero by assimilation to following consonants, as in "ilesia" [i'lesja] ("church") (Mott 2007, 105).
• Nasal consonants assimilate to the place of articulation of the following obstruent (Mott 2007, 106).
• /l/ assimilates to the place of the following interdental, dental, or palatalized consonant (Mott 2007, 7).

References

Estudio de Filología Aragonesa. 2017. Gramatica Basica de L’Aragonés (Texto Provisional). Zaragoza: Edicions Dichitals de l’Academia de l’Aragonés. http://www.academiadelaragones.org/GBA.pdf.

Ledgeway, Adam. 2016. The Oxford Guide to the Romance Languages. OUP Oxford. https://www.ebook.de/de/product/28784977/adam_ledgeway_the_oxford_guide_to_the_romance_languages.html.

Mott, Brian. 2007. “Chistabino (Pyrenean Aragonese).” Journal of the International Phonetic Association 37 (1): 103–14. www.jstor.org/stable/44526451.

Sánchez Pitarch, Fernando. 2010. Propuesta Ortografica de L’Academia de L’Aragonés. l’Academia de l’Aragonés.