Extremaduran language
| Extremaduran | |
|---|---|
| estremeñu | |
| Native to | Spain |
| Region | Autonomous community of Extremadura |
| Ethnicity | 1.1 million (no date) |
|
Native speakers
|
200,000 (1994) |
|
Indo-European
|
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | extr1243 |
Extremaduran (autonym: estremeñu, IPA: [eʰtːɾeˈmeɲʊ]) is a Romance language, spoken by several hundred thousand people in Spain, in an area covering the north-western part of the autonomous community of Extremadura and adjoining areas in the province of Salamanca. It is difficult to establish the exact boundary between Extremaduran and the Spanish dialects spoken in most of Extremadura.
The linguistic varieties of Extremadura are usually classified in three main branches: Northern or "High" (artu estremeñu), Central or "Middle" (meyu estremeñu), and Southern or "Low" (baju estremeñu). The northern one is usually considered to be the language proper, and is spoken in the north-west of the autonomous region of Extremadura, and the south-west of Salamanca, a province of the autonomous region of Castile and León. The central and southern ones are spoken in the rest of Extremadura, and are not different enough from standard Spanish to be considered anything but dialects of it, since at least the 18th century.
Northern Extremaduran is also spoken in a few villages of southern Salamanca, being known there as the "palra d'El Rebollal", which is now almost extinct.
After the union of the kingdoms of León and Castile (into the "Crown of Castile and León"), the Castilian language slowly replaced Latin as the official language of the institutions, thus relegating Old Leonese to a sign of poverty and ignorance of those who spoke it. Only in Asturias, where the language was born, were people conscious of speaking a language different from Castilian, but even there only some authors used it in their writings.
It was probably the cultural upheaval of Spanish-speaking Salamanca's University that was the cause of the rapid Castilianisation of the eastern parts of this province, thus dividing the Astur-Leonese domain between Asturian, Leonese and the Extremaduran in the south of the old Leonese kingdom.
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Wikipedia