Mirandese
| Mirandese | |
|---|---|
| Mirandés | |
| Native to | Portugal |
| Region | Northeast (Miranda do Douro, Sendim, Vimioso and Mogadouro) |
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Native speakers
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15,000 (2000) (10,000 use it regularly, 5,000 when they return to the area. 2,000 Sendinese in Sendim Vila.) |
| Official status | |
|
Official language in
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Co-official recognition. Special protection status in Miranda do Douro, Portugal. Statutory language of provincial identity in 4 municipalities, northeast Portugal (1999, Law No. 7-99 of 29 January). |
| Regulated by | Anstituto de la Lhéngua Mirandesa |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-2 | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | mira1251 |
| Linguasphere | 51-AAA-cb |
Locator map of the Miranda do Douro municipality, which harbors the vast majority of Mirandese speakers.
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The Mirandese language (autonym: mirandés or lhéngua mirandesa; Portuguese: mirandês or língua mirandesa) is an Astur-Leonese language that is sparsely spoken in a small area of northeastern Portugal in the municipalities of Miranda do Douro, Mogadouro and Vimioso. The Assembly of the Republic granted it official recognition alongside Portuguese for local matters on 17 September 1998 with the law 7/99 of 29 January 1999.
Mirandese has a distinct phonology, morphology and syntax. It has its roots in the local Vulgar Latin spoken in the northern Iberian Peninsula.
Mirandese is a descendant of the Astur-Leonese variety spoken in the Kingdom of León and has both archaisms and innovations that differentiate it from the modern varieties of Astur-Leonese spoken in Spain. In recognition of these differences, and due to its political isolation from the rest of the Astur-Leonese speaking territory, Mirandese has adopted a different written norm than the one used in Spain for Astur-Leonese. Lexically, it shares a lot of vocabulary with Portuguese.
In the 19th century, José Leite de Vasconcelos described it as "the language of the farms, of work, home, and love between the Mirandese". Since 1986–1987 it has been taught to students between the ages of 10 and 11, and so it is recovering.
Today Mirandese retains fewer than 5,000 speakers (but the number can be up to 15,000 if counting second-language speakers) in the villages of the Municipality of Miranda do Douro and in some eastern villages (such as Vilar Seco and Angueira; in Caçarelhos, it is considered recently extinct) of the Municipality of Vimioso, and some linguistic influence can be observed at other villages of the municipality of Vimioso and the municipalities of Mogadouro, Macedo de Cavaleiros and Bragança.
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Wikipedia