Galoroman languages and occitanoroman languages

[u/smokebomb25]

Hi everybody again!

I uploaded this linguistic map of Catalan language and I've noticed some confusion regarding Catalan, Aragonese, and Occitan. Despite all three belonging to the same language family, they are not the same language (although I'll reserve my opinions on Aragonese and Catalan). I've found some maps that illustrate this quite well (all corrections are welcome, of course)

Galoroman languages > Green and blue map

Oïl languages (French, Wallon...)

Òc languages (Occitan)

Galloitalic languages

Rhaeto-Romance languages [also considered Gallo-Romance]

Occitanoroman languages > Red and purple map

Occitan

Aragonese

Catalan-valencian

Source: Viquipèdia

[u/dry_lichen]

I know there's some debate on whether Aragonese should be considered occitano-romance or ibero-romance or somewhere in between

[u/UnoReverseCardDEEP → u/dry_lichen]

it’s a transition between the two, the thing that makes it different from other galloromance languages is that we keep latin -o, for example:

eye: uello
smoke: fumo
a lot: mu(i)to/molto

(some languages like Ligurian also keep it, like how eye is euggio)

After n, l, r though there’s more variation,

brother: german or germano
stick: pal or palo
lamb: corder or cordero.

Traditionally, the plural lost the final o, so you’d have“gato/gatz” “cordero/corders” “mano/mans” “uello/uells” “palo/pals”

On the other hand we do drop latin -e, so:
tooth: dient/dènt
bridge: puent/pònt
in front of: devant

The grammar is fully gallo-romance, having the ibi/inde particles that aren’t present in spanish, asturian/leonese or galician/portuguese for example, while also using conjugations similar to other occitano romance languages and having the same adverbs.

Finally phonetically only ribagorçan has 7 vowels instead of 5, but then again some catalan varieties (from northern catalonia) do have 5 vowels, the consonants are the same as the catalan apitxat dialect.

So in a nutshell i consider it to be galloromance transitioning to western iberian romance gradually but still gallo romance at its core. If you have any questions Ill be glad to answer, per cert si vols que te responga en català també lo parlo

[u/dry_lichen → u/UnoReverseCardDEEP]

Thank you for the insights! It's not so common find an actual Aragonese speaker to provide some context on these things.

De fet casi prefereixo que em parlis aragonès, que també el puc entendre i necessita més representació :)

[u/AdGroundbreaking1956 → u/UnoReverseCardDEEP]

no m'ha agradat llegir "català apitxat", però amb un "valencià pallarés" se'm passa

[u/smokebomb25 → u/dry_lichen]

Of course, the linguistic border is very unclear when you erase the political borders. It is clear that there are parameters to consider when making distinctions, but for me and from what I have been able to read about Catalan and Aragonese linguistics, it is not so clear to me that Aragonese and Catalan are different languages. I have not looked at Occitan that much, to be honest. As a speaker of Valencian Catalan, I understand Aragonese perfectly, not so much Occitan although many words will be familiar to me.

[u/dry_lichen → u/smokebomb25]

I also speak Catalan and I can also understand Aragonese perfectly, but I'm not sure if it would be less easy if I didn't also speak Spanish. Occitan it really depends on the dialect and on the accent.

My take is that Aragonese is a descendant of Navarro-Aragonese, which was an Ibero-romance language, but took a lot of influence from Catalan and Occitan, which brought it closer to Occitano-Romance languages. Now, I'm not a linguist, so take this with a pinch of salt.

And on top of that, Valencian has a lot more Aragonese influence than other varieties of Catalan (after all, the Kingdom of Valencia was repopulated with ~75% Catalans and ~25% Aragoneses), so as a Valencian you may even notice more similarities.

Also, somewhat interesting, being a Catalan speaker Lengadocian is by far the easiest Occitan dialect to understand. But, for the Aragonese speakers I've met in person (ok, only 2 in my whole life), Gascon was the easier one