Mirandese language
The
Mirandese language (autonym:
Lhéngua Mirandesa;
Portuguese:
Língua Mirandesa) is sparsely spoken in a small area of northeastern
Portugal, in
Miranda do Douro municipality. The
Portuguese Parliament granted it co-official recognition (along with
Portuguese language) for local matters on
17 September,
1998 with the law 7/99 of
29 January,
1999.
Mirandese has a distinct
phonology,
morphology and
syntax, and has been distinct at least since the formation of Portugal (
12th century). It has its roots in the spoken
Latin of the north of the
Iberian Peninsula (Portuguese developed in the northwest). It is a descendant of the ancient
Leonese language of northern
Iberia, the last remnant of the ancient language of the
Kingdom of León., and closely related to modern
Astur-Leonese. However, these
amalgamations in the Spanish territory did not affect Mirandese, which preserves distinct linguistic differences in relation to both
Portuguese and Spanish. It shares a great deal of lexicon with regional Portuguese dialects.
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 the language is taught to students between the age of 10 and 11, and the language 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 (i.e. Vilar Seco & 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.
Three variants of the Mirandese language exist: "Border Mirandese", "Central Mirandese" and "Sendinês Mirandese". Most speakers of Mirandese also speak Portuguese; some of these speak Spanish as well. Picote (
Picuote in Mirandese) is the only village that is basically monolingual in Mirandese and, due to this, several news reports have been made about this village as it became a curiosity in a country that is monolingual in Portuguese.
The main differences between Mirandese in Portugal and Asturian in Spain are caused by the dominant languages in each region. Mirandese has been influenced phonetically and in lexicon by Portuguese and Asturian by Spanish. Both also have distinctive orthography that phonetically reflects the respective main national languages. Another difference is that Mirandese remains very conservative, while Asturian has changed. Both are recognized as closely-related, and in the past they were undoubtedly the same language.
*
Astur-Leonese*
Extremaduran*
Ortographic Convention for Mirandese Language (in Portuguese)
*
Ethnologue report for Miranda do Douro (Mirandese)*
Extract of the Lusiads in Mirandese*
L Mirandés: Ũa Lhéngua Minoritaira an Pertual Mirandese: A minority language in Portugal (in Mirandese)
