Balearic dialect

Balearic ( ca, balear) is the collective name for the dialects of Catalan spoken in the Balearic Islands: in Mallorca, in Ibiza and in Menorca.

At the last census, 746,792 people in the Balearic Islands claimed to be able to speak Catalan, though some of these may be speakers of mainland variants.

Dialects

The dialects spoken in the Balearic Islands are , spoken on Mallorca, on Menorca and on Ibiza and Formentera.

Features

Distinctive features of Catalan in the Balearic Islands differ according to the specific variant being spoken (Mallorcan, Menorcan, or Ibizan).

Phonetic features

;Vowels
* Most variants preserve a vocalic system of eight stressed vowels; , , , , , , , :
** The Majorcan system has eight stressed vowels , reduced to four in unstressed position.
** The Western Minorcan system has eight stressed vowels , reduced to three in unstressed position.
** The Eastern Minorcan and partly the Ibizan system have seven stressed vowels reduced to three in unstressed position (as in Central Catalan). There are differences between the dialect spoken in Ibiza Town (''eivissenc de vila'') and those of the rest of the island (''eivissenc pagès'') and Formentera (''formenterer'').
** The vowel is central in Ibizan (as most Catalan dialects), while it is front in Majorcan and Minorcan. The variant is found in Felanitx.
**The so-called " open vowels" (''vocals obertes''), and , are generally as low as in most Balearic subvarieties. The phonetic realizations of approaches (as in American English lad) and is as open as (as in traditional RP ''dog'') (feature shared with Valencian). In many Majorcan dialects can be unrounded to .
** In most of parts of Majorca, words with ante-penultimate stress ending in ''-ia'' lose the ; e.g. ''glòria'' ('glory') is pronounced as ''glòri'' .

;Consonants

Notes:
* In Majorcan and some Minorcan subvarieties and become palatal, and , before front vowels and word-finally; e.g. ''figuera'' ('fig tree').
* A phonemic distinction between and is preserved, as in Algherese and standard Valencian.
* As Central Catalan is velarized, , in all instances; e.g. ''tela'' ('fabric').
* The palatal lateral approximant is preserved, with absence of yeísmo except for the most Castilianized speakers. Nevertheless, in most of Majorcan occurs '' iodització'', that is, a parallel process to yeísmo ( merges with only in Latin-derived words with intervocalic L-palatalization: + yod (--, --), --, --, and --; e.g. ''palla'' 'straw'). Notice, this phenomenon is more restricted than yeísmo as initial L-palatalization always remains lateral in Majorcan; e.g. ''lluna'' ('moon').
* Depalatalization of syllable-final and with compensatory diphthongization in Majorcan: ''troncs'' ('logs'), ''anys'' ('years').
* Most Balearic variants preserve final stops in clusters; e.g. , , , and : ''camp'' 'field' (feature shared with modern Valencian).
* Assimilation of intervocalic clusters in some Majorcan and Minorcan subvarieties:
**;
**;
**;
**;
**;
**;
**, etc.
:Notice some of these assimilations may also occur in continental Catalan, such as : ''capmoix'' 'crestfallen'.
* Balearic variants of Catalan have the strongest tendency not to pronounce historical final in any context; e.g. ''amor'' 'love', ''cor'' 'heart'.

;Prosody
* Except in Ibiza, in combinations of verb and weak pronoun ( clitics), the accent moves to the final element; e.g. ''comprar-ne'' or (Standard Central Catalan ).

Morphosyntactic features

* Balearic preserves the ''salat'' definite article (derived from Latin ''ipse/ipsa'' instead of ''ille/illa''), a feature shared only with Sardinian among extant Romance languages, but which was more common in other Catalan and Gascon areas in ancient times. However, the ''salat'' definite article is also preserved along the Costa Brava (Catalonia) and in the Valencian municipalities of Tàrbena and La Vall de Gallinera.
*The personal article ''en''/''na'', ''n is used before personal names.
*The first person singular present indicative has a zero exponent, i.e. no visible ending. For example, what in Central Catalan would be ''jo parlo'' ('I speak') is realized as ''jo parl''.
*In verbs of the first conjugation (in ''-ar''), the first and second person plural forms end in -''am'' and -''au'' respectively. For example, ''cantam'' ('we sing'), ''cantau'' ('you pl. sing').
*Also in verbs of the first conjugation, the imperfect subjunctive is formed with -''a''-, e.g. ''cantàs'', ''cantassis''. However, the Standard Catalan forms in are nowadays also common in many places.
*In combinations of two unstressed pronouns preceding a verb, one direct with the form ''el'', ''la'', etc. and the other indirect with the form ''me'', ''te'', etc., the direct pronoun appears first. For example, ''la me dóna'' ('s/he gives it to me'), Standard Catalan ''me la dóna''.

Lexical features

*Balearic has a large quantity of characteristic vocabulary, especially archaisms preserved by the isolation of the islands and the variety of linguistic influences which surround them. The lexicon differs considerably depending on the subdialect. For example: ''al·lot'' for standard "''noi''" ('boy'), ''moix'' for "''gat''" ('cat'), ''besada'' for "''petó''" ('kiss'), ''ca'' for "''gos''" ('dog'), ''doblers'' for "''diners''" ('money'), ''horabaixa'' for "''tarda''" ('evening') and ''rata-pinyada'' for "''rat-penat''" (' bat').
*Minorcan has a few English loanwords dating back to the British occupation, such as ''grevi'' ('gravy'), ''xumaquer'' ('shoemaker'), ''boínder'' ('bow window'), ''xoc'' ('chalk') or ''ull blec'' ('black eye').

Political questions

Some in the Balearic Islands, such as the '' Partido Popular'' party member and former regional president, José Ramón Bauzà, argue that the dialects of Balearic Islands are actually separate languages and not dialects of Catalan. During the election of 2011, Bauzà campaigned against having centralized or standardized standards of Catalan in public education.http://riowang.blogspot.com/2011/10/mallorcan.html

See also

* Catalan language
* Catalan dialects
* Alguerese
* Central Catalan
* Northern Catalan
* Valencian

Notes

References

Bibliography

*

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