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Valencian (valencià) is the historical, traditional, and official name used in the Land of Valencia (Spain) to refer to the language spoken therein, originated in the old Kingdom of Valencia. There official regulation states Valencian is also known as Catalan (català) in the Spanish Autonomous Communities of Catalonia, Aragon and the Balearic Islands; in the country of Andorra; in the southern French region of the Roussillon; and in the Italian city of Alghero on the island of Sardinia. Valencian is also the name used by linguists to identify one of the most important dialectal varieties within the Catalan language spoken in central and southern Valencia.

According to the "Law of Use and Education of Valencian" approved in 1982, Valencian is the Land of Valencia's own language, and its citizens have the right to know it and to use it, both orally and in written form, in private or public instances. According to the last survey made by the Generalitat Valenciana in June 2005, approximately 94% of the Valencian population could understand it, 78% could speak and read it, and around 50% could write it.

There is consensus amongst linguists that Valencian is the name for the Catalan language which is spoken in the Land of Valencia. The word is also used to refer to the dialect of this territory to differentiate it from the Catalan language as a whole, or from the "Catalan of Barcelona" (Central Catalan group of varieties). In this sense it can be considered a dialect of the Western Catalan variety (Bloc occidental -see for more details Catalan language-), which also includes the varieties of La Franja, Andorra, Lleida province and the southern half of Tarragona province.

An important subgroup of those linguists, mostly from the local official language academy (Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua), has recently proposed to also use this name to refer to the language as a whole, including the entire Catalan-speaking area, stating a concept of two names for one language (synonym). This linguistic and political concept isn't unique. As stated in the Statute of Autonomy of the Region of Valencia, there is another official language, Spanish, which is also used under another name, Castilian (see names given to the Spanish language, for further information).

Note that this is a list of features of the main forms of Valencian as a group of dialectal varieties that differ from those of other Catalan dialects, particularly from the Central or literary varieties of the language. For more general information on the features of the Valencian language, see Catalan language. Note also that there is a great deal of variety within the Land of Valencia, and by no means do the features below apply to every speaker.

• A system of 7 stressed vowels /a/ /e/ /ɛ/ /i/ /o/ /ɔ/ u/, reduced to 5 in unstressed position (/e/ /ɛ/ > [e], /o/ /ɔ/ > [o]) (a feature shared with North-Western Catalan and Ribagorçan), though some very small sub-dialects reduce unstressed /o/, /u/ and /ɔ/ into [u], like most Eastern Catalan varieties.
• In general, use of modern forms of the determinate article (el, els) and the 3rd person unstressed object pronouns (el, els), though some sub-dialects (for instance the one spoken in Vinaròs area) have lo, los as in Lleida. For the other unstressed object pronouns, etymological old forms (me, te, se, ne, mos, vos...) can be found, depending on places, in conjunction with the more modern ones (em, et, es, en)
• Valencian has preserved in most of its subdialects the mediaeval prepalatal affricates [dʒ],[tʃ] in contexts where other modern dialects have developed fricatives [ʒ] or [ʃ] (feature shared with modern Ribagorçan)
• Most Valencian varieties preserve the final stop in the groups [mp] [nt] [ŋk] [lt] (feature shared with modern Balearic). The sub-dialect spoken in Benifaió and Almussafes, some 20 km south of Valencia, remarks these final consonants.
• Valencian is the only modern variant that articulates etymological final [r] in all contexts, although this cannot be generalized since there are valencian sub-dialects which do not articulate the final [r] or only articulate it in some contexts.
• Valencian preserves the mediaeval system of demonstratives with three different levels of demonstrative precision (este or aquest/açò/ací, eixe or aqueix/això/aquí, aquell/allò/allí or allà) (feature shared with modern Ribagorçan and Tortosí.)
• Valencian has -i- as theme vowel for incoative verbs of the 3rd conjugation este servix (this one serves) (like North-Western Catalan), although, again, this cannot be generalized since there are valencian sub-dialects which pronounce an -ei- (aquest serveix)
• An exclusive feature of Valencian is the subjunctive imperfect morpheme /ra/: que ell vinguera (that he might come).
• Several variations for nosaltres, vosaltres (we, you):mosatros, moatros, natros, vosatros, voatros, valtros.
• Numbers: Huit, deneu, xixantahuit, doscentes, milló, quint, sext, vigesim for vuit, dinou, seixanta-vuit, dues-centes, milió, cinqué, sisé, vinté.
• Amb (with) is pronounced as "en" more often than in other dialects.
• Meua, teua, seua for meva, teva, seva (a feature shared with North-Western Catalan)
• Gemination or dropping of D in some contexts
• Hui for avui.

Some other features, such as the use of molt de or the lack of hom or geminate L, are often given as examples of differences between Valencian variety and other forms of the language. However, these are actually differences between colloquial and literary language, and, again, are not true of certain sub-dialects. In fact, northern and southern variants of Valencian share more features with Eastern Catalan than with central Valencian; for this reason most of the features listed previously do not apply to them. As we have seen, the central and capital city area of Valencian suffers the most from Castilian influence, one of the causes of these differences.

• Northern Valencian: spoken only in the northern part of the province of Castelló in towns like Benicarló or Vinaròs, the area of Matarranya in Aragon (province of Teruel), and a southern border area of Catalonia surrounding Tortosa, in the province of Tarragona. Final "r" isn't pronounced in infinitive ("kan'ta" instead of "kan'tar" is pronounced) and old articles "lo, los" are used instead of "el, els" (lo xic, los hòmens).
• Castellonenc: spoken in an area surroinding the city of Castelló de la Plana. Main feature easy to recognise is the use of "e" sound instead of standard "a" (Als matins ell "cante" en la dutxa" instead of ell canta - He sings in the shower in the morning).
• Central or apitxat, spoken in Valencia city and its area. This is not taken as standard by the Valencian TV or radio. Apitxat has two distinct features:
  • All voiced sibillants get unvoiced (that is, apitxat pronounces ['tʃove] ['kasa] (young man, house), where other Valencians would pronounce ['dʒove], ['kaza]) (feature shared with Ribagorçan)
  • It preserves the strong simple past, which has been substituted by an analytic past with VADERE + infinitive in the rest of modern Catalan variants (the simple past is still preserved incomplete in Eivissa). For example "ahir aní a passejar" instead of "ahir vaig anar a passejar" (I went for a walk yesterday).
• Southern: spoken in the counties between the province of Valencia and the province of Alicante. The main feature is vowel harmony (harmonia vocàl·lica): the final syllable of a disyllabic word adopts a preceding open E or O if the final vowel is A. For example, "terra" [tɛrɛ] (earth or land), "porta" [pɔɾtɔ] (door) or "dona" [dɔnɔ] (woman).
• Alacantí: spoken in most of the province of Alacant, and the area of Carxe in the province of Murcia shares many features with Eastern Catalan.

• Barracks, from barraca, used for several kinds of buildings.

There is a theory on the origin of Valencian, stating that is that Catalan was brought to the territories that became the Kingdom of Valencia during the Reconquista. While Castile moved south conquering New Castile and Andalusia, the Aragonese and Catalan settlers from the Crown of Aragon came and conquered Valencia. The supporters of this theory state that most of these settlers came from South-West Catalonia. However, the Aragonesse Professor Antonio Ubieto Arteta in his book Origenes del Reino de Valencia, which is a reliable and independet source based on the numbers from El llibre dels repartiments (the major conquest book by James I the Conqueror) shows how the percentage of immigration from Catalonia is only 5 % of the total immigration, during the conquest and the subsequent XIV and XV centuries. The population of Valencia remained 70 % the original Mozarabic, 11 % the rest of Castile, 10 % from the Crown of Aragon and 7 % from foreign countries. Therefore the theory of a mainstream of settlers coming from Catalonia is at least questionable.

Maria Josep Cuenca, lecturer at the Department of Catalan Language Studies (note the name) of the University of Valencia, in her book El valencià és una llengua different? (ISBN 84-8131-452-8), notes that the number of people identifying with their Autonomous Community rather than with Spain is actually greater in Castile-La Mancha than in the Land of Valencia. This is perhaps surprising to some people that want Valencia to be one of the països catalans or Catalan countries, a so-wanted dream of the Catalonian nationalist parties, that has never ever existed before in the history. There is obviously a complicated mixture of feelings of belonging due to various historical events, as some batles between Kingdom of Valencia and County of Catalonia arround 1426, or the penetration of Valencian language in Catalonia through the Lleida trading route during the XVI and XVII centuries (see the introduction to Diccionari Historic del Idioma Valencia Modern from Ricart Garcia Moya and references therein). The result is that the language in Valencia is normally called "Valencian", and is often held to be a separate language, whereas in the Balearic Islands, La Franja, Andorra, Alghero and Roussillon the local dialects are at least as different from the speech of Barcelona as Valencian is, and yet these speakers officially call their language Catalan. It should be noted as well that inside Catalonia itself there's a vast dialectal variety, ranging from Valencian-like dialects (North-Western Catalan) to Roussillon-like ones (Transitional Septentrional Catalan). Officially, the rules for Valencian are decided by the Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua, which follows the same rules as for the rest of the Catalan language, set by the Institut d'Estudis Catalans. There has been a lot of political controversial due to this fact (see below).

There is no mention of Valencian or Catalan or any language other than Spanish in the Spanish Constitution of 1978. The Autonomy Statute refers to the Valencian language as valencià, a name used traditionally since the fifteenth century. There is a private association called Lo Rat Penat that campaigns for Valencian as a separate language with a different written norm and has firmly supported the motivated attempts of a, sometimes called "minority" of Valencian sectors (in some cases related to right-wing political parties) to split Valencian and Catalan norms apart. However, their theories are not supported by universities, which have been fed since the early XX century with right-wing catalonian parties' paid "scientists" or Romance languages "experts". This is mainly why it is generally accepted the unity of the language during most of its existence.

In fact, the debate between the autonomy or heteronomy of Valencian, often with a political background, was re-started recently during the Spanish transition to democracy in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Prior to that, the Franco government had suppressed all languages other than Castilian in Spain. More than twenty years later, there is no controversy as this issue is near to be resolved in official terms, since the Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua agreed unanimously in a report made on February 9th 2005 that Valencian is a language with its own entity and shared with Catalonia, Balearic Islands and Andorra. In spite of this, there is presently a part of Valencian public opinion, mostly from Valencia city and its metropolitan area, that believes in the idea that Valencian is a separate language, distinct from Catalan. This belief, which is not supported by linguistic research, mainly funded and intruded by the Generalitat de Catalunya (even in the Valencian universities), is mixed from political viewpoints that see Catalonia as an overbearing or even imperialistic force, and also from mostly, but not only, right-wing parties who fear a common union between Catalonia and Valencia in order to split from the Spanish state.

However, all the chairs in the Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua and other organisms are designated by the local government of Valencia, which is now held by the right-wing People's Party (PP). It is well know the two main spanish parties are the PP and the left-wing Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE). However, always since the democracy in Spain, these two parties have needed the support from Catalonian parties to govern Spain. Therefore, concessions to the Catalonian nationalist politicians, in the past from the PP to Convergència i Unió (CIU) and in the present from PSOE to Partido Socialista de Cataluña (PSC) and his left-wing republican partners as Esquerra Republicana de Cataluña (ERC) have been a reality, also in the Valencian-Catalonian language conflict. Therefore it is reasonable to doubt up to some extent on the independence of organisms as the Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.

The latest political controversy regarding Valencian occurred on the occasion of the approval of the European Constitution in 2004. The Spanish government supplied the EU with translations of the text into Basque, Catalan, Galician, and Valencian, but the Catalan and Valencian versions were nearly identical. While professing the unity of the Catalan language, the Spanish government claimed to be constitutionally bound to produce distinct Catalan and Valencian versions because the Statute of the Autonomous Community of Valencia calls the regional language "Valencian", while those of Catalonia and the Balearic Islands call the regional language "Catalan" (even though in the Balearic Islands, the language is also often called "mallorquí", "menorquí", "eivissenc", or "formenterer" depending on the island — Mallorca, Menorca, Eivissa or Formentera).

Those theories that claim Valencian is an independent language from Catalan are mostly based on disputing the origin of the language in Valencia.

One of the most widespread theories maintains that Valencian primarily evolved from the Romance language spoken by local inhabitants, Mozarabic, even after the conquest of the former Al-Andalus territories. Later on, this language would have acquired words from Catalan, Provençal, Aragonese or Castilian until the present day. However, this theory is not supported by the evidence we have of Mozarabic, chiefly toponymic; place-names which originated in Mozarabic, such as Campos, do not share the linguistic features of Valencian.

An alternative theory proposes that Valencian, alongside Catalan, originated directly from Old Occitan. This would have arrived in Valencia with the court of the conqueror King James I of Aragon, since he was born in Montpellier (Occitania) and this was also the language in vogue among troubadours. However, it must be noted that at the time of the Reconquest of Valencia, Catalan and Occitan were in fact sometimes referred to as the same language (or the same family of dialects) by many, under the name of Lemosin or Provençal and sharing a single poetic tradition, although, when spoken, they were different; Catalan troubadours knew they weren't writing the same as they spoke; and there are texts previous to James I, such as the Homilies d'Organyà, which are clearly Catalan as opposed to Occitan.

Supporters of these theories criticise the current Valencian standard promulgated by the Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua because such supporters regard the Valencian Standard as some kind of hybrid with a theoretically distinct Catalan.

• Sanchis i Guarner, Manuel (1934, 1967). La llengua dels valencians. 3i4 Editions, Valencia 2005. ISBN 84-7502-082-8 .
• Valor i Vives, Enric (1973). Curs mitjà de gramàtica catalana, referida especialment al País Valencià. Grog Editions, València 1999. ISBN 84-85211-45-6 .
• Salvador i Gimeno, Carles (1951). Gramàtica valenciana. Associació Cultural Lo Rat Penat. Valencia 1995. ISBN 84-85211-71-5 .
• Salvador i Gimeno, Carles (1963). Valencians i la llengua autòctona durant els segles XVI, XVII i XVIII. Institució Alfons el Magnànim. València. ISBN 84-370-5334-X.
• Colomina i Castanyer, Jordi, (1995). Els valencians i la llengua normativa. Textos universitaris. Alacant: Institut de Cultura "Juan Gil-Albert". ISBN 84-7784-178-0.
• Ubieto Arteta, Antonio (1923, 1990), Orígenes del Reino de Valencia. Zaragoza 1979, ISBN 84-7013-154-0.
• Garcia Moya, Ricart (1942), Diccionari Historic del Idioma Valencia Modern, Valencia 2006, ISBN 84-934687-5-4

• Official references
  • Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua
  • Valencian dictionary
  • Ethnologue report for the Valencian language
  • Institut Joan Lluís Vives
• Unofficial normatives:
  • Real Acadèmia de Cultura Valenciana
  • Language section of the Real Acadèmia de Cultura Valenciana
  • Llengua Valenciana Si
• Documents and references
  • Template:Es icon Disputing theories about Valencian origin
  • The origins and evolution of language secessionism in Valencia. An analysis from the transition period until today
  • Template:Es icon Journal articles from Ricart Garcia Moya