Valencian is the official name of the
Catalan language spoken in the
Valencian Country[?] or
Comunidad Valenciana, in
Spain.
Valencian also designs the Catalan variant spoken in the Valencian Country.
Some features of Valencian variant:
- A system of 7 stressed vowels /a,E,e,i,O,o,u/, reduced to 5 in unstressed position (/E,e/ > [e], /O,o/ > [o]) (feature shared with Nord-occidental Catalan and Ribagorçan)
- In general, use of modern forms of the determinate article (el,els) and the 3rd person unstressed object pronouns (el,els) but etymological old forms for the other unstressed object pronouns (me,te,se,ne,mos,vos...)
- Valencian has preserved medieval prepalatal afficates [dZ],[tS] in contexts where other modern dialects have developed fricatives [Z] or [jZ] (feature shared with modern Ribagorçan)
- Valencian preserves the final oclusive in the groups [mp,nt,Nk,lt] (feature shared with modern Balearic)
- Valencian is the only modern Catalan variant that preserves final [r] final in all contexts
- Valencian preserves the medieval system of demonstratives with three different deixis (este/açò/ací, eixe/això/aquí, aquell/allò/allí) (feature shared with modern Ribagorçan)
- Valencian has -i- as tematic vowel for incoative verbs of the 3rd conjugation este servix (this one serves) (like Nord-occidental Catalan)
- An exclusive feature of Valencian is the subjunctive[?] imperfect morph /ra/: que ell vinguera (that he come)
It has three main dialects:
- Septentrional: spoken in most of the province of Castellon de la Plana, and the area of Matarraña in the province of Teruel. Septentrional Valencian shares some features with Catalan of the Tortosa area, in the province of Tarragona.
- Central or apitxat, spoken in Valencia city and its area. Apitxat has two distinct features:
- All voiced sibillants get unvoiced (that is, apitxat pronounces ['tSove] ['kasa] (young man, house), where other Valencians would pronounce ['dZove], ['kaza])
- It preserves the strong simple perfect, which has been substituted by a analytic perfect with VADERE + infinitive in the rest of modern Catalan variants (simple perfect is still preserved incomplete in Ibiza).
- Meridional: spoken in most of the province of Alicante, and the area of Carxe[?] in the province of Murcia