Asturian-American Migration Forum

Is the Asturian language dying? Several Asturians I've been in contact with seem convinced that there is little hope for the language's survival. One friend joked that I don't need to bother learning Asturian, since it will be gone soon. What do you think is its future? What could be done to preserve it?

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Reverso translation (tweaked by Art)

¿Muere la lengua asturiana? Varios asturianos con los que he estado en el contacto parecen convencidos que hay pocas esperanzas para la supervivencia de la lengua. Un amigo bromeó que no vale la pena aprender al asturiano, ya que desaparece pronto. ¿Qué piensas es el futuro para asturianu? ¿Qué se podría hacer para conservarlo?

Well Art I don't think that the question is whether is dying or not. Rather how do Asturian speakers (and the rest of Spanish-speaking Asturians all over) want it to go. I mean, surely, sooner or later (hopefully, later) Asturian Language will have no means to continue the uneven battle that it's fighting every day against Spanish (tv, radio, papers, net, all sorts of media) but I don't think that's the case right now (the eternal optimist that I am). The question is wheter in the short (and mid) run we can provide Asturian with enough equipment to make that extra mile.

The self-rule that Asturies' been enjoy for the past 20 years should give Asturian Language the oportunities that were denied to it for the past 1000 years. Alas, it hasn't been so, and though Asturian speech has laws that protect and promote its use the truth is that the "living speech" has deteriorated rapidly over the past 50 years.

What worries me the most is that we get to a sort of "Irish situation" where Irish is compulsory, where over a 1 million Irish people(of a total population of 5) have some knowledge of the language but less than 100,000 use it on their everyday lives.

Asturian is there. It's still alive out there. For how long? Well with no help (or similar help to what its been getting so far) probably for a few more generations. With a serious political attitude, somewhere along the line Israel's with Hebrew (in 50 years it's become the native tongue of most Israelis) Asturian might last as much as Hebrew (and that's well over 3000 years now).

Saludinos

I lived in Uvieu in 1996, and I was amazed at the amount of a comeback the language had made in the relatively short time since Franco's overdue death. Especially the young people there have much pride in being "Asturianu" rather than Spanish, and a large part of that transfers over to Bable. Of course, PP conservatives would tell you otherwise, but that's what I found when I was living there. ¡Puxa Asturies!

La verdá que pa la conservación del asturianu solo fai falta de voluntá política, se se fai llingua oficial ta salváu.

i was born in oviedo,asturias in 1975, my family are from villahormes de llanes, soon afterwards my parents left for australia. i returned in 1999 to find people my age amazed that i spoke a dying dilect, they would say you sound just like our grandparents...but since my return last summer i have found a revival of the asturian language

I'm happy to hear that asturianu is experiencing a revival. I learned a little before trevelling to Asturias for the first time (well, enough to understand the cops in Gijón who would speak only asturianu to me.). Since then, I've tried to teach myself more. It sounds like my grandparents too, who came to the EEUU in 1913.

Languages are cultural treasures that should be preserved as living things. I'm a geneticist and evoutionary biologist, not a linguist, but to me the difference between castellano and asturianu in terms of grammar and vocabulary are great enough that I would consider them separate languages rather than two dialects of the same language.

As an experiement over the last few years, I presented "Pleitu ente Uviéu y Mérida pola poseción les cenices de Santolalla" to various members of my university's Spanish Department and to students and faculty who were native speakers of Spanish. Without exception, they all had some difficulty reading it. OK, it is 17th century so maybe that was a little unfair, but there are clear difference between it an castellano of the same period.

El futuru l'asturianu pasa ensin dulda pola co-oficialidá de la l.lingua, con respeutu por tolas variantes dialeutales. You toi agora escribiendo na variante occidental enque viva no centru la rexón, en Xixón, porque la mia mai ía d'aquel.la parte. Faigo esti esfurciu porque creyo que la normalización l.lingüística nun tien facese unificando ensin más tolas variantes dialeutales nun asturianu normativu. Esto ía necesariu nun futuru, pero tal ya como ta enguanu la nuesa l.lingua nun pue ensinase un asturianu normalizáu-central nas escuelas de Tinéu por exemplu, porque esto nun sedría bien recibíu polos verdadeiros falantes espontáneos d'aquel.los conceyos.
Espero nun seya muitu difícil pa los falantes de castiel.lanu comprender lo qu'equí escribo, si ía asina, por favor, perdonaime. Outru día, con más tiempu, cambiaréilu a español ou a inglés si hai dalgún q'asina lu pidi.

Gabitones, gracias por escribir en asturiano occidental. Como tú bien dices, el futuro de nuestro habla pasa por que se respeten todas las variantes del asturiano, no por crear un idioma artificial unificado como han hecho los vascos. Según tengo entendido, se han tendio que lanzar a la labor de traducir textos antiguos en euskera auténtico a su actual engendro lingüístico (el batúa creo que se llama) para que las nuevas generaciones que ya se criaron con esta lengua normalizada lo entiendan. Manda güevos, un caso claro de destrucción de lo que se pretende conservar.

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Gabitones, thanks for writing in western Asturian. As you point out, the future normalization of our language will have to include all of its variants and not create an artificial unified language, like the Basques have done. It is my understanding that they are now having to translate ancient authentic Basque texts into their current freak language (I believe they call it batúa) so that the new generations who are growing up with this standardized new language can understand them, whereby they are clearly defeating their purpose.

There is another thread (Asturnianu -Language or dialect-) that probably address this question already but haven’t read it all yet. When did Castillian replace Asturianu in Asturias as the common language?

I’ve seen references to this happening during Franco’s regime or at least greatly influenced during that time, but I question the accuracy of this because of documents written by my Spaniard-Asturian emigrant ancestor and his relatives (brothers, uncles), they were written in Castillian and these documents were written in the late 1600's so were other legal documents, even those the clergy wrote (baptism, marriage etc). From this I would surmise that Asturianu was pretty much dead by the late 1600's and that it’s continued existence was purely coincidental due to some pockets of people in out of the way locations (keep in mind this is speculation not a statement of fact). So again, when did Castillian replace Asturianu in Asturias as the common/dominant language?

L'asturianu foi llingua del Reinu d'Asturies (sieglos VIII-X) -tresformáu llueu en Reinu de Lleón-, y ente los sieglos XIII y XIV foi llingua de l'alministración emplegada pa la redaición de fueros, lleis, ordenances y documentos notariales. La hexemonía cada vegada mayor del Reinu de Castiella n'Asturies afaló la castellanización de les capes cimeres de la sociedá, magar nun ye hasta'l sieglu XX cuando esti procesu entama a afeutar fondamente a los ámbitos populares y a facer amenorgar nellos l'emplegu de la llingua asturiana.

English:
As a resume of this text: Castillian replaced Asturian as the official language at the XIV century, but Asturian continued being the common spoken-language for the most of population until XX century. Nowdays, the most of people in cities speaks Castillian with some Asturian words, although we can find lots of Asturian-speakers in the countryside.

Castellano:
Como resumen de este texto: el castellano sustituyó al asturiano como idioma oficial en el siglo XIV, pero el asturiano continuó siendo el habla común para la mayor parte de la población hasta el siglo XX. Actualmente, la mayoría de la gente de las ciudades habla castellano con algunas palabras asturianas, aunque podemos encontrar gran número de hablantes de asturiano en la zona rural.

Asturianu d'Occidente:
Como resumen d'esti testu: el castiel.lanu sustituyóu al asturianu como l.lingua oficial nu sieglu XIV, pero l'asturianu siguióu siendo la fala común pa la mayor parte la población fasta'l sieglu XX. Enguanu, la mayoría la xente nas ciudaes fala castiel.lanu con dalgunas palabras asturianas, magar pudemos alcuntrar muitos falantes d'asturianu nu campu.

Cool beans, thank you Gabitones. Didn't know that.

You know what.... this makes me wonder... there is a document (about 6 pages long) I've been trying to decipher for the longest time and can't understand a word it says. Always thought it was the incredibly difficult calligraphy used, but maybe it wasn’t Castillian at all... can you tell if this is Asturianu? It was written in the 1500's

Thanx,

This text is written in Spanish, but as you have just said, it has an antique calligraphy that's very difficult to understand. I only can understand some words which tells something about a couple (Don Carlos and Doña Juana) and the American Province of Perú, which is called in another parts of this text Province of Nueva Castilla.
I can understand more words than these, but not enough to give sense to the sentences or to the complete document.

OK cool, that's about what I can understand, a word here and there. It is the first page on a will for the first man with my last name in Peru (we are not related he was a descendant of the house of Lomelies in Genova -Today's Italy-) when his father arrived in Spain they settled in Santander and Castillianized their last name to sound Castillian, thereafter it was spelled just like ours.

Thank you,

What was the name before it was Castilianized?

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¿Cómo se escribía el nombre antes de que se cambió para parece castellano?

This is how it was described in a booklet written about him in the 1920's

Jeronimo, no habia nacido en Es-
paña. Abrio los ojos a la luz en Genova y
pertenecia a la familia de los Lomelies o Lo-
melines, que era may antigua, noble y califi-
-cada en aquella ciudad. Posiblemente en ori-
-gen Solari, inscritos en el Libro de oro de la
Nobleza de Genova.

Since my interest in him is coincidental I have not followed it any further. I know he had children but I still don't know what ever happened to them or their descendants if any, it's like they vanished within two generations.