page_title: Valencian language
section_title: Valencian subdialects
hierarchical_section_title: Valencian language / Varieties of Valencian / Valencian subdialects
context_page_description: Valencian or Valencian language is the official, historical and traditional name used in the Valencian Community, and extra-officially in the El Carche comarca in Murcia, to refer to the Romance language also known as Catalan. The Valencian Community's 1982 Statute of Autonomy and the Spanish Constitution officially recognise Valencian as the regional language.
  As a glottonym, it is used for referring either to the language as a whole or to the Valencian specific linguistic forms. According to philological studies, the varieties of this language spoken in the Valencian Community and El Carche cannot be considered a dialect restricted to these borders: the several dialects of Valencian belong to the Western group of Catalan dialects. Valencian displays transitional features between Ibero-Romance languages and Gallo-Romance languages. Its similarity with Occitan has led many authors to group it under the Occitano-Romance languages.
context_section_description: Transitional Valencian (valencià de transició or tortosí): spoken only in the northernmost areas of the province of Castellón 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.
  Word-initial and postconsonantal /dʒ/ (Catalan /ʒ/ and /dʒ/~/ʒ/) alternates with [(j)ʒ] intervocalically; e.g. joc [ˈdʒɒk] 'game', but pitjor [piˈʒo] 'worse', boja [ˈbɒjʒa] 'crazy' (Standard Valencian /ˈdʒɔk/, /piˈdʒoɾ/; /ˈbɔdʒa/; Standard Catalan /ˈʒɔk/, /piˈdʒo/ and /ˈbɔʒə/).
  Final ⟨r⟩ [ɾ] isn't pronounced in infinitives; e.g. cantar [kanˈta] (instead of /kanˈtaɾ/) 'to sing'.
  Archaic articles lo, los ('the') are used instead of el, els; e.g. lo xic 'the boy', los hòmens 'the men'.
  Northern Valencian (valencià septentrional or castellonenc): spoken in an area surrounding the city of Castellón de la Plana.
  Use of [e] sound instead of standard ⟨a⟩ /a/ in the third person singular of most verbs; e.g. (ell) cantava [ˈkantave] (instead of /kanˈtava/) 'he sang'. Thus, Northern Valencian dialects contrast forms like (jo) cantava [kanˈtava] 'I sang' with (ell) cantava [kanˈtave] 'he sang', but merges (jo) cante [ˈkante] 'I sing' with (ell) canta [ˈkante] 'he sings'.
  Palatalization of  ⟨ts⟩ /ts/ > [tʃ] and ⟨tz⟩ /dz/ > [dʒ]; e.g. pots /ˈpots/ > [ˈpotʃ] 'cans, jars, you can', dotze /ˈdodze/ > [ˈdodʒe] 'twelve'.
  Depalatalization of /ʃ/ to [sʲ]; e.g. caixa [ˈkajʃa] > [ˈkajsʲa] 'box'.
  Central Valencian (valencià central or apitxat), spoken in Valencia city and its area, but not used as standard by the Valencian media.
  Sibilant merger: all voiced sibilants are devoiced (/dʒ/ > [tʃ], /dz/ > [ts], /z/ > [s]); that is, apitxat pronounces casa [ˈkasa] ('house') and joc [ˈtʃɒk] ('game'), where other Valencians would pronounce /ˈkaza/ and /ˈdʒɔk/ (feature shared with Ribagorçan).
  Betacism, that is the merge of /v/ into /b/; e.g. viu [ˈbiw] (instead of /ˈviw/) 'he lives'.
  Fortition (gemination) and vocalisation of final consonants; nit [ˈnitːë] (instead of /ˈnit/) 'night'.
  It preserves the strong simple past, which has been substituted by an analytic past (periphrastic past) with vadere + infinitive in the rest of modern Catalan and Valencian variants. For example, aní instead of vaig anar 'I went'.
  Southern Valencian (valencià meridional): spoken in the contiguous comarques located in the southernmost part of the Valencia province and the northernmost part in the province of Alicante. This subdialect is considered as Standard Valencian.
  Vowel harmony: the final syllable of a disyllabic word adopts a preceding open ⟨e⟩ [æ] or ⟨o⟩ [ɒ] if the final vowel is an unstressed  -⟨a⟩ or -⟨e⟩; e.g. terra [ˈtæræ] ('earth, land'), dona [ˈdɒnɒ] ('woman').
  This subdialect retain geminate consonants (⟨tl⟩ /lː/ and ⟨tn⟩ /nː/); e.g. guatla [ˈɡwalːa] 'quail', cotna [ˈkonːa] 'rind'.
  Weak pronouns are "reinforced" in front of the verb (em, en, et, es, etc.) contrary to other subdialects which maintains "full form" (me, ne, te, se, etc.).
  Alicante Valencian (valencià alacantí): spoken in the southern half of the province of Alicante, and the area of Carche in Murcia.
  Intervocalic /d/ elision in most instances; e.g. roda [ˈrɒa] 'wheel', nadal [naˈal] 'Christmas'.
  Yod is not pronounced in ⟨ix⟩ /jʃ/ > [ʃ]; e.g. caixa [ˈkaʃa] 'box'.
  Final ⟨r⟩ isn't pronounced in infinitives; e.g. cantar [kanˈta] 'to sing'.
  There are some archaisms like: ans instead of abans 'before', manco instead of menys 'less', dintre instead of dins 'into' or devers instead of cap a 'towards'.
  There are more interferences with Spanish than other dialects: assul (from azul) instead of blau (or atzur) 'blue', llimpiar (from limpiar) instead of netejar 'to clean' or sacar (from sacar) instead of traure 'take out'.
caption: Subdialects of Valencian