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Murcian (endonym: murciano) is a variant of Peninsular Spanish, spoken mainly in the autonomous community of Murcia and the adjacent comarcas of Vega Baja del Segura and Alto Vinalopó in the province of Alicante (Valencia), and the corridor of Almansa in Albacete (Castile–La Mancha). In a greater extent, it may also include some areas that were part of the former Kingdom of Murcia, such as southeastern Albacete (now part of Castile–La Mancha) and parts of Almería, Jaén and Granada (now part of Andalusia).
Murcian linguistically borders Valencian (Catalan language) and other Southern Peninsular Spanish varieties. The linguistic varieties of Murcian form a dialect continuum with Eastern Andalusian and Manchego Peninsular Spanish.
Murcian is considered a separate language from Spanish by some of its native speakers and by proponents of Murcianism, who call it llengua murciana. En difensa la llengua murciana. Llengua maere. Llengua maere The term panocho is also used to designate the Murcian language; however it mostly refers to the variety spoken in the comarca of the Huerta de Murcia.
| + Consonants of Murcian |
Like in most Iberian languages and dialects, become lenition to approximants or in syllable onsets, after continuants (exceptions include after lateral consonants): → , → , → .
The most notable characteristics of a Murcian accent involve the heavy reduction of syllable-final consonants, as well as the frequent loss of from the suffixes -ado/-ada, -ido/-ida. No non-nasal consonants are permitted in word-final position. As is typical of Spanish, syllable-final nasals are neutralized, and assimilate to the place of articulation of a following consonant. In Murcian, as in many other varieties, the word-final nasal is typically realized as a velar when not followed by a consonant.
Non-liquid, non-nasal postvocalic consonants in the syllable coda assimilate to both the place and the manner of articulation of the following consonant, producing a geminate. For instance, historical , and all fall together as , rendering cacto ('cactus'), capto ('I understand'), and casto ('chaste') homophonous as . Historical also joins this neutralization, rendering sexta ('sixth' f.) homophonous with secta ('sect') as . Other historical postvocalic clusters affected by this include , in each case producing a geminated second element: (with being an alternative to ). This produces minimal pairs differentiated by consonant length, such as cisne ('swan') vs. cine ('cinema'). This process also occurs across word boundaries, as in los nenes ('the kids').
Syllable-final can assimilate to a following or , while syllable-final may assimilate to a following and become a tapped before any other consonant.
In casual speech, syllabic coda is never pronounced as a sibilant . It is usually elided entirely or forms part of a geminate, although in areas bordering Andalusia it may be Debuccalization, pronounced as an . In older working-class rural speech, syllable-final surfaces as before word-initial consonants (particularly the voiced plosives and ), as in los vasos ('the glasses'). are lenited after this allophone. The replacement of with is perceived as a very marked feature of rural Murcian, and it is disapproved of by the local population.
The phones (phon. ), and the rare are frequently elided in word-final position: pared ('wall'), vez ('time') and reloj ('clock'). Other elisions include final (often reflected in the Spanish orthography as carnet → carné 'ID card / driving licence') and variably the rest of final (found mainly in loanwords).
The vowels and have as non-vocalic correlates the semivowels (glides) and (also represented as and ), respectively, which form a diphthong.
Further notes:
| + Vowels of Murcian |
The vowel system of Murcian is essentially the same as many parts of Andalusian (especially its Eastern provinces).
The open-mid vowels as well as the open front are realizations of (where stands for any consonant other than or ) in the syllable coda. Due to vowel harmony, the close-mid and the open central (hereafter transcribed without the diacritic) are banned from occurring in any syllable preceding that with . This change is sometimesE.g. by called vowel opening, but this is completely inaccurate for the – pair, in which the main difference is backness ( is more front than ). Thus, the contrast between mañanas and the singular form mañana ('morning') surfaces as a contrast of vowel quality: (plural) vs. (singular), rather than the presence of terminal in the former word.
Some authors have questioned whether the opening of the high vowels (to ,) is significant (cfr., e.g., Zubizarreta, 1979, Poch / Llisterri, 1986, Sanders, 1994), while others argue that, although the opening is less than in the case of middle and low vowels, it is entirely relevant (cfr., e.g., Alonso / Canellada / Zamora Vicente, 1950, Mondéjar, 1979, Alarcos, 1983). In any case, the opening of these final high vowels also triggers vowel harmony.
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