# Panocho/Murciano



## Pralija

I’ve just searched information about murciano (also called panocho) but I haven’t found entries in the forum.

Hence, I’ve decided to write my own thread. I don’t know how to deal with this issue. Do you consider it a language or rather a dialect? I think that its lack of recognition by the autonomous authorities is total.

I haven’t heard its oral form yet, thus I feel disappointed because of that it’s difficult for me to classify it as a tongue or dialect properly.

On the other hand, I’ve browsed the Wikipedia article focused on Murciano (yes, there is Wikipedia in this language, dialect or whatever it is) and, in my humble opinion, the figures related to the number of speakers seem to be a bit exaggerated.

I encourage you to tell us further data about this topic whatsoever.


----------



## merquiades

Hello Pralija
Do you know the website www.llenguamaere.com?  It is a website in Murciano that gives a wealth of information about the origins, the vocabulary, the phonology of this language.
Most tend to agree that Murcia by dint of its geography and history is original.  The area at the time of the reconquest had a large amount of Mozárabes and since they were Christians and/or converted, they remained in the region.  They would have served as the basis for Murciano.  Next, the first arrivals from the north were Aragonese and Catalans who partially succeeded in imposing their languages before the Castilians arrived on scene. Much of the language also resembles the various Andalusian dialects that border to the south and west.  For example, final syllabic -s has disappeared and vowels are opened to indicate singular and plural.  There is also seseo in some of the area.
Panocho apparently refers to a type of Murciano spoken around the city of Murcia.

Personally I do not believe it is a language.  I took a paragraph from the aforementioned website in Murciano and just translated into Castilian Spanish in two minutes.  It is 95% Castilian with a few local terms and phonetics typical of the southern part of the peninsula; _charrar_ is Aragonese.  Perhaps originally it was less influenced by Castilian, since in Murcia there is no recognition of this language and in school standard Spanish is taught.  It is also the only language used in the media and the only written language.
It looks like l > r (er murciano, argo, orviar) sometimes r > l also (roales),  f > j (la juerza), e > i in unaccented syllables (tinemos, tiner, pininsula, pritende), i > e  in accented syllables (mesmo), o > u (nusotros), d is often lost as in all southern Spanish (ebajo, e, orviar, platicao, pué).  The old imperfect ending _iba_ has however been maintained and it hasn't lost the b (tiniba)



> Mesmicamente se pritende qu'er murciano, tan orviao munchas añás, güerva a zarpullir con la juerza que ya tiniba en su día y'e la que nus arbullecemos tuiquios los qu'hamos tinío la taina e tiner la nacencia n'este terraje, sin orviar a los que, allegaos d'otros roales, sienten y quién a Murcia como nusotros mesmos.  Tamién tinemos que concenciar a nuestro poeblo e que su plática no es argo qu'esté po ebajo e lo que se pué considerar "platicar bien". Que lo qu'aquí se charra no es argo qu'esté peor platicao que lo que se charra n'otros roales e la Pinínsula, qu'es sencillamente destinto.





> Mísmamente se pretende que el murciano, tan olvidado muchos años, vuelva a zarpullir con la fuerza que ya tenía en su día y en la que nos arborecemos todos los que hemos tenido la taina de tener la nacencia (el nacimiento) en este terraje, sin olvidar a los que, llegados de otros lugares, sienten  y quieren a Murcia como nosotros mismos.  También tenemos que concienciar a nuestro pueblo de que su plática no es algo que esté por debajo de lo que se puede considerar "platicar bien".  Que lo que aquí se charla no es algo que esté peor platicado que lo que se charla en otros lugares de la península, que es sencillamente distinto.


----------



## Penyafort

I mostly agree with Merquiades. The case of Murciano in the South-East is somehow similar to the case of Extremeño in the South-West, that is, the fact of being the peripheral southernmost area where both Aragonese and Catalan reached first (the latter more along the coast, the former rather inland), but with Castilian arriving at a very early period too, means that it is basically Southern Castilian with residual Aragonese and Catalan elements, mainly in the rural vocabulary. In any case, even if it eventually happened to be fully codified, it could not be considered a constitutive ('straight-from-Latin') Romance language like the ones in the North, but a consecutive one. We could even say the same type of thing for some areas of Andalusia too, after all.


----------



## Hulalessar

Penyafort said:


> In any case, even if it eventually happened to be fully codified, it could not be considered a constitutive ('straight-from-Latin') Romance language like the ones in the North, but a consecutive one.



Please be kind enough to explain the difference between constitutive and consecutive here.


----------



## merquiades

I am still trying to figured out how the puzzling word _tuiquios_ formed out of _todos los que_.
_Todos los que_ + Aragonese diminutive -_ico_ = _Todicos los que_.  Drop the d, drop l, drop s, open the vowel to indicate plural, and change unaccented o in u = _Tuicoi o que_.  Then merge the words = _Tuicoioque_.  This is about as close I can come.


----------



## Penyafort

Hulalessar said:


> Please be kind enough to explain the difference between constitutive and consecutive here.



Primary and secondary in hierarchical evolution, mainly according to their timelines.

As in France or Italy, several different languages evolved locally all over the Iberian Peninsula from the Vulgar Latin spoken in the early Middle Ages. But the Muslim invasion in the 8th century would lead to the death of them (grouped nowadays together in an umbrella term, Mozarabic). The ones which survived were those in the north of the Peninsula, where Muslims never rooted in and Christian kingdoms flowered. There they could grow, develop and, eventually, expand southwards during the whole Reconquista process. This is why, unlike in France or Italy, the Romance languages in the Iberian Peninsula are fewer and form north-to-south stripes, so to speak. This is why those in the North (mainly, from west to east, Galician-Portuguese, Asturian-Leonese, Castilian, Navarrese-Aragonese, and Catalan) are considered 'constitutive' Romance languages, each one having evolved straight from Vulgar Latin, with individual distinct traits and a core vocabulary of its own, forming a sort of natural continuum. The dialects developed in the south, though, are the result of that historical expansion, and therefore a 'consequence' of it, not the result of a local development straight from Vulgar Latin. So these varieties may be codified and be regarded as languages, of course, but that would not change the fact that their origin should be found in the Romance languages from the North, not in Latin itself. Just like, say, if Jamaican English was recodified and regarded as a different language, the parent would still be English.



merquiades said:


> I am still trying to figured out how the puzzling word _tuiquios_ formed out of _todos los que_.
> _Todos los que_ + Aragonese diminutive -_ico_ = _Todicos los que_.  Drop the d, drop l, drop s, open the vowel to indicate plural, and change unaccented o in u = _Tuicoi o que_.  Then merge the words = _Tuicoioque_.  This is about as close I can come.



The suffix -ico, typical of Low Aragonese indeed, becomes -iquio in much of the Iberian South-East. _Tuiquios _is just 'todos > to(d)icos > toiquios > tuiquios'.


----------



## merquiades

Ok, interesting.  I didn't know of the -iquio variant.


----------



## Hulalessar

Penyafort said:


> Primary and secondary in hierarchical evolution, mainly according to their timelines.
> 
> As in France or Italy, several different languages evolved locally all over the Iberian Peninsula from the Vulgar Latin spoken in the early Middle Ages. But the Muslim invasion in the 8th century would lead to the death of them (grouped nowadays together in an umbrella term, Mozarabic). The ones which survived were those in the north of the Peninsula, where Muslims never rooted in and Christian kingdoms flowered. There they could grow, develop and, eventually, expand southwards during the whole Reconquista process. This is why, unlike in France or Italy, the Romance languages in the Iberian Peninsula are fewer and form north-to-south stripes, so to speak. This is why those in the North (mainly, from west to east, Galician-Portuguese, Asturian-Leonese, Castilian, Navarrese-Aragonese, and Catalan) are considered 'constitutive' Romance languages, each one having evolved straight from Vulgar Latin, with individual distinct traits and a core vocabulary of its own, forming a sort of natural continuum. The dialects developed in the south, though, are the result of that historical expansion, and therefore a 'consequence' of it, not the result of a local development straight from Vulgar Latin. So these varieties may be codified and be regarded as languages, of course, but that would not change the fact that their origin should be found in the Romance languages from the North, not in Latin itself. Just like, say, if Jamaican English was recodified and regarded as a different language, the parent would still be English.



Thank for the explanation. I have to say I find the distinction unhelpful.

Languages developed in the north and spread south where they developed into distinct varities. However, back in the north they also developed and are now different from the forms they had over a thousand years ago. Both the constitutive and consecutive are equally descended from Latin, arent they?


----------



## Penyafort

Hulalessar said:


> Thank for the explanation. I have to say I find the distinction unhelpful.
> 
> Languages developed in the north and spread south where they developed into distinct varities. However, back in the north they also developed and are now different from the forms they had over a thousand years ago. Both the constitutive and consecutive are equally descended from Latin, arent they?



If I think about where, say, Galician ['oʎo], Aragonese ['gweʎo] or Catalan [uʎ] come from, I know it's Latin. If I think about where the Romance words in Murciano come from, it's not Latin, but Castilian, Aragonese or Catalan. So both are not equally descended from Latin, because it's in the old versions of the Romance languages in the North where the local important changes from Vulgar Latin originally took place.

Obviously all forms of speech develop and things change everywhere. That's why I say that consecutive varieties can eventually be regarded as languages all the same, as many do with Ladino (Judeo-Spanish). But the distinction is clearly useful for those who want to tell a language from a variety of a language. Knowing the steps in the process is always helpful.


----------



## Hulalessar

I am not entirely sure I follow this.

In the north of Spain, in say 1000, we have several languages which are varieties of Latin. They advance south. Let's call one of the languages Patronian. By the time the advance is finished and consolidated (say 1500) Patronian is spoken over a much wider area than before in two areas, one in the north called Patronia (where it developed) and the other in the south called Tuponia. By 2000 two distinct languages have developed called Patronian and Tuponian, but both are quite different from the Patronian spoken in 1500. Because the Patronian spoken in 1500 and the Patronian spoken in 2000 are both called Patronian this causes confusion with many believing that Tuponian is a dialect of Patronian. This is a misconception which mainly arises because Old and Modern Patronian are both referred to as Patronian. However, the correct view is surely that Old Patronian was (with other languages) a descendant of Latin and the ancestor of Modern Patronian and Tuponian, so that Modern Patronian and Tuponian stand in the same relationship to Latin. Calling Patronian constitutive and Tuponian consecutive suggests there is a difference in how they developed which cannot be found.

Am I missing something?

The above does of course rather assume a simple tree model. The development of Romance varieties in Iberia (and indeed elsewhere) is more complex. The Arabic elements in Castillian for example must have got there somehow and the simple model of the language developing in an area never conquered and moving steadily and triumphantly south does not explain it.


----------



## Quiviscumque

Hulalessar said:


> The above does of course rather assume a simple tree model. The development of Romance varieties in Iberia (and indeed elsewhere) is more complex. The Arabic elements in Castillian for example must have got there somehow and the simple model of the language developing in an area never conquered and moving steadily and triumphantly south does not explain it.



Believe it or not, Arabic elements (that is, Arabic loanwords) are _more_ frequents in early stages of Castilian. Original Castile (Cantabria, Northern Burgos) was strongy influenced by Arabic culture (how not to be? They were a gang of country bumpkins vs. a refined civilization.) But this influence was steadly declining from, say, 1000 A. D. to the end of the Reconquista.


----------



## Cossue

Quiviscumque said:


> Believe it or not, Arabic elements (that is, Arabic loanwords) are _more_ frequents in early stages of Castilian. Original Castile (Cantabria, Northern Burgos) was strongy influenced by Arabic culture (how not to be? They were a gang of country bumpkins vs. a refined civilization.) But this influence was steadly declining from, say, 1000 A. D. to the end of the Reconquista.



Mhhh... I don't think that I can agree. For example, in the regions of León, Zamora or Coimbra, you can find that near 10% of the people who are named in local 10th century (Latin) documents use Arab names and even Arab name conventions, but in Old Castille (= northern Burgos), Cantabria, Asturias or Galicia that proportion is 1%, and many of these people -according to the same charters- were slaves captured in war and assaults on the rich southern cities, or even bought there; and in Catalonia even less than that (cf. Bolòs i Masclans, Jordi et al. _Repertori d'antropònims catalans I_.)

Secondly, whilst you can find a _relatively _large number of Arab loanwords in local pre 1000 AD charters, most of these terms refer to luxuries that the Arabs brought from the East and which were among the possessions of rich people -counts, bishops, kings and queens- and none or almost none belong to the vocabulary that most local farmers and artisans would use (cf. Varela Sieiro, Xaime. _Léxico cotián na Alta Idade Media de Galicia: o enxoval_). For example, words that today are vulgar in western Iberian romances, as _alcalde _'mayor' or _aldea_ 'hamlet', were not used in Galicia before the 12th or 13th century (in particular, in the 12th century _Historia Compostellana_ the author explains that _alcaide_ is the name of an Arab magistrate, I don't remember now the exact words); in Castille aldea is not used before 1076 (Varela Sieiro, Xaime. _Léxico cotián na Alta Idade Media de Galicia:_ _a arquitectura civil_). I think that most of the Arab loanwords that entered Castilian, entered Castilian with the reconquest of Toledo in 1085 and with the posterior expansion into the South and the Ebro valley. _Mutatis mutandis_, for Portuguese that moment was maybe the conquest of Lisbon in 1147.

While I don't think that the Christians of the North were simply a "gang of country bumbkins" (IMO, Asturian Pre-Romanesque architecture, or the early Romanesque of Catalonia or Galicia tell another story) it's true that they were rural unsophisticated people if compared with 10th century Andalusian urban culture.


----------



## kidika

My two cents...
My best friends come from Murcia. Once they told me that when they heard Murciano on TV they were horrified, though they themselves spoke it! I guess they associated Murciano to low education levels. 
Me on the contrary, I love Murciano; it's very warm and kind of funny; but my friends have entirely lost their accent.
By the way, I agree with Merquiades, it's just an accent.


----------



## Cenzontle

> On the other hand, I’ve browsed the Wikipedia article focused on Murciano (yes, there is Wikipedia in this language, dialect or whatever it is) and, in my humble opinion, the figures related to the number of speakers seem to be a bit exaggerated.


Wikipedia is a good source for many kinds of information--I mean this sincerely--but it is not the most reliable source on numbers of speakers of languages.  I don't know about the specific case of Murciano, but among the readers who are free to edit the articles there are a number of language-chauvinists who would like to aggrandize the importance of their identity group.


----------



## kidika

Oh, and for the record, my friends aren't posh at all. They are normal working people.


----------

