UNESCO | Ethnologue | Endangered Languages | Glottolog |
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n.a. | n.a. | n.a. | n.a. |
Mallorquí, or Majorcan in English, which is spoken in the Spanish island of Mallorca, is an archaic variety of Catalan 1), with influence from Occitan, Italian 2) and French 3) 4). This is due to the origin of the conquerors of Mallorca in 1229 and language contact due to trades and immigration 5) 6) 7)).
It is worth noting that Majorcan is sometimes included under the broader term 'Balear', which encompasses all Catalan varieties spoken in the Balearic Islands 8). However, each island has its unique dialect, with the exception of Eivissa and Formentera, which share the same variety known as Eivissenc (or Ibizan in English) 9). The variety spoken on Menorca is called Menorquí (or Minorcan) 10).
Nonetheless, Majorcan may well be the variety with the most different variety from all the islands, Catalonia and Valencia (where the variety is known as Valencià or Valencian). The reasons behind this are that it presents different morphology, grammar, lexicon, phonetics, phonology and prosody. However, it does share the same definite article form with the rest of the Balearic Islands, denominated article salat (es, sa, so s’, es/ets, ses, sos’; en, na and n’), which contrasts to the article literari (el, la, l’, els, les), characteristic from the Catalan spoken in Catalonia and in the Comunitat Valenciana 11).
Some examples of its distinctive features are the following: Concerning grammar and morphology, quantifiers tend to be followed by the preposition de (‘of’) and there are many differences in verbs, like vendré or tendré, instead of vindré or tindré 12), as well as in verbal morphemes, such as the suffixes -am and -au for the first and second person plural in present indicative of the first conjugation (ending in -ar), as opposed to -em and -eu, respectively, or the 0 inflectional morpheme for any verbs in first person singular in present indicative, like in compr, instead of compro ‘(I) buy’ 13).
In terms of vocabulary, the lexical differences are countless. Nevertheless, an example that clearly shows the broad linguistic richness of all Catalan varieties can be the next one: al·lot ‘boy’ (Mallorca), fiet (Menorca), boix (Eivissa and Formentera), xic (Valencia) and noi (Catalonia) 14).
Regarding phonetics and phonology, Standard Catalan presents has seven vowels (/i e ɛ a o ɔ u/), whilst Majorcan includes eight, adding the schwa sound or /ə/ to the previous list 15) 16) 17). It is also characterised by the elision of final /ə/ after /i/ in words with stress on the antepenultimate syllable (such as histori instead of història ‘history’) 18).
As for prosody, it stands out for its particular interrogative intonation and its stressed postverbal pronominals or clitics, which are unstressed in the other varieties) 19) 20).
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all Balear varieties
Only Majorcan, with its three subvarieties
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https://safundacio.es/es/cursos/
https://www.17-minute-languages.com/es/aprender-mallorqu%C3%ADn/