The Catalan language in the Valencian edition of the «Regulae» of Masparrautha (1498)

Abstract

Abstract: During the Middle Ages, Latin was taught for beginners in the Romance language in Spain, as well as in other European regions. A number of explanations in the vernacular were incorporated into Latin texts. An example of this tradition is the so-called grammaticae proverbiandi. They are characterized by a proverbium or sentence in the vernacular, which helps to understand the Latin structure better. This is the case of the Regulae by Esteban de Masparrautha, printed in 1492 in Pamplona, with examples in Navarrese-Aragonese, as well as in 1498 in Valencia, with examples in Catalan. Emma Falque (2011) has recently published an edition of the incunabulum of Pamplona, which includes an appendix showing the proverbia in Catalan.

In this paper, the characteristic dialectal features of Western Catalan — more specifically, from the Southern area — will be determined by linguistic analysis of the abovementioned examples. Features that do not have any dialectal connotation, as they were generally common in medieval texts regardless of their origin, will be also discussed. Some of these latter features still show in certain subdialects, while others have disappeared.

Key words: Catalan language, history of language, dialectology, Valencian, Aragonese.