Barranquenho

Barranquenho
Barranquenhu
Native toPortugal
RegionBarrancos
Native speakers
(undated figure of 1,500)[1]
Mixed Portuguese-Spanish
  • Barranquenho
Early forms
Language codes
ISO 639-3None (mis)
1oy
GlottologNone
Location of Barrancos in the Beja District

Barranquenho (Barranquenhu[2]) is a Romance linguistic variety spoken in the Portuguese town of Barrancos, near the Spanish border. It is a mixed language, and can be considered either a variety of Portuguese (Alentejan Portuguese) heavily influenced by the Spanish dialects of neighbouring areas in Spain in Extremadura and Andalusia (especially those from Encinasola and Rosal de la Frontera),[3] or a Spanish dialect (Extremaduran / Andalusian) heavily influenced by Portuguese.

Barranquenho speakers maintain that they speak neither Spanish nor Portuguese but a third language altogether different. Ethnologue lists Barranquenho (as Barranquian) as a dialect of Extremaduran, perhaps because Barrancos was populated by settlers from Badajoz, a city in Extremadura, though not in an Extremaduran language speaking area.[4]

The development of Barranquenho seems to be relatively recent, the variety developing no earlier than 1527 and likely by the early 1800s, unlike other minority linguistic varieties in the Iberian Peninsula, which have medieval roots.[5]

  1. ^ Extremaduran (Portugal) at Ethnologue (16th ed., 2009) Closed access icon
  2. ^ Diaz-Campos, Manuel (2011). The Handbook of Hispanic Sociolinguistics. John Wiley & Sons. p. 402. ISBN 9781444393439.
  3. ^ José Leite de Vasconcelos, Filologia Barranquenha - apontamentos para o seu estudo, 1940.
  4. ^ Pountain, Christopher J. (2012). "Spanish Among the Ibero-Romance Languages". In Hualde, José Ignacio; Olarrea, Antxon; O'Rourke, Erin (eds.). The handbook of Hispanic linguistics. Hoboken: Blackwell Publishing. p. 60. doi:10.1002/9781118228098.ch3. ISBN 9781405198820.
  5. ^ Clements, J. Clancy; Amaral, Patrícia; Luís, Ana R. (2011). "Spanish in Contact with Portuguese: The Case of Barranquenho". In Díaz-Campos, Manuel (ed.). The handbook of Hispanic sociolinguistics. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 395–417. doi:10.1002/9781444393446.ch19. ISBN 9781405195003.