Algherese dialect

---

title: "Algherese dialect" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["catalan-dialects", "languages-of-sardinia", "endangered-diaspora-languages", "province-of-sassari", "alghero", "city-colloquials", "definitely-endangered-languages", "endangered-romance-languages", "endangered-languages-of-europe"] description: "Catalan variant spoken in Alghero, Sardinia, Italy" topic_path: "linguistics" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algherese_dialect" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Catalan variant spoken in Alghero, Sardinia, Italy ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox language"]

Field	Value
name	Algherese
altname	Alguerese
nativename	alguerés
states	Italy
region	Alghero
speakers	20,000–30,000
familycolor	Indo-European
fam2	Italic
fam3	Latino-Faliscan
fam4	Latin
fam5	Romance
fam6	Italo-Western
fam7	Western Romance
fam8	Gallo-Iberian?
fam9	Gallo-Romance
fam10	Occitano-Romance
fam11	Catalan
fam12	Eastern
fam13	Insular
ancestor	Old Occitan
ancestor2	Old Catalan
script	Catalan alphabet
glotto	algh1238
glottorefname	Algherese
ietf	ca-IT
map	Situació de L'Alguer.jpg
mapcaption	A satellite photo of the island of Sardinia with the location of the Algherese-speaking area marked in yellow
isoexception	dialect
map2	Lang Status 60-DE.svg
mapcaption2
notice	IPA
::

| name = Algherese | altname = Alguerese | nativename = alguerés | states = Italy | region = Alghero | speakers = 20,000–30,000 | date = | ref = | familycolor = Indo-European | fam2 = Italic | fam3 = Latino-Faliscan | fam4 = Latin | fam5 = Romance | fam6 = Italo-Western | fam7 = Western Romance | fam8 = Gallo-Iberian? | fam9 = Gallo-Romance | fam10 = Occitano-Romance | fam11 = Catalan | fam12 = Eastern | fam13 = Insular | ancestor = Old Occitan | ancestor2 = Old Catalan | script = Catalan alphabet | glotto = algh1238 | glottorefname = Algherese | ietf = ca-IT | map = Situació de L'Alguer.jpg | mapcaption = A satellite photo of the island of Sardinia with the location of the Algherese-speaking area marked in yellow | isoexception = dialect | map2 = Lang Status 60-DE.svg | mapcaption2 = | notice = IPA

Algherese or Alguerese (autonym: alguerés ) is the variety of Catalan spoken in the city of Alghero (L'Alguer in Catalan), in the northwest of Sardinia, Italy.

The dialect has its roots in 1372, when Catalan-speaking colonists were allowed to repopulate Alghero and expel the native population, after several revolts. Catalan was replaced as the official language by Spanish, then by Italian in the mid-18th century. Today the language has semi-official recognition alongside Italian.

Studies give an approximate number of 20,000 to 30,000 native speakers of the language worldwide. In communities where Algherese is spoken, Italian and Logudorese Sardinian are often used as well.

History

Algherese is a regional dialect spoken by anywhere from 20,000 to 30,000 individuals, most of whom reside in the town of Alghero, located in the northwest of Sardinia. The language, though distinct, is initially derived from, and thus considered a variant of, the Catalan language. The origins of the language can be traced back to 1372, when Catalan invaders repopulated the city of Alghero after exiling the indigenous populations in Sardinia. Despite the city's increasing Italianisation, the use of this Catalan dialect remained widespread until at least the 1970s.

Present status

As a result of the city's extensive Italianisation, Italian is now the predominant language in Alghero, being estimated by a 2004 survey to be first language of close to 60% of those surveyed. The use of the dialect in schools and media, to name a few, remains sparse. Teaching of the dialect in school is also rare. However, in an attempt to reverse the trend, the Regional Council of Sardinia officially recognised "Algherese Catalan" as a separate language in 1997, in order to promote its use and circulation. According to the 2004 survey, Algherese was used by approximately 14% of the population for daily interactions. The dialect is mostly a local language, often used to supplement Italian and/or Sardinian in relatively small circles.

The following figures were obtained from the Enquesta d'usos lingüístics a l'Alguer ("Survey of linguistic usage in Alghero", EULAL) of 2004 and the Els usos lingüístics a l'Alguer of 2015 (EULA 2015), both of which were studies conducted in the town of Alghero about the general use of Algherese in several media.

::data[format=table title="Language status"]

2004	2015
Oral Comprehension	90.1% (Sardinian oral comprehension: 69.7%)
Oral Expression	61.3% (Sardinian oral expression: 33.9%)
Written Comprehension	46.6% (Sardinian written comprehension: 35.4%)
Written Expression	13.6% (Sardinian written expression: 15.4%)
First Language	22.4% (59.2% Italian)
Habitual Language	13.9%
::

Official recognition

In 1999, Catalan and Sardinian were among the twelve minority languages officially recognised as Italy's "historical linguistic minorities" by the Italian State under Law No. 482/1999. Prior to this, the Regional Council of Sardinia had passed the Regional Law No. 26 of 15 October 1997 which, aside from promoting the equality in dignity of the Sardinian language with the Italian language throughout the island, provided that the other languages of smaller scope be afforded the same treatment as the aforementioned languages, among which Catalan is cited, in the city of Alghero. The city council, for its part, promulgated its protection and standardisation in its city statute.

Phonology

;Vowels :{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;" |+ ! ! Front ! Back |- style="text-align: center;" ! Close | || |- style="text-align: center;" ! Close-mid | || |- style="text-align: center;" ! Open-mid | || |- style="text-align: center;" ! Open | colspan="2" | |} :{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center" |+ ! ! Front ! Back |- style="text-align: center;" ! Close | || |- style="text-align: center;" ! Mid | || |- style="text-align: center;" ! Open | colspan="2" | |}

:Notes: :* The close-mid and mid-close vowels and merge into mid vowels ( and , here transcribed without diacritics) in Modern Alguerese. :* Coalescing of unstressed vowels , () and to [ ~ ] (transcribed as ) unlike the rest of Eastern Catalan, which uses or even (transcribed as ): ''aur'''a''''' ('aura') (Eastern Standard), (Algherese). :* Unstressed () reduces to like most Eastern Catalan dialects.

;Consonants

:{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;" |+ Consonants of Algherese ! colspan=2 | ! Labial ! Dental/ Alveolar ! Palatal ! Velar |- ! colspan=2 | Nasal | | |

()
! rowspan=2
! voiceless

| |

colspan=2
! voiced

| |

colspan=2
! rowspan=2
! voiceless

| | | | |- ! voiced | | | | |- ! rowspan=2 | Fricative ! voiceless | | | | |- ! voiced | | | | |- ! rowspan="2" | Rhotics ! trill | | rowspan="2" | | | |- ! tap | | | |- ! rowspan=2 | Approximant ! median | | | |- ! lateral | | | | |}

:Notes: :* Algherese preserves as a distinct phoneme from , like Balearic and most of Valencian: viu ('he/she lives') (Algherese). :* Mutation of intervocalic and to : Barceloneta (Eastern Standard), (Algherese) 'Barcelonette'; and vila ('town') and vida ('life') are homophones in Algherese . :* Mutation of syllable final (or ) to lateral , and the possible resulting group + consonant is further simplified to : forn (Eastern Standard), (Algherese) 'oven'. :* Depalatalisation of syllable final sonorants: lateral to , nasal to : ball (Eastern Standard), (Algherese) 'dance'; any (Eastern Standard), (Algherese) 'year'.

Morphology

• The simple past is replaced by the present perfect (present of haver "to have" + past participle), possibly by Italian influence.
• The imperfect past preserves etymological -v- in all conjugations: 1st -ava, 2nd -iva, 3rd -iva unlike modern Eastern and Western Standard Catalan, which use 1st -ava, 2nd -ia, 3rd -ia, a feature shared with the Ribagorçan dialect.
• Large-scale lexical borrowing and calques from Sardinian, Spanish and Italian: nearly half of the vocabulary is not from Catalan.

Differences from Standard Catalan

The Algherese variant is Eastern Catalan, but it has many differences from Central Catalan, with some of the most obvious ones as follows:

Vocabulary

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/34/Monument_langue_Alghero.jpg" caption="A bilingual sign in Alghero]] -->"] ::

The following abbreviations are used: m. (masculine), f. (feminine), pl. (plural), f. pl. (feminine plural), inf. (informal), f. (formal). The following phrases were gathered from a Catalan translation set, but the common phrases in Algherese are similar:

::data[format=table]

English	Catalan	Algherese
Welcome	Benvingut (m.)
Benvinguda (f.)	Benvingut (m.)
Benvinguda (f.)
Hello	Hola	Txau
My name is ...	Em dic ...	Me aquirr ...
Where are you from?	D'on ets? (inf.)	De ont ses? (inf.)
Good morning	Bon dia	Bon dia
::

Literature

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/Poster_for_Premi_Rafael_Sari_2008.jpg" caption="Poster for the Premi Rafael Sari 2008"] ::

The Premi Rafael Sari, organised by the Obra Cultural de l'Alguer, is a series of prizes awarded in September each year to the best literary works of poetry and prose written in Algherese Catalan.

Notable poets include Rafael Sari, Pasquale Scanu and Maria Chessa Lai. There is also a long tradition of writing and performing songs in Algherese Catalan and the Premi Pino Piras is awarded for new songs written in the language. Notable singer-songwriters include Pino Piras and Franca Masu.

In 2015 Carla Valentino published an Algherese translation of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince.

Notes

References

Sources

References

1. (2022-05-24). "Glottolog 4.8 - Shifted Western Romance". [[Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology]].
2. "L'Alguer and Alguerese Catalan – Oral Corpus of Alguerese".
3. Salminen, Tapani. (2007). "Encyclopedia of the World's Endangered Languages". Routledge.
4. "Did you know Algherese Catalan is vulnerable?".
5. (21 November 2016). "Italy's Last Bastion of Catalan Language Struggles to Keep It Alive". The New York Times.
6. "Corpus Oral de l'Alguerès".
7. {{harvp. Generalitat de Catalunya, Secretaria de Política Lingüística. 2004
8. {{harvp. Generalitat de Catalunya, Secretaria de Política Lingüística. 2004
9. {{harvp. Argenter. 2008
10. Generalitat de Catalunya, Secretaria de Política Lingüística. (2004). "Enquesta d'usos lingüístics a l'Alguer". Generalitat de Catalunya, Secretaria de Política Lingüística.
11. (2017). "Els usos lingüístics a l'Alguer, 2015". Generalitat de Catalunya.
12. Law No. 482 of 15 December 1999. "Rules on the protection of historical linguistic minorities". Article 2. Gazzetta Ufficiale n. 297. 20 December 1999
13. link. (26 February 2021 . Articles 2.1 and 2.4 . Consiglio Regionale della Sardegna)
14. [http://www.ciutatdelalguer.it/statuto.pdf Communal Statute] {{Webarchive. link. (22 July 2011 . Article 9. City of Alghero.)
15. Corbera Pou, Jaume. (2000). "Caracterització del lèxic alguerès". University of the Balearic Islands.
16. "Useful Catalan phrases".
17. "Qui sem – Obra Cultural de l'Alguer".
18. (23 October 2008). "Al Civico di Alghero il "Premio Pino Piras"".
19. "Little Prince nr. PP-3547 / Catalan Algherese".

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