Language loss and changing identities in the Mirandese community

Abstract

Mirandese is a minority language spoken in a small area of Northeastern Portugal, on the Portuguese‑Spanish border. Having descended from Astur‑Leonese (Menéndez Pidal, 1962; Vasconcelos, 1882), one of the romance varieties spoken in the Iberian Peninsula during the Middle Ages, Mirandese has survived in contact with Portuguese (and also with Spanish) over the course of several centuries in small, close‑knit, bi‑ and trilingual communities. However, recent sociolinguistic data highlight the fact that Mirandese is, at present, a definitively, or even severely endangered minority language (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization [UNESCO], 2003). At the core of language loss in the Mirandese community are the rapidly changing social identities of its bilingual speakers.