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Cantabrian
Montañés, cántabru
Spoken in	Spain
Region	Autonomous community of Cantabria and Asturian municipalities of Peñamellera Alta, Peñamellera Baja and Ribadedeva.[1]
Total speakers	undefined
Language family	Indo-European Italic Romance Italo-Western Gallo-Iberian Ibero-Romance West Iberian Cantabrian
Writing system	Latin alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-1	None
ISO 639-2	–
ISO 639-3	–
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Cantabrian or Mountain is the name received the dialect spoken in the West of Cantabria and some zones of the Valley of Pas and the Valley of Soba, in its Eastern zone, all in Northern Spain.

It is a transition language that can be considered either a dialect of Asturian, an ancient dialect of Castilian, or an independent Romance language in its own right.

Cantabrian has two subdialects: Western and the Eastern. The dividing zone between the variants is between the Saja river and the Pas. Pas dialect is the Eastern variant with the particularity of being specially well preserved.

Cantabrian was listed in the UNESCO Red Book of the World’s Languages in Danger in 2009, in the Astur-Leonese linguistic group as a definitely endangered language.^[2]

     Extension of Leonese variants in Spain

Dialectal Map of Cantabria:
     Liébana: Reminiscence of Leonese      Nansa, Saja, Besaya (Nucleus of Cantabrian): Characteristic mountain phonetic, archaisms, influences of common Latin      Pas: Substrates of Leonese, characteristic phonetic from Pas, archaisms, influences of common Latin      Trasmiera, Asón: Own dialectals shades      Western coast: Substrates of Astur-Leonese and Cantabrian      Agüera: Tenuous Basque sediments      Campoo: Old Castilian and Cantabrian reminiscences

Sample text

Central Cantabrian

Na, que entornemos, y yo apaecí esturunciau y con unos calambrios que me jiendían de temblíos... El rodal quedó allá lantón escascajau del too; las trichorias y estadojos, triscaos... Pero encontó, casi agraecí el testarazu, pues las mis novillucas, que dispués de la estorregá debían haber quedau soterrás, cuasi no se mancaron. ¡Total: unas lijaduras de poco más de na!^[3]

Castilian

Nada, que volcamos, y yo acabé por los suelos y con unos calambres que me invadían de temblores...El eje quedó allá lejos totalmente despedazado; las estacas quebradas... Pero aún así, casi agradecí el cabezazo, pues mis novillas, que después de la caída deberían haber quedado para enterrar, casi no se lastimaron. ¡Total: unas rozaduras de nada!

Footnotes

References

• García Lomas, A.: El lenguaje popular de la Cantabria montañesa. Santander: Estvdio, 1999. ISBN 84-87934-76-5

External links

• Cantabrian-Spanish Dictionary in the Asturian wiktionary (in Asturian).
• Alcuentros, Cantabrian magazine of minority languages (in Spanish)
• Proyeutu Depriendi Distance learning of Cantabrian (in Cantabrian/Spanish)