Lingualia LingualiaEurope’s regional and minority languages

Languages · Romance languages

Aragonese

Spoken in : Spain

01. Data about the language

Language group

Indo-European / Romance

Area

Aragonese is spoken in a few Pyrenean valleys.
Aragonese is a Latin language, which roots go back to the Roman Empire. It survived the Arabic invasion of the Xth century but its development was blocked by the extension of Castilian.

Updated, sourced data, checked on 14 October 2026 · scope : Espagne (Aragon)

Numerical strength

According to the 2011 Spanish census, 25,556 people (1.9% of the population of Aragon) said they could speak Aragonese and 44,439 (3.3%) that they understood it1. In its historical area, 8,425 people (5.3%) speak it; in localities where it is still a language of communication, the share reaches 19.4% (4,457 people)1. Some 8,618 speakers live in the Zaragoza metropolitan area, outside the traditional area1.

Status

Aragonese is not an official language, either in Spain or in Aragon; it is covered by Part II of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages1. The 2007 Statute of Autonomy (Art. 7) provides for an Aragonese law protecting Aragon's own languages; Law 3/2013 states that Castilian is the official language and recognises as "own, original and historical" the Aragonese languages of the northern and eastern areas2. The Aragonese Cultural Heritage Act names Aragonese and Catalan of Aragon as the languages proper to Aragon2.

The Aragonese Language Academy, created by the 2013 law and given statutes in 20182, approved the orthography of Aragonese in April 2023, published in Aragon's official journal in May 20231.

Public services

The 2013 law recognises the right to use Aragon's own languages orally and in writing in their areas of predominant historical use, where their use in dealings with the administration is to be encouraged2. From 2017 to 2021, more than 200 Aragon government officials took training courses in Aragonese language and culture2.

Education

According to the Government of Aragon, Aragonese teaching grew from 20 schools and 854 pupils in 2016–17 to 34 schools and 1,311 pupils in 2021–222. Language projects using Aragonese as a medium of instruction were approved at the Monte Oroel school in Jaca and in the five schools of the Alta Ribagorza rural group2.

Media

The Government of Aragon's lenguasdearagon.org portal, which hosts the online radio Chisla Radio, receives an average of 60,000 visits a month2. The digital newspaper Arredol is published in Aragonese1.

Miscellaneous

The Government of Aragon took part in the European LINGUATEC project (Interreg Spain-France-Andorra) to digitise Aragonese corpora and develop language technology tools2.

Sources

  1. Aragonese in Spain (Mercator Wiki), Mercator European Research Centre on Multilingualism and Language Learning (Fryske Akademy), mis à jour en 2026.
  2. Carta Europea de las Lenguas Regionales o Minoritarias – Sexto informe de cumplimiento, medidas adoptadas 2017-2021, Aragón (lenguas concernidas: aragonés y catalán), Gobierno de Aragón, Dirección General de Política Lingüística, 2022.

02. Poem

Original Translation
Polbo, boira, biento y sol
Dust, snow, wind and sun
Polbo, boira, biento y sol y en do bi ha augua, una güerta; Ta o norte, os Pirineos: ista tierra ye Aragón. Ta o norte, os Pirineos ta o sur, a sierra callada, pasa l’Ebro por o meyo solenco, baxa a güellada. Diz que bi ha tierras ta l’este en do se treballa y caxan… Enta l’ueste ye o Moncayo como un dios que ya no empara. Dende tiempos ta ista parti imos camino de branca imos a bier como l’Ebro solenco, mos dixa y marcha. Y con él ban en compaña as chens d’istas redoladas, d’istas bals, d’istas balellas, d’istas güertas alleradas. Polbo, boira, biento y sol y en do bi ha augua, una güerta; Ta o norte, os Pirineos: ista tierra ye Aragón.
Dust, snow, wind and sun A farm, when there is water Pyrenees up to the north This is the land of Aragon. Pyrenees up to the north Up to the south, silent plateaux Ebro is leaking in the centre, Carrying its loneliness. Some say there are lands eastwards Where you can work and be paid for … Westwards there is the Moncayo A god that no longer protects us. For ever we have been going there We are going, road of nothing, We are going to see how Ebro is doing Carrying its loneliness. With it, people are leaving People from vagues planes, From valleys, from plateaux, And from the crumbling farms. Dust, snow, wind and sun A farm, when there is water Pyrenees up to the north This is the land of Aragon.
J. A. Labordeta- Anton Gil
Bersión: Antón Gil

03. Linguistic description

Aragonese is a Romance language of the Iberian Peninsula, distinct from Castilian1. It has two adverbial pronouns: en (or ne), comparable to French en (n'hai, 'I have some'), and i or bi, comparable to French y (No i veigo, 'I can't see there')2. Bi is also used for 'there is': b'ha2.

Sources

The 2003 CD had no description of this language: this text was written for the site from the sources below.

  1. Glottolog 5.3 – Aragonese, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, 2025.
  2. Ortografía del aragonés, Academia Aragonesa de la Lengua, 2023.

04. Cartoon

No cartoon in this language could be found on public video platforms.