Aranese

Aranese is spoken natively in the Val d'Aran (Aran Valley), a small, mountainous region of approximately 10,000 inhabitants located in northwestern Catalonia, Spain, on the northern slopes of the Pyrenees.
Val d'Aran belongs to the Atlantic watershed; its rivers flow north into France rather than south into Spain. Because high mountain passes historically cut the valley off from Spain during the winter, the Aranese people closely aligned their trade, culture, and language with Gascony (France).Political Integration: Despite its northern geographic orientation, the territory officially joined Catalonia through treaties in the late 12th and early 15th centuries. In 1313, King James II of Aragon granted the valley Era Querimònia, a charter of administrative liberties and privileges that helped safeguard its local autonomy.The Troubadour Era: Aranese is a surviving vestige of medieval Occitan, the literary language of the famous 11th- and 12th-century European troubadours and poets.Suppression and Revival: Like other regional languages in Spain, Aranese was strictly outlawed and suppressed during the nationalist dictatorship of Francisco Franco (which ended in 1975). Following the transition to democracy, Catalonia's 1978 Statute of Autonomy explicitly established provisions to teach and protect Aranese, leading to a successful linguistic revitalization where today roughly 80% of the valley's population can understand the language.