Aragonese cheese

The Aragonese cheso or simply cheso is a dialectal variant of Aragonese spoken in the Hecho valley (in La Jacetania, province of Huesca, Aragon, Spain).. The places of Hecho and Aragüés del Puerto stand out.

Affiliation

Cheso is one of the most conserved varieties of the western block of Aragonese.

Structure

Phonology

Cheso generally has the same phonological features as the other varieties of Western Aragonese. This means that, for example, the pronunciation without i epenthetic of the voiceless postalveolar fricative consonant ʃ when between vowels.

However, it has some peculiarities. Thus, the final r of infinitives is pronounced even when followed by enclitic pronouns; and the voiceless postalveolar affricate ʧ is lost in some words: itar (< jectare), brother (< germanu), etc.

Graphics

Texts in Cheso usually appear in their own spelling considered, according to some opinions, more traditional, Romance or similar to Castilian, in which the letters h and v, as well as the c before e/i or the y at the end of the word. Few texts have been written in cheso according to the graphic norms of Huesca and also very few according to the spelling of the Academia del Aragonés, despite there being two cheso representatives.

Morphosyntax

The verb ser is used as an auxiliary verb of the intransitive verbs of movement, reflexive verbs, naixer and morir.

The agreement between the participle and the direct object is preserved if it is in the form of the personal pronoun lo, los, la, las or the pronominal-adverbial particle en/ne.

• Three me'n I brought (I brought three)
• the m'ha furtada (I've been robbed)
• I've passed mutes, of sorrow (I've been through a lot of grief)

Sociocultural aspects

Geographic location

The territory of the cheso is the valley of Hecho, with Hecho being its main center. It is usually spoken in the towns of Echo and Siresa, and with a greater degree of Spanish language and less social vitality in other towns in the Valley such as Embún or Xabierregay.

Social situation

It is the variety of western Aragonese that best supports its defining features. Today, along with Bajo Ribagorzano, Aragonese Chistabín or Benasqués is one of the Aragonese dialects with the greatest vitality, following generational transmission, although it also suffers from the decrease in the number of people who speak it regularly among young people. A recent estimate gives the figure of 658 speakers: 526 residents between Hecho and Siresa and 132 born in the valley who speak Cheso but live outside.

Also, the cheso has a musical production with the Val d'Echo Group, whose repertoire is performed entirely in cheso. Since 2014, it has been taught as an optional subject at the Valle de Echo public school. In the local magazine Bisas de lo Subordán, articles in cheese also regularly appear, and every year it has a public presence in the festival programs, on public posters and in the activities that are carried out from the Town Hall.

Literature

Cheso has been one of the modern Aragonese dialects with the greatest literary cultivation. Among the best known names are Domingo Miral, Veremundo Méndez, Rosario Ustáriz and Emilio Gastón.

One of the best-known texts in the Chesa-speaking language is the song S'ha feito de nuey, written by Pepe Lera and published in the magazine Fuellas de información del Consello d'a Aragonese Fabla (FUELLAS, no. 20, Nov-January 1980).

S'ha feito de nuey

(Cheese graph)

S'ha feito de nuey.
You keep it.
I'll catch it.
kiss you again.

Ours will
it won't grow
I'm sorry.
And they make you plour.

I don't want to see
Crystal foils
mulláus by glarimas
They didn't blame.

Escuita, muller,
dixa plorar.
I've always been yours,
Your mine has d'estar.

They say they want
ye two, no more,
and it's easier
ferl walk,
When he falls,
I'll go up.

When one falls,
I'm going to wake up.
s'ha feito de nuey,
You keep it,
I'll catch it.

I want to kiss you!

Pepe Lera, Done, August 1980

This is another example of a poem in Cheso, by the author Victoria Nicolás, published in her book 'Plebia grisa" edited by the Consello d'a Fabla Aragonesa in 1986:

I'd like to be a hard and tall pine,

that I've embraced and tremolar,
feel the nieu between my sizes,
to the abes that have fried cobexar.

I wanted to be rio d'estos mons,
between sorrows and singing,
to carry the rags of the marguins,
the secan set off.

I wanted to be ice, and the moon
Give me a kiss every nuei in bier-me,
to suck with the straits and lighters,
support the sun when you're at me.

Dixo my suenio columbrando
The berdes pins, the rivers and I smell it.

M'en will go without feeling that in me
You've got to finish his bait,
without d'apagar la set de tierras xutas,

without me ever kissing the moon.

Victoria Nicolás