Balearic
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Balearic is the Catalan variant spoken in the Balearic Islands (Spanish Illes Balears), Spain.
Some features of Balearic variant:
- Part of Balearic preserves a vocalic system of 8 stressed vowels /a,@,E,e,i,O,o,u/. In particular:
- Majorca system has 8 stressed vowels /a,@,E,e,i,O,o,u/, reduced to 4 in unstressed position (/a,@,E,e/ > [@], /O,o/ > [o]);
- Western Minorca system has 8 stressed vowels /a,@,E,e,i,O,o,u/, reduced to 3 in unstressed position (/a,@,E,e/ > [@], /O,o,u/ > [u]);
- Eastern Minorca and Ibiza system has but 7 stressed vowels /a,E,e,i,O,o,u/, reduced to 3 in unstressed position (/a,E,e/ > [@], /O,o,u/ > [u]), just like Central Catalan.
- Balearic preserves /v/ as a distinct phoneme from /b/, like Alguerese and most of Valencian do as well.
- Balearic is the Catalan variant that has the strongest tendency to not pronounce historical final [r] in any context.
- Balearic preserves the salat determinate article (derived from Latin IPSE,IPSA instead of ILLE,ILLA), a feature only shared with Sardinian among nowadays romance languages, but that was more common in other Catalan and Gascon areas in ancient times.