Valencian language

Valencian (valencià) is the historical, traditional, and official name used in the Valencian Community (Spain) for the language spoken in this region.

Valencian
valencià
Pronunciation	Template:IPA- or Template:IPA-va-
Native to	Spain
Region	Valencia, Murcia (Carche) See also geographic distribution of Valencian
Ethnicity	Valencians
Native speakers	2.4 million (2004)[1]
Language family	Indo-European Italic Romance Western Gallo-Romance[2] Occitano-Romance[2] Valencian Western Valencian[3] Valencian
Writing system	Valencian orthography (Latin script)
Official status
Official language in	Spain:  Valencian Community
Regulated by	RACV
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	val
File:Extensió del valencià al RegnedeValéncia.svg
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In linguistics "Valencian" is also used to identify this distinctive variant spoken in central and southern Valencia which has gained its own currency within the idioma valenciano.

Language or dialect?

The official authorities, which are the government of the Valencian Community and the Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua, accept Valencian as a dialect of Catalan. The Real Acadèmia de Cultura Valenciana and several associations disbelieve this opinion. They believe Valencian is a language in its own. They also accuse the official authorities of mixing Valencian with Catalan. This is done by approaching the Valencian ortography and grammar to the Catalan one.