The Balearic reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Balearic

Balearic is the Catalan variant spoken in the 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.

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