Literary history and
neoclassical author Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos (1744–1811), who envisaged the
Academy of the Asturian Language Although some 10th-century documents have the linguistic features of Asturian, numerous examples (such as writings by
notaries,
contracts and
wills) begin in the 13th century. Early examples are the 1085
Fuero de Avilés (the oldest parchment preserved in Asturias) and the 13th-century
Fuero de Oviedo and the
Leonese version of the
Fueru Xulgu. The 13th-century documents were the laws for towns, cities and the general population. Modern Asturian literature began in 1605 with the clergyman
Antón González Reguera and continued until the 18th century (when it produced, according to Ruiz de la Peña in 1981, a literature comparable to that in Asturias in Spanish). In 1744,
Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos wrote about the historic and cultural value of Asturian, urging the compilation of a dictionary and a grammar and the creation of a
language academy. Notable writers included
Francisco Bernaldo de Quirós Benavides (1675),
Xosefa Xovellanos (1745),
Xuan González Villar y Fuertes (1746),
Xosé Caveda y Nava (1796),
Xuan María Acebal (1815),
Teodoro Cuesta (1829), Xosé Benigno García González,
Marcos del Torniello (1853),
Bernardo Acevedo y Huelves (1849),
Pin de Pría (1864), Galo Fernández and
Fernán Coronas (1884). During the 19th and early 20th century, sections of poems, comics or commentary (often satirical) in Asturian were common in some regional Asturian newspapers and magazines, as well as in many
costumbrist theater plays, but no newspaper would be completely written in Asturian until 1901. The first Asturian dictionary (
Diccionario de algunas voces del dialecto asturiano) was written in 1788 by Carlos González de Posada. Although the complete Bible was not translated until 2021, the Gospel of Matthew was translated to Asturian in
London in 1861 by priest Manuel Fernández de Castro y Menéndez Hevia (who also translated papal bulls to Asturian) and published by
Louis Lucien Bonaparte (who had also published a
Galician translation of the Gospel). The first book in Asturian printed and published was
Llos Trabayos de Chinticu by
Juan Junquera Huergo, published in Gijón in 1843 composed of 372 satirical verses. Junquera Huergo, former mayor of Gijón, also wrote the first Asturian grammar in 1869, using a writing standard invented by himself, but was left unpublished due to lack of funds after Junquera's death, and two dictionaries, a
Diccionario del dialecto asturiano in 1867 and a Spanish-Asturian dictionary that was left uncompleted (only up to the letter "E"). In 1880 another very small dictionary would be written (
Pequeño vocabulario de voces en bable), the writer is unknown, The first novel in Asturian,
Viaxe del Tíu Pacho el Sordu a Uviedo, was written and published in
Oviedo by
Enriqueta González Rubín in 1875 and written in the
Eastern dialect of Asturian. The first newspaper written completely in Asturian language,
Ixuxú, was created by poet
Francisco González Prieto in 1901 in
Gijón. It was a conservative
ultracatholic weekly newspaper. He also created another newspaper in Asturian, ''L'Astur'' in 1904. Beginning in the 1930's and especially after Franco's victory in the
Spanish Civil War and due to his
policies against languages of Spain other than Spanish, Asturian presence as a written language was greatly diminished until the 1970s
Surdimientu. In 1974, a movement for the language's acceptance and use began in Asturias. Based on ideas of the Asturian association
Conceyu Bable about Asturian language and culture, a plan was developed for the acceptance and modernization of the language that led to the 1980 creation of the Academy of the Asturian Language with the approval of the Asturias regional council.
El Surdimientu (the Awakening) authors such as
Manuel Asur (Cancios y poemes pa un riscar),
Xuan Bello (El llibru vieyu),
Adolfo Camilo Díaz (Añada pa un güeyu muertu),
Pablo Antón Marín Estrada (Les hores),
Xandru Fernández (Les ruines),
Lourdes Álvarez,
Martín López-Vega,
Miguel Rojo and
Lluis Antón González broke from the Asturian-Leonese tradition of rural themes, moral messages and dialogue-style writing. Currently, the Asturian language has about 150 annual publications. The Bible into the Asturian language was completed in 2021 after over 30 years of translation work, beginning in September 1988. has emerged as a new generation of authors—primarily working in fantasy, science fiction, and horror—that explicitly breaks with the Surdimientu. According to the academic and literary critic Marta Mori, this generation is characterized by a more agile narrative pace, stories that are easily translatable into images and driven by dialogue, simpler archetypal characters closer to the axiological framework of traditional literature, and by the intention to create a fantastic imaginary with Asturian roots based on local mythology. Some authors associated with this generation include Nicolás Bardio,
Adrián Carbayales,
Xon de la Campa Use and distribution Astur-Leonese's geographic area exceeds Asturias, and the language known as Leonese in the
autonomous community of
Castile and León is basically the same as the Asturian spoken in Asturias. The
Asturian-Leonese linguistic domain covers most of the principality of Asturias, the northern and western
province of León, the northeastern
province of Zamora (both in Castile and León), western
Cantabria and the Miranda do Douro region in the eastern
Bragança District of Portugal.
Toponymy Traditional, popular place names of the principality's towns are supported by the law on usage of Asturian, the principality's 2003–07 plan for establishing the language and the work of the
Xunta Asesora de Toponimia, which researches and confirms the Asturian names of requesting villages, towns,
conceyos and cities (50 of 78
conceyos as of 2012). ==Dialects==