El baleàric dins els estudis dialectals inèdits de Milà i Fontanals

Abstract

The purpose of this article is a presentation of the characteristics and content of the notes dedicated to the Balearic Islands by Manuel Milà i Fontanals in the second half of the 19th century, documents that represent an important part of the personal papers of this author and that are located in Santander's Menéndez y Pelayo Library. Although Milà is well known for being one of the first Catalan scholars to dedicate himself to the scientific study of the Catalan dialects, a significant part of his linguistic work has remained unpublished to this day. We refer to the personal papers where Milà has collected a great deal of information about the characteristics of the Catalan dialects, in preparation for a planned general description of spoken Catalan. Only the first part of this project, the notes on the Barceloní, was published (cf. Estudios de lengua catalana [1875]), while Milà never managed to reveal the rest of the dialectological data and information he had collected to the public.