"Les Ordinacions de la costa marítima del regne de València" (1673): una mostra de llengua administrativa en el segle XVII

Resum

The aim of this article is to show a sample of the Catalan legal and administrative language during a historical period of a great supremacy of the Castilian language and culture within the Catalan-speaking area. For this purpose, we have chosen a 1673 text: «Ordinacions tocants a la custòdia y guarda marítima del Regne de València» (Seaboard ordenances in the Kingdom of Valencia). During the centuries of the so-called Decadence, Catalan was substituted for Castilian in literature and only persisted in popular genres, full of vulgarisms and with a strong Castilian influence. Nevertheless, in this period of Castilian supremacy, Catalan is still used in legal and administrative documents and the style of this Decadence administrative language is plain, accurate and sober. Apart from the logical Castilian influence in the text, the «Ordenances» are a good example of a legal language that is closer to our time that the medieval one and, therefore, it can be a point of reference to create a modern legal language in Catalan.