Llengua i identitat en l'obra de Rafael Ferrer i Bigné

This paper analyses the reaction of the Valencian writer Rafael Ferrer i Bigné against postulates on the Catalan Romance philology in the middle of the nineteenth century. In addition, this work tries to relate the Ferrer i Bigné position with the others scholars and writers of the Reinaixença Valenciana movement and the awareness of linguistic community shared with Catalan speakers from Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and North Catalonia. From the middle of the nineteenth century the German romanists found the Romance philology. They establish that Catalan is the name of the language of the Catalan-speaking areas, which is different from Occitan and which has nothing to do with Limousin what was known since the early sixteenth century. These assumptions regarding the identity and the name of the Catalan language are quickly received and assumed in Catalonia; in the Balearic Islands and North Catalonia they were received positively with very few exceptions. But not in Valencia, where Rafael Ferrer i Bigné ¿among others¿ showed his disagreement with it for his identity feelings.