Mirandese in contact with Portuguese 
and Spanish

[Resumen extraído de la fuente original]

Mirandese is a minority language spoken in Northeastern Portugal, on the Portuguese‑Spanish border. In this chapter, the frontier status of the Mirandese language is examined from different perspectives. First, an overview of the geo-historical context frames the description of the structurally transitional nature of the Mirandese language along the Portuguese‑Mirandese-Spanish continuum. This is followed by a presentation of sociolinguistic data that highlight the fact that Mirandese is, at this stage, a definitively, or even a severely endangered minority language (UNESCO, 2003). To this last effect, available data referring to important vitality indicators are reviewed: trends in number of speakers, shifting patterns of language preferences for different communicative domains, levels of intergenerational transmission, and children’s proficiency in the minority language.