Editing Valencian language (section)

=== Knowledge and usage ===
[[File:Coneixement del valencià (domini promig)-Cens del 2001.png|thumb|upright=0.8|left|Knowledge of Valencian according to the 2001 census. The light green areas inland and in the southernmost part are not historically Valencian speaking ([[Media:Coneixement del valencià (domini promig)-Cens del 2001.png|large]]).]]

In 2010 the [[Generalitat Valenciana]], or Valencian government, published a study, {{lang|ca-valencia|Coneixement i ús social del valencià}} (Knowledge and Social Use of Valencian),<ref>{{Cite web |year=2010 |title=''Servei d'Investigació i Estudis Sociolingüístics'' (Research Service and Sociolinguistic Studies) |url=http://www.edu.gva.es/polin/docs/sies_docs/encuesta2010/index.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101210094400/http://www.edu.gva.es/polin/docs/sies_docs/encuesta2010/index.html |archive-date=10 December 2010 |access-date=1 July 2010 |publisher=Servei d'Investigació i Estudis Sociolingüístics}}</ref> which included a survey sampling more than 6,600 people in the provinces of Castellón, Valencia, and Alicante. The survey simply collected the answers of respondents and did not include any testing or verification. The results were:

* Valencian was the language "always, generally, or most commonly used":
** at home: 31.6%
** with friends: 28.0%
** in internal business relations: 24.7%

* For ability:
** 48.5% answered they can speak Valencian "perfectly" or "quite well" (54.3% in the Valencian-speaking areas and 10% in the Spanish-speaking areas)
** 26.2% answered they can write Valencian "perfectly" or "quite well" (29.5% in the Valencian-speaking areas and 5.8% in the Spanish-speaking areas)

The survey shows that, although Valencian is still the common language in many areas in the Valencian Community, where slightly more than half of the Valencian population are able to speak it, most Valencians do not usually use Valencian in their social relations.

Moreover, according to the most recent survey in 2021,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Enquestes sobre la situació del valencià - Política Lingüística - Generalitat Valenciana |url=https://ceice.gva.es/ca/web/dgplgm/enquestes-situacio-valencia |access-date=2023-07-30 |website=Direcció General de Política Lingüística i Gestió del Multilingüisme |language=ca-ES}}</ref> there is a downward trend in everyday Valencian users. The lowest numbers are in the major cities of [[Valencia]] and [[Alicante]], where the percentage of everyday speakers is at single-digit numbers. However, the percentage of residents who claim to be able to understand and read Valencian seems to have increased since 2015.

{| class="wikitable" style="font-size:90%;"
|+ Knowledge of Valencian in the Valencian Community (2021)<ref name="Knowledge of Valencian (2021)">{{cite web|url=https://ceice.gva.es/documents/161863132/174616028/enquesta+%C3%BAs+del+valencia%CC%80+2021_web.pdf/6a3e6836-f136-bffc-8593-0381eedc297b?t=1674558043543|title=Coneixement i ús social del valencià|year=2021|language=ca-valencia|publisher=Generalitat Valenciana}}</ref>
|-
! style="background:#efefef;" |
! style="background:#efefef;" | Valencian-speaking zone
! Spanish-speaking zone
!Total
|-
! style="background:#efefef;" | Understands it
|79.4%
|54%
|75.8%
|-
! style="background:#efefef;" | Can speak it
|54.9%
|24.2%
|50.6%
|-
! style="background:#efefef;" | Can read it
|60.9%
|35%
|57.2%
|-
! style="background:#efefef;" | Can write it
|44.4%
|19.5%
|40.8%
|}

Due to a number of political and social factors, including repression, immigration and lack of formal instruction in Valencian, the number of speakers has severely decreased, and the influence of Spanish has led to the appearance of a number of [[Barbarism (linguistics)|barbarisms]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Casanova |first=Emili |date=1980 |title=Castellanismos y su cambio semántico al penetrar en el catalán |url=http://cvc.cervantes.es/Ensenanza/biblioteca_ele/aepe/pdf/boletin_23_13_80/boletin_23_13_80_04.pdf |journal=Boletín de la Asociación Europea de Profesores de Español |volume=12 |issue=23 |pages=15–25}}</ref>