Enric Valor i Vives facts for kids
Enric Valor i Vives (born in Castalla, Alicante in 1911 – died in Valencia in 2000) was a famous writer and language expert from the Valencian Country, Spain. He played a huge part in collecting and bringing back old Valencian words. He also helped make the Valencian language more standard, so everyone could use it the same way.
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Enric Valor's Life Story
Enric Valor was born in 1911 into a well-off family in Castalla. This town is in a region of Valencia called l'Alcoià.
Early Career and Politics
When he was 19, in 1930, Enric started working as a journalist in Alicante. He wrote for a funny newspaper called El Tio Cuc, which was written in Valencian. During the time of the Second Spanish Republic, he became interested in politics. He strongly believed that the Land of Valencia should have its own special powers and rules, known as "autonomous status." He also worked in the city of Valencia for newspapers that supported Valencian identity, like La República de les Lletres and El País Valencià. When the Spanish Civil War began, he supported the side that wanted Spain to be a republic.
After the War and Imprisonment
After the war, when General Franco's government took over, Enric focused more on writing. In the early 1950s, he started gathering "rondalles." These are like old folk tales or traditional stories. He published them in a collection called Rondalles valencianes between 1950 and 1958.
In the 1960s, he secretly became involved in politics again, supporting Valencian culture and identity. Because of this, he was put in prison by Francisco Franco's government from 1966 to 1968.
Founding a Magazine and Later Years
After he was released from prison, Enric Valor helped start one of the first magazines in Valencian after the war. It was called Gorg, which means "Whirl." When Franco's government ended, Enric Valor was finally free to share his ideas and writings openly. He received many important awards for his work on language and literature from all over the Països Catalans, which includes Valencia, Catalonia, and the Balearic Islands. In the 1990s, some cultural groups in Valencia even tried to get him nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature, but it didn't happen.
Enric Valor passed away in the year 2000.
Enric Valor's Language Work
Enric Valor's first work on language was for the weekly magazine El Tio Cuc in Alicante. He helped create a big dictionary of the Catalan-Valencian-Balearic language. This dictionary included many words from Southern Valencia.
Standardizing Valencian
Along with other important language experts like Carles Salvador, Enric Valor was a key person in making the Valencian language more standard. This meant creating clear rules for how the language should be written and spoken. He did this through books like Curs de la llengua valenciana (1961), Millorem el llenguatge (1971), and Curso medio de gramática catalana referida especialmente al País Valencià (1973).
In 1983, he published La flexió verbal. This book explained all the different ways Valencian verbs change, which can be tricky because of different dialects. This book became the main guide for using verbs correctly in Valencian. It is still used today as important teaching material for students learning Valencian.
Enric Valor's Literary Works
Enric Valor is most famous for his book Rondalles valencianes (1950–1958). In this work, he collected 36 popular Valencian folk tales and rewrote them as literary stories. He also wrote other similar collections, such as Narracions de la Foia de Castalla (1953) and Meravelles i picardies (1964–1970).
Novels and Trilogies
Valor was also a novelist. His first novel was L'ambició d'Aleix. He started writing it in the 1940s and 1950s, but he kept rewriting it until it was published in 1960.
Perhaps his most important novels are part of a series called Cicle de Cassana. This series includes three novels: Sense la terra promesa (1960), Temps de batuda (1983), and Enllà de l'horitzó (1991). The Cicle de Cassana trilogy aimed to help people remember and understand the past, especially the period between 1916 and 1939. In 1982, he also published La idea de l'emigrant.
Awards and Honors for Enric Valor
Enric Valor received many important awards and honors for his contributions to Valencian language and literature:
- 1983: Sanchis Guarner's Award (Premi Sanchis Guarner) from the Valencia Province Council.
- 1985: Valencian Arts Award (Premi de les Lletres Valencianes) from Valencia City Council.
- 1986: Became a member of the Philological Department in the Institut d'Estudis Catalans.
- 1987: Received the Premi d'Honor de les Lletres Catalanes (Catalan Arts Honored Award) from the Òmnium Cultural de Barcelona.
- 1987: Became a member of the Advisory Board in the Interuniversitary Institute of Valencian Philology (Institut Interuniversitari de Filologia Valenciana).
- 1993: Awarded an honorary doctorate (Honoris Causa Doctor) by the Universitat de València.
- 1993: Received the Saint George's Cross (Creu de Sant Jordi) from the Generalitat de Catalunya.
- 1996: Received the Miquelet d'Honor from the Societat Coral El Micalet in Valencia.
- 1997: Received the Premi Cavanilles from the Valencian Institute of Nature and Hiking (Institut Valencià d'Excursionisme i Natura).
- 1998: Awarded an honorary doctorate by the Universitat de les Illes Balears.
- 1999: Awarded an honorary doctorate by the Universitat Jaume I from Castelló.
- 1999: Awarded an honorary doctorate by the Universitat d'Alacant.
- 1999: Awarded an honorary doctorate by the Universitat Politècnica de València.
See also
In Spanish: Enric Valor para niños
