The silhouette of the castle of Serra and cherries are the central element of the calligram that has already prepared the City Council of Serra with the 32 most local and genuine words of the municipality. A project in which the neighborhood has participated by contributing the most typical words of the town, as well as the most unique and traditional place names.
The project has mapped the linguistic memory of the town through 32 words or expressions with the aim of giving visibility to the dialectal speech of Serra so that new generations use the Valencian of their grandparents, claim it and immortalize it. Part of the list collected is the one that is part of the calligram that is integrated into the silhouette of the Castell de Serra and an arm holding some cherries.
The mayoress of Serra, Alicia Tusón has valued very positively a project by which “the serranos and serranas feel proud of the words that we have inherited, which serves to preserve and value the speech of our town and also to love more the language of the people.”
Words like for example “quereïlla, aspàrics, rescolaora, revollons o clotxa” are part of a calligram that also includes expressions like now “está prunejant, som de rodeno, fer fibaç, aponnar-se, ariçonar, fer fixcar, pujar la rogeta o Maedéu.” Words such as “cuguet, balsó, basquinya and bancalet” are listed along with other words related to gastronomy such as “orelleta, cofins, olla amb carabassa or piberoig coguent.” There is also a wide toponymic representation of the locality such as “Portaceli, Tóxima, Ria, Rebalsadors or Deula.”
In total, more than 70 words or own locutions have been collected that the neighbors have sent by email or directly during certain celebrations such as the Reading Marathon held in October. Not all the words have been used to elaborate the calligram. Some have been discarded for not passing the filter of being genuinely Serrano, others for linguistic reasons.
This activity of research of words, songs, sayings and their subsequent visibility are part of the actions of the Linguistic Normalization Plan that has been carried out by the City Council of Serra thanks to the support of the Diputació de València. A proposal that manages and advises the company Lola Terreta and that will allow dissemination through T-shirts, bags, notebooks or folders. At the moment, the consistory has notebooks that the Diputació de València has paid for within the project.