The Valencian pelota is the own and specific sport of the Valencian People that has been practiced since time immemorial throughout the territory of the Valencian Community, being the only region in Europe in which the practice endures in its genuine tradition.

In addition, around the game of Valencian pelota converge a series of cultural, social, ethnographic and linguistic aspects that constitute a sample of the richness and diversity of our society and its traditions.

For all this, the Valencian pelota it is a symbol of the identity of the Valencians, and, as such, deserves that the Generalitat recognizes its value and grants it the highest degree of protection that the Valencian Cultural Heritage Law grants to the assets that constitute its intangible heritage, in order to guarantee its legacy to future generations, declaring itself as Asset of Intangible Cultural Interest on 5 September 2014.

The practice of ball games is a constant in many ancient cultures around the world. In the specific case of the Valencian pelota, its origin is clearly located in Greco-Roman antiquity. Thus, in several classical Greek texts reference is made to the practice of handball games with different variants and the common denominator of being practiced in specific places enabled for this purpose, individually or by teams, and with a maximum number of pots of the ball.

Currently, the Valencian pelota enjoys in our territory a great social roots and a vitality that grows day by day. Not surprisingly, the Valencian Community has more than 3,700 federated pelota athletes, and more than 130 facilities are in operation in which the different modalities of this sport are practiced. Each season there are eight official professional championships, about 20 unofficial competitions and more than 2,200 day-to-day games; all of them in the modalities ladder and rope and of brush; At a non-professional level, about 40 competitions are held in the modalities of pediment, galocha, brush, ladder and rope and long palm and perch. Grassroots sports have also experienced an important boom, especially the Pilota a la Escola Program , which in the last decade has increased the number of its performances by five hundred percent, reaching 14,000 students per year in 2014.

Valencian pelota has its own, particular and peculiar vocabulary; Words and idioms characteristic and specific to this field, which have endured over the centuries and that distinguish and identify both sport and language.

On the other hand, the predominance of the different forms of play in the different regions of the Valencian Community has undoubtedly contributed to preserving the specific dialectal varieties of the different areas of the territory.

Likewise, it should be noted that the world of pelota has maintained Valencian as its own language in its daily activity, preserving and enriching it, while many of its expressions and characteristic words were incorporated into colloquial language.

The Valencian pelota has been, therefore, throughout history an essential factor for the preservation of the use of classical words and forms forgotten in current speech and for the maintenance of the normality of the use of the language in everyday life. The Valencian Academy of Language has produced and edited the Vocabulary of ball game In order to facilitate the knowledge of the vocabulary of this game and promote the use of our language, thus recognizing the importance of the pelota in the culture and tradition of the Valencian people and its symbolic and identity character.