Galician¹

Galician (Galician: galego, IPA: [gaˈlego]) is a language of the Western Ibero-Romance branch, spoken in Galicia, an autonomous community with the constitutional status of "historic nationality," located in northwestern Spain and small bordering zones in neighbouring autonomous communities of Asturias and Castilla y León.

Galician and Portuguese were, in medieval times, a single language which linguists call Galician-Portuguese, Medieval Galician, or Old Portuguese, spoken in the territories initially ruled by the medieval Kingdom of Galicia. Both languages are even today united by a dialect continuum located mainly in the northern regions of Portugal.

Classification

Historically, the Galician-Portuguese language originated in Galicia and Northern Portugal in lands belonging to the ancient Kingdom of Galicia (comprising the Roman Gallaecia) and branched out since the 14th century after the Portuguese expansion brought it southwards. There are linguists who consider Modern Galician and Modern Portuguese as dialects or varieties of the same language, but this is a matter of debate. For instance, in past editions of the Encyclopædia Britannica, Galician was termed a Portuguese dialect spoken in northwestern Spain. (It has also been considered incorrectly as a dialect of Spanish.) However, the Galician government does not regard Galician as a variety of Portuguese, but rather as a distinct language. Mutual intelligibility (estimated at 85% by R. A. Hall, Jr., 1989^[1]) is good between Galicians and Northern Portuguese, but poorer between Galicians and speakers of Central-Southern European Portuguese. The dialects of Portuguese most similar to Galician are those of Alto-Minho and Trás-os-Montes in northern Portugal.

Relation to Portuguese

The linguistic status of Galician with respect to Portuguese is controversial. Some authors, such as Lindley Cintra,^[2] consider that they are still dialects of a common language, in spite of superficial differences in phonology and vocabulary. Others, such as Pilar Vázquez Cuesta,^[3] argue that they have become separate languages due to major differences in phonetics and vocabulary usage, and, to a lesser extent, morphology and syntax. The official position of the Galician Language Institute is that Galician and Portuguese should be considered independent languages. The standard orthography takes advantage of the divergent features of the phonology of Galician to emphasize its differences from Portuguese, insisting on a phonetic spelling, and rejecting for example Portuguese graphic conventions like the graphemes nh, lh, j in favour of ñ, ll, x.

Map of Galicia showing speakers of Galician as first language according to Population and Housing Census of the Galician Statistics Institute (2001)

The relationship involving Galician and Portuguese can be compared with that between Flemish and Dutch, Macedonian and Bulgarian, Occitan and Catalan, Italian and Corsican, Romanian and Moldovan or English and Lowland Scots. Due to language proximity two interpretations have risen in conflict:

The official institution regulating Galician language is Instituto da Lingua Galega (ILG). It claims that modern Galician must be considered an independent Romance language that belongs to the group of Ibero-Romance Languages and has strong ties with Portuguese and its northern dialects.

There is also an unofficial institution Associaçom Galega da Língua (AGAL), according to which differences between Galician and Portuguese languages are not enough to consider them separate languages, just like other Galician-Portuguese forms such as Brazilian Portuguese, African Portuguese, archaic Galician-Portuguese still spoken in Spanish Extremadura Fala, and other dialects.

See also: Reintegrationism

Geographic distribution

Galician is spoken by more than 3 million people, including most of the people in Galicia, as well as among the many Galician immigrants in the rest of Spain (Madrid, Barcelona, Biscay), elsewhere in Europe (Andorra, Geneva, London), and Ibero-America (Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Havana, Caracas, Mexico City, São Paulo, Guadalajara, Veracruz City and Panama City).

Controversy exists regarding the inclusion of Eonavian dialects spoken in Asturias into the Galician language, with those defending Eonavian as a dialect continuum of transition to the Asturian language on the one hand, and those defending it as clearly Galician on the other.

Because of its historical status as a non-official language, for some authors the situation of language domination in Galicia could be called "diglossia," with Galician in the lower part of the dialect continuum, and Spanish at the top; while for others, the conditions for diglossia established by Ferguson are not met.

Official status

Spain has recognized Galician as one of Spain's four "official languages" (lenguas españolas), the others being Castilian (also called Spanish), Catalan (or Valencian), and Basque (Euskara). Galician is taught at primary and secondary school and used at the universities in Galicia. Further, it has been accepted orally as Portuguese in the European Parliament and used as such by, among others, the Galician representatives José Posada, Camilo Nogueira and Xosé Manuel Beiras.

Dialects

Galician has multiple dialects but none lack mutual intelligibility.

History

Further information: Galician-Portuguese

From the 8th century, Galicia was a political unit within the kingdoms of Asturias and Leon, but was able to reach a degree of autonomy, becoming an independent kingdom at certain times in the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries. Galician was the only language in spoken use, and Latin was used, to a decreasing extent, as a written language. This monopoly on spoken language was able to exert such pressure in the 13th century, that it led to a situation of dual official status for Galician and Latin in notarial documents, edicts, lawsuits, etc.; Latin, however, continued to be the universal vehicle for higher culture.

Written texts in Galician have only been found dating from the end of the 12th century, because Latin continued to be the cultured language (not only in Galicia, but also throughout medieval Europe).

The oldest known document is the poem Ora faz ost'o Senhor de Navarra by Joam Soares de Paiva, written around 1200. The first non-literary documents in Galician-Portuguese date from the early 13th century, the Noticia de Torto (1211) and the Testamento of Afonso II of Portugal (1214), both samples of medieval notarial prose.

In the Middle Ages, Galaico-português (or Galician-Portuguese) was a language of culture, poetry, and religion throughout not only Galicia and Portugal, but also Castile (where Castilian was used mainly for prose).

After the separation of Portuguese and Galician, Galician was considered provincial, and it was not widely used for literary or academic purposes until its renaissance in the mid-19th century.

With the advent of democracy, Galician has been brought into the country's institutions, and it is now co-official with Spanish. Galician is taught in schools, and there is a public Galician-language television channel, TVG.

The Real Academia Galega and other Galician institutions celebrate each May 17 as "Día das Letras Galegas" ("Galician Literature Day"), dedicated each year to a deceased Galician-language writer chosen by the academy.

Sounds

See also Wikipedia in Galician: Official orthography of Galician.

Almost all dialects of Galician have lost nasal vowels. However, vowels can become nasalized in proximity to nasal consonants. Along the modern age, Galician consonants went through significant changes which closely paralleled the evolution of the Spanish consonants, namely the following consonant mergers and sound changes:

• /β/ → /b/;
• /z/ → /s/;
• /dz/ → /ts/ → /s/ in western dialects or /θ/ in eastern and central dialects;
• /ʒ/ → /ʃ/;

For a comparison, see Differences between Spanish and Portuguese: Sibilants. Additionally, during the 17th and 18th centuries the western and central dialects of Galician developed a fricative pronunciation for the phoneme written g/gu, which is found neither in Spanish nor in Portuguese, called gheada: /ɡ/ → /ħ/.

During the 20th and 21st centuries Spanish has experienced a new consonant shift in which the lateral consonant /ʎ/ came to be pronounced as a fricative /ʝ/ (see yeísmo). This merger has somewhat influenced other dialects spoken in Spain, including some Galician ones, but it is rejected by Galician language institutions.

In this respect, it can be said that Portuguese is phonologically more conservative than Galician.

Grammar

Galician allows pronominal clitics to be attached to indicative and subjunctive forms, as does Portuguese, unlike standard Spanish or Castilian. After many centuries of close contact between the two languages, Galician has also adopted many loan words from Spanish, and some calques of Spanish syntax.

Writing system

The current official Galician orthography was introduced in 1982, and made law in 1983, by the Real Academia Galega (RAG), based on a report by the ILG. It remains a source of contention, however; a minority of citizens would rather have the institutions recognize Galician as a Portuguese variety as cited before, and therefore still opt for the use of writing systems that range from adapted medieval Galician-Portuguese writing system or European Portuguese one (see reintegrationism).

In July 2003 the Real Academia Galega (Galician Royal Academy) modified the language normative to admit some archaic Galician-Portuguese forms conserved in modern Portuguese. These changes have been considered an attempt to build a consensus among major Galician philology trends and represent, in the words of the Galician Language Academy, "the orthography desired by 95% of Galician people." The 2003 reform is thought to put an end to the so-called "normative wars" raised by the different points of view of the relationship between the modern Galician and Portuguese languages. This modification has been accepted only by a part of the reintegrationist movement at this point.

The question of the spelling system has very significant political connotations in Galicia. At present there are minor but significant political parties representing points of view that range from greater self-government for Galicia within the Spanish political setup to total political independence from Spain designed to preserve the Galician culture and language from the risk of being inundated by the Castillian culture and language. Since the modern Galician orthography is somewhat influenced by Castillian spelling conventions, some parties wish to remove it. Since medieval Galician and medieval Portuguese were the same language, modern Portuguese spelling is nearer to medieval Galician than to modern Galician Spanish-style spelling. Language unification would also have the benefit of linking the Galician language to another major language with its own extensive cultural production, which would weaken the links that bind Galicia and Spain and ultimately favor the people's aspiration toward an independent state. However, although all three concepts are frequently associated, there is no correlation between reintegrationism, independentism and defending Galician and Portuguese linguistic unity, and in fact reintegrationism has a small force in the whole Galician nationalist movement.

Examples

*Note that avó /ɐˈvɔ/ in Portuguese means "grandmother".

Notes

1. ^ Ethnologue
2. ^ Lindley Cintra, Luís F. Nova Proposta de Classificação dos Dialectos Galego-PortuguesesPDF (469 KiB) Boletim de Filologia, Lisboa, Centro de Estudos Filológicos, 1971 (in Portuguese).
3. ^ Vázquez Cuesta, Pilar «Non son reintegracionista», interview given to La Voz de Galicia on 22/02/2002 (in Galician).

See also

• Barallete
• Castrapo
• Eonavian
• Galician literature
• Fala dos arxinas, a jargon of Galician masons
• Galician-Portuguese
• Portuguese language
• Fala language

External links

Galician language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Newspapers in Galician:

• Luns a Venres - Free daily newspaper
• Galicia Hoxe - daily newspaper
• Vieiros
• Gznacion
• Arroutada Noticias
• Galiza Livre - pro independence online news (In reintegrationist Galician)

Other links related to Galician:

• Real Academia Galega
• Instituto da Lingua Galega
• Associaçom Galega da Língua - Portal Galego da Língua - Reintegrationist
• Biblioteca Virtual Galega
• Xarmenta - Asociacion Berciana da lingua Xarmenta
• Fala Ceibe - Asociación Cultural Fala Ceibe do Bierzo
• Sound recordings of the different dialects of the Galician language
• Ethnologue report for Galician
• English-Galician CLUVI Online Dictionary
• Biblioteca Virtual Galega
• Galician - English Dictionary: from Webster's Online Dictionary - the Rosetta Edition.

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