Galician language

Galician (Galician: galego) is a language of the Western Ibero-Romance branch, spoken in Galicia. Galicia is an autonomous community with the constitutional status of "historic nationality", located in northwestern Spain. Galician is considered by some to be a different written norm for Galaico-Portuguese, the other norm being Portuguese. The popular dialects from the regions immediately south of the border are virtually identical to those from the north, but while the former are referred to as Portuguese, the latter are called Galician. The written norm however is substantially different.

Classification

Historically, the Galician-Portuguese language originated in Galicia and Northern Portugal (comprising the Roman Gallaecia), and branched out since 14th century after the Portuguese expansion brought it southwards. There are linguists that 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, once often incorrectly considered a dialect of Spanish. However, the Galician government does not regard Galician as a variety of Portuguese, but rather as a separate language. After centuries of separation between the two languages, mutual comprehension can sometimes be difficult, although usually it is quite fluent.

Briefly, the relationship within the Galician-Portuguese sub-group can be compared with that between Flemish and Dutch or Macedonian and Bulgarian.

The Instituto da Lingua Galega (ILG) claims that modern Galician must be considered an independent Romance language that belongs to the group of Ibero-Romance Languages. On the other hand, according to the unofficial Associaçom Galega da Língua (AGAL), 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, Extremaduran Fala (Spain), and other dialects. Thus it uses a closer to Portuguese spelling system instead of the ILG one, closer to Spanish. However, in some aspects, the Portuguese dialects are more conservative than the Galician ones, which for the most part have lost the voiced fricatives /z/ and /ʒ/, and the palatal consonant /ʎ/ (yeísmo).

The dialects of Portuguese most similar to Galician are those of Alto-Minho and Trás-os-Montes (northern Portugal).

In any case, discussions on the Galician language tend to mirror the never-ending debate in Galician society between reasserting its own identity ("isolationism"), or assimilating to a bigger cultural block ("reintegrationism"). See Writing system section, below.

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).

There is a controversy about including Eonavian dialects spoken in Asturias into Galician language, between those defending Eonavian is a dialect continuum of transition to Asturian language and those defending it is clearly Galician.

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 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. 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 Union Parliament and used as such by, among others, the Galician representatives José Posada, Camilo Nogueira and Xosé Manuel Beiras.

Dialects

Galician has multiple dialects, yet mutual comprehension is total.

Sounds

**Vowels**
Phoneme (IPA)	Grapheme	Example
	a	nada
	e	tres
	e	ferro
	i	min
	o	bonito
	o	home
	u	rua

**Consonants**
Phoneme (IPA)	Grapheme	Example
	b/v	banco, ventá
	z/c	cero, zume
	ch	chama
	d	dixo
	f	falo
or	g/gu	galego, guerra
	c/qu	conta, quente
	l	luns
or	ll	botella
	m	mellor
	n	nove
	ñ	mañá
	nh	algunha
	p	por
	r	hora
	r/rr	recto, ferro
	s	sal
	t	tinto
	x	viaxe

Grammar

Galician allows pronominal clitics to be attached to indicative and subjunctive forms as Portuguese does, unlike standard Spanish or Castilian.

Vocabulary

Writing system

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, as a minority of citizens would rather have the institutions recognize Galician as a Portuguese variety, and therefore opt for the use of the Portuguese writing system, perhaps with some adaptations. A revised edition was published in 2003, with some minor changes towards Portuguese orthography. Note that the official orthography it almost exactly Castilian orthography, it means, "official" Galician has not its own ortography, since it has adapted the Spanish one. For instance, official Galician spelling does not make difference between open and close vowels -since they are absent on Spanish. Not a single rule of official Galician ortography is of its own, and all are borrowed from the Spanish ortography. Rigorously, it would be said that official Galician ortography does not exist at all: it is the Spanish one.

The official orthography is approved by RAG and is used by official institutions, in education, and by most writers. There is other version, oriented towards Portuguese, called reintegrationism (reintegracionismo), using a written system known as maximal orthographic system (normativa de máximos ortográficos), and is promoted by AGAL (Associaçom Galega da Língua). A more radical point of view on reintegrationism is lusism (lusismo), which proposes to insert the Galician language fully into Portuguese using the same writing system as part of the common Portuguese language community (lusofonía). Until 2003, there was a third writing system of commitment between the official system and reintegrationism, but their supporters now accept the official norm.

In 1986 and 1990, there were meetings between all of the Portuguese-speaking countries, in order to establish a spelling reform (there are some minor spelling differences between Portugal and Brazil, just as between British and American English). Galicia was invited to take part in the meetings, but the Galician government (that claims that Galician and Portuguese must be considered different languages) did not send representation. However, an unofficial commission formed by Galician linguists was sent, and took part in both meetings. ^*

Spelling system has very important political connotations in Galicia. At the present time there are significant political parties that defend points of view that range from greater self-government for Galicia into the Spanish political organization to total political independence from Spain in order to preserve Galician culture and language from the risk of being absorbed into a greater one. Since modern Galician spelling system was taken from Spanish it is seen by them as some form of Spanish influence that is necessary to remove; since medieval Galician and medieval Portuguese were a language unity Portuguese spelling, which is nearer to medieval Galician one than modern Galician one. Language unification has also the benefit of linking Galician language to another major language with extensive cultural production on its own, which would debilitate the links that bond Galicia and Spain and ultimately favour the people's wish toward an independent state.

Despite they are concepts frequently associated there is no correlation between reintegrationism, independentism and defending Galician and Portuguese languages unity. Some examples are given of this statement:

- the two main independentist parties in Galicia use different spelling forms, one of them the ILG one (FPG) and the another one the AGAL one (NÓS-UP)

- there are many Galician people and philologists that defend a closer to Portuguese spelling form attending to the language story, syntax and phonetics without defending language unity nor independence

History

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.

From the 9th century, the language spoken in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula was so different from Latin, that Latin and Galician could be already considered two separate languages. Nevertheless, 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 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.

Examples

English	Galician (official / lusist)		Portuguese	Spanish
Good day	Bo día / Bos días	Bom dia / Bons dias	Bom dia / Bons dias	Buen día / Buenos días
What's your name?	Como te chamas?			Desculpe	Discúlpeme
Thank you	Grazas / Graciñas	Graças / Gracinhas / Obrigado	Obrigado	Gracias
Welcome	Benvido	Bem-vido	Bem-vindo	Bienvenido
Goodbye	Adeus			Adiós
Yes	Si		Sim	Sí
No	Non	Nom	Não	No
Dog	Can	Cam	Cão	(Perro)
Grandfather	Avó	Avô	Avô	Abuelo
Newspaper	Xornal	Jornal	Jornal	(Periódico)
Mirror	Espello	Espelho	Espelho	Espejo
Little witch	Bruxiña	Bruxinha	Bruxinha	Brujina

¹ Quero-te means "I want you" in Portuguese. In fact, "quérote" in official Galician is a calque from Spanish. "Avó" (acute) in Portuguese means "Grandmother" from "(arch.) avoa > avó". In official Galician the "o" in "Avó" is pronounced the same than Portuguese "Avô".

External links