galician language

Galician (Galego) is a language variety of the Western Ibero-Romance branch, spoken in Galicia (in the Galician language, Galicia or Galiza), an autonomous community with the constitutional status of "historic nationality" and located in northwestern Spain, and in areas in the neighbouring autonomous communities of Asturias and Castilla-Len.

Classification

Historically, the Portuguese language originated in Galicia (the Roman Gallaecia) and branched out in the 14th century after the Reconquista brought it southwards. Many linguists see Modern Galician as a dialect of Portuguese. For instance, the Encyclopdia Britannica pronounces it a Portuguese dialect spoken in northwestern Spain, once often incorrectly considered a dialect of Spanish. However, neither the Galician Government nor the vast majority of the Galician people regard their language as a variety of Portuguese. After centuries of separation between both languages mutual comprehension can sometimes be difficult, although it is usually quite fluent. To sum up, the relationship between the Galician-Portuguese sub-group can be compared with the relationships between Moldovan language and Romanian language. The Instituto da Lingua Galega claims that Galego is an independent Romance language that belongs to the group of Ibero-Romantic Languages. On other hand, to the minority and unofficial Associaom Galega da Lngua, galego has never ceased to be a part of the Portuguese language, just like the Brazilian version, the African varieties, and other dialects. However, in some aspects the Portuguese dialects are more conservative than the Galician ones, which for the most part lost of the voiced fricatives /z/. In any case, the 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.

Geographic distribution

Galician is spoken by more than 3 million people: it is spoken by most of the people in Galicia as well as among the many Galician immigrants in the rest of Spain (Madrid, Biscay), Iberoamerica (Buenos Aires, Managua, Montevideo, San Jose, Costa Rica) and Europe. Due to its historical situation 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 language at the top, while for others the conditions for diglossia established by Ferguson are not met.

Official status

The Spanish state recognized Galician as one of Spain's four "official languages" (lenguas espaolas), the others being Castilian (also called Spanish), Catalan-Valencian, and Basque. Though this is viewed by most as a positive step toward language maintenance, officialness does not guarantee language transmission among the youngest generations.

Dialects

Galician has multiple dialects, yet mutual comprehension is total.

Sounds

Vowels

Phoneme (IPA)	Grapheme	Example
/a/	a	nada
/e/	e	tres
/ɛ/	e	ferro
/i/	i	min
/o/	o	bonito
/ɔ/	o	vs
/u/	u	gusto

Consonants

Phoneme (IPA)	Grapheme	Example
/b/	b and v	banco, ventana
/θ/	z+a,o,u and c+e,i	cero, zume
/t ʃ/	ch	chama
/d/	d	dixo
/f/	f	falo
/g/ or /ħ/	g+a,o,u and gu+e,i	galego, guerra
/k/	c+a,o,u and qu+e,i	conta, quente
/l/	l	luns
/ʝ/ or /ʎ/	ll	botella
/m/	m	mellor
/n/	n	nove
/ɲ/		ma
/ŋ/	nh	algunha
/p/	p	por
/ɾ/	r	hora
/r/	r and rr	recto, ferro
/s/	s	sal
/t/	t	tinto
/ʃ/	x	viaxe

Grammar

More information needed.

Vocabulary

More information needed!

Writing system

Galician orthography, introduced in 1982 (and made law in 1983) by the Real Academia Galega (based on a report by the "Instituto da Lingua Galega") is strongly based on Castilian. It remains a source of contention, however, as many 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.

History

From the ninth century, the language spoken in the NW 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 Gallaecia but 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 date from the early thirteenth century, the Noticia de Torto (1211) and the Testamento of Afonso II of Portugal (1214), both samples of medieval notarial prose. From the eighth century Galicia was a political unit with 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 oral use and Latin was used to a decreasing degree in written language. This oral monolingualism was able to exert such pressure in the thirteenth 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 culture. In the Middle Ages, Galaico-portugus (or Portuguese-Galician) 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 was not widely used for literary or academic purposes until its renaissance in the mid 1800s, and during the rule of General Francisco Franco (himself a Galician) in Spain its formal or written use was officially repressed (although it continued to be widely spoken in rural areas). With the advent of democracy, Galician has been brought into the institutions, and it is now co-official with Spanish. A heavily Castilianized version of Galician is taught in schools and there is a public Galician-language television. However, for the most part there has been no serious attempt on the part of the Spanish and Galician institutions to reverse language assimilation and loss.