This article is about the Romance language spoken in the region of Galicia, northwestern Spain. For the extinct Iberian Celtic language, seeGallaecian. For the language spoken in the Eastern European region of Galizia, seeLesser Polish dialect andUkrainian dialects.
"Galego" redirects here. For the creation myth from Bugis, Indonesia, seeSureq Galigo. For the type of primate, seeGalago.
Galician (/ɡəˈlɪʃ(i)ən/gə-LISH-(ee-)ən,[3]UK also/ɡəˈlɪsiən/gə-LISS-ee-ən),[4] also known asGalego (endonym:galego), is aWestern Ibero-Romance language. Around 2.4 million people have at least some degree of competence in the language, mainly inGalicia, anautonomous community located in northwestern Spain, where it has official status along withSpanish. The language is also spoken in some border zones of the neighbouring Spanish regions ofAsturias andCastile and León, as well as by Galician migrant communities in the rest of Spain, in Latin America including Argentina, Uruguay,Puerto Rico, the United States, Switzerland and elsewhere in Europe.
Modern Galician is classified as part of theWest Iberian languages group, a family ofRomance languages. Galician evolved locally fromVulgar Latin and developed from what modern scholars have calledGalician-Portuguese. The earliest document written integrally in the local Galician variety dates back to 1230, although the subjacent Romance permeates most written Latin local charters since the High Middle Ages, being specially noteworthy in personal and place names recorded in those documents, as well as in terms originated in languages other than Latin. The earliest reference to Galician-Portuguese as an international language of culture dates to 1290, in theRegles de Trobar by Catalan authorJofre de Foixà, where it is simply called Galician (gallego).[5]
Dialectal divergences are observable between the northern and southern forms of Galician-Portuguese in 13th-century texts but the twodialects were similar enough to maintain a high level of cultural unity until the middle of the 14th century, producing the medievalGalician-Portuguese lyric. The divergence has continued to this day, most frequently due to innovations in Portuguese,[6] producing the modern languages of Galician and Portuguese.[7]Thelexicon of Galician is predominantly ofLatin extraction, although it also contains a moderate number of words ofGermanic andCeltic origin, among othersubstrates andadstrates, having also received, mainly via Spanish, a number of nouns fromAndalusian Arabic.
Map showing the historical retreat and expansion of Galician (Galician and Portuguese) within the context of its linguistic neighbors between the year 1000 and 2000
Modern Galician and Portuguese originated from a common medieval ancestor designated variously by modern linguists asGalician-Portuguese (or as Medieval Galician, Medieval Portuguese, Old Galician or Old Portuguese). This common ancestral stage developed fromVulgar Latin in the territories of the oldKingdom of Galicia,Galicia andNorthern Portugal, as a WesternRomance language. In the 13th century it became a written and cultivated language with two main varieties,[9] but during the 14th century the standards of these varieties, Galician and Portuguese, began to diverge, as Portuguese became the official language of the independentKingdom of Portugal and its chancellery, while Galician was the language of the scriptoria of the lawyers, noblemen and churchmen of the Kingdom of Galicia, then integrated in thecrown of Castile and open to influence from Spanish language, culture, and politics. During the 16th century the Galician language stopped being used in legal documentation, becoming de facto an oral language spoken by the vast majority of the Galicians, but having just some minor written use in lyric, theatre and private letters.
It was not until the 18th century that linguists elaborated the first Galician dictionaries, and the language did not recover a proper literature until the 19th century; only since the last quarter of the 20th century is it taught in schools and used in lawmaking. The first complete translation of theBible from the original languages dates from 1989. Currently, at the level of rural dialects, Galician forms adialect continuum with Portuguese in the south,[10][11] and withAstur-Leonese in the east.[12]Mutual intelligibility (estimated at 85% byRobert A. Hall Jr., 1989) is very high between Galicians and northern Portuguese.[1]
Statute of Galicia, 1936
The current linguistic status of Galician with regard to Portuguese is controversial in Galicia, and the issue sometimes carries political overtones. There arelinguists who consider Galician and Portuguese as twostandard varieties of thesame language.[13] Some authors, such asLindley Cintra,[10] consider that they are still co-dialects of acommon language in spite of differences in phonology and vocabulary, while others[14][15] argue that they have become separate languages due to differences in phonetics and vocabulary usage, and, to a lesser extent, morphology and syntax. Fernández Rei in 1990 stated that the Galician language is, with respect to Portuguese, anausbau language, a language through elaboration, and not anabstand language, a language through detachment.[16]
With regard to the external and internal perception of this relation, for instance in past editions of theEncyclopædia Britannica, Galician was defined as a "Portuguese dialect" spoken in northwestern Spain. On the other hand, the director of theInstituto Camões declared in 2019 that Galician and Portuguese were close kin, but different languages.[17] According to the Galician government, universities and main cultural institutions, such as theGalician Language Institute or theRoyal Galician Academy, Galician and Portuguese are independent languages that stemmed from medieval Galician-Portuguese,[18] and modern Galician must be considered an independentRomance language belonging to the group ofIbero-Romance languages having strong ties with Portuguese and its northern dialects. The standardorthography has its roots in the writing of relatively modernRexurdimento authors, who largely adapted Spanish orthography to the then mostly unwritten language. Most Galician speakers regard Galician as a separate language,[19][20] which evolved without interruption and in situ from Latin, with Galician and Portuguese maintaining separate literary traditions since the 14th century.
PortugueseEarly Modern Era grammars and scholars, at least since Duarte Nunes de Leão in 1606, considered Portuguese and Galician two different languages[21] derived from old Galician, understood as the language spoken in the Northwest before the establishment of the Kingdom of Portugal in the 12th century. The surge of the two languages would be the result of both the elaboration of Portuguese, through the royal court, its internationalization and its study and culture;[22] and of the stagnation of Galician.[23][24]
Vindel's parchment, containing music and lyrics of several 13th-centurycantigas byMartin Codax
The earliest internal attestation of the expressionGalician language ("lingoajen galego") dates from the 14th century.[5] In Spanish "lenguaje gallego" is already documented in this same century,circa 1330;[25] inOccitancirca 1290, in theRegles de Trobar by Catalan authorJofre de Foixà: "si tu vols far un cantar en frances, no·s tayn que·y mescles proençal ne cicilia negallego ne altre lengatge que sia strayn a aquell" [If you want to compose a song in French, you should not admix Provençal nor Sicilian nor Galician nor other language which is different from it].[5]
Private cultural associations, not endorsed by Galician or Portuguese governments, such as theGalician Language Association (Associaçom Galega da Língua) andGalician Academy of the Portuguese Language (Academia Galega da Língua Portuguesa), advocates of the minorityReintegrationist movement, support the idea that differences between Galician and Portuguese speech are not enough to justify considering them as separate languages: Galician would be simply one variety of Galician-Portuguese,[26] along withEuropean Portuguese;Brazilian Portuguese;African Portuguese; theFala language spoken in the northwestern corner of Extremadura (Spain), and other dialects. They have adopted slightly-modified or actual Portuguese orthography, which has its roots in medieval Galician-Portuguese poetry as later adapted by the Portuguese Chancellery.
According to Reintegrationists, considering Galician as an independent language reduces contact with Portuguese culture, leaving Galician as a minor language with less capacity to counterbalance the influence of Spanish, the only official language between the 18th century and 1975. On the other hand, viewing Galician as a part of the Lusosphere, while not denying its own characteristics (cf.Swiss German), shifts cultural influence from the Spanish domain to the Portuguese. Some scholars[citation needed] have described the situation as properly a continuum, from the Galician variants of Portuguese in one extreme to the Spanish language in the other (which would represent the complete linguistic shift from Galician to Spanish); reintegrationist points of view are closer to the Portuguese extreme, and so-called isolationist ones would be closer to the Spanish one;[27][citation needed] however, the major Galician nationalist parties,Anova–Nationalist Brotherhood andGalician Nationalist Bloc, do not use reintegrationist orthographical conventions.
Official relations between Galicia and the Lusophony
In 2014, the parliament of Galicia unanimously approved Law 1/2014 regarding the promotion of the Portuguese language and links with theLusophony.[28] Similarly, on 20 October 2016, the city ofSantiago de Compostela, the capital ofGalicia, approved by unanimity a proposal to become an observer member of the Union of Portuguese-Speaking Capitals (UCCLA).[29] Also, on 1 November 2016, the Council of Galician Culture (Consello da Cultura Galega, an official institution of defence and promotion of the Galician culture and language) was admitted as a consultative observer of theCommunity of Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP).[30]
A "friendship and cooperation" protocol was signed between theRoyal Galician Academy (RAG) and theBrazilian Academy of Letters on 10 January 2019. Víctor F. Freixanes, president of the RAG, stated during the ceremony that "there is a conscience that the Galician language is part of a family which includes our brothers from Portugal, Brazil, Angola, Cape Verde, Mozambique... a territory full of possibilities also for Galician. We always said that Galician is not a regional language, but is in fact part of that international project".[31]
Galician is today official, together with the Spanish language, in theautonomous community of Galicia, where it is recognized as the autochthonous language (lingua propia), being by law the first language of the local administrations and governments. It is supposed by law to be taught bilingually, alongside Spanish, in both primary and secondary education, although the accomplishment of this law is allegedly doubted. It is also used at the three universities established in Galicia, having also the consideration of official language of the three institutions. Galician has also legal recognition in theBierzo region inLeón, and in four municipalities inZamora. The other languages with official status elsewhere in Spain are Spanish,Catalan (orValencian),Basque andAranese. Galician has also been accepted orally as Portuguese in theEuropean Parliament, being used by some Galician representatives, among others:José Posada,Camilo Nogueira andXosé Manuel Beiras.
Controversy exists regarding the inclusion ofEonavian (spoken in the western end ofAsturias, borderingGalicia) into the Galician language, as it has some traits in common withWestern Asturian (spoken in the middle west of Asturias). There are those defending these linguistic varieties asdialects of transition to theAstur-Leonese group on the one hand, and those defending it as clearly Galician varieties on the other (actually both views are compatible).[32] The recent edition of the cartularies of Oscos inOld Common Council of Castropol and cartularies ofObona,Cornellana,Corias andBelmonte in middle west of Asturias have shown a huge difference in the medieval speech between both banks of the Navia river.[33][34][35] An examination of the old documents of the Eonavian monastery of Oscos, written from the late 12th to early 14th century to 16th century, shows a clear identification of this language with the Galician-Portuguese linguistic group; while contemporary parchments elsewhere in Asturias are written in Spanish.[36] The two most important traits of those commonly used to tell apart Galician-Portuguese and Asturian-Leonese varieties are the preservation of the mid-open vowels/ɛ/ and/ɔ/, which became diphthongs in Asturian-Leonese, and the loss of intervocalic/n/, preserved in the latter language.[37]
One of the oldest legal charters written in Galician, the constitutional charter of the Bo Burgo (Good Burg) ofCastro Caldelas, 1228
Excerpt of medieval Galician poetry (with English translation)
Porque no mundo mengou a verdade, punhei um dia de a ir buscar; e, u por ela fui nom preguntar, disserom todos: «Alhur la buscade, ca de tal guisa se foi a perder, que nom podemos en novas haver nem já nom anda na irmaindade.»
Because in the world the truth has faded, I decided to go a-searching for it and wherever I went asking for it everybody said: 'Search elsewhere because truth is lost in such a way such as we can have no news of it nor is it around here anymore.'
Mediaeval Galician inscription in a 14th-century house, inNoia: "ESTAS CASAS MANDOU FAZER VASCO DA COSTA, ERA DE MCCCLXXVII"These houses were ordered by Vasco da Costa,era 1377 (1339 AD)
Latinate Galician charters from the 8th century onward show that the local written Latin was heavily influenced by local spoken Romance, yet is not until the 12th century that there is evidence for the identification of the local language as a language different from Latin itself.[38] During this same 12th century there are full Galician sentences being inadvertently used inside Latin texts, while its first reckoned use as a literary language dates to the last years of this same century.[39][40]
The linguistic stage from the 13th to the 15th centuries is usually known as Galician-Portuguese (orOld Portuguese, orOld Galician) as an acknowledgement of the cultural and linguistic unity of Galicia and Portugal during the Middle Ages, as the two linguistic varieties differed only in dialectal minor phenomena.
This language flourished during the 13th and 14th centuries as a language of culture, developinga rich lyric tradition of which some 2000 compositions (cantigas, meaning 'songs') have been preserved—a few hundred even with their musical score—in a series of collections, and belonging to four main genres:cantigas de amor, love songs, where a man sings for his ladylove;cantigas de amigo, where a woman sings for her boyfriend;cantigas de escarnio, crude, taunting, and sexual songs of scorn;cantigas de maldecir, where the poet vents his spleen openly; and also theCantigas de Santa María, which are religious songs.[41]
The oldest known document is the poemOra 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 ofAfonso II of Portugal (1214), both samples of medieval notarial prose.
Its most notable patrons—themselves reputed authors—were KingDom Dinis in Portugal, and KingAlfonso X the Learned in Galicia, Castile and León, who was a great promoter of both Galician andCastilian Spanish languages. Not only the kings but also the noble houses of Galicia and Portugal encouraged literary creation in Galician-Portuguese, as being an author or bringing reputed troubadours into one's home became a way of promoting social prestige. As a result, many noblemen, businessmen and clergymen of the 13th and 14th centuries became notable authors, such as Paio Gomes Charinho, lord ofRianxo, and the aforementioned kings.
Aside from the lyric genres, Galicia developed also a minor tradition on literary prose, most notably in translation of European popular series, as those dealing withKing Arthur written byChrétien de Troyes, or those based on thewar of Troy, usually paid and commissioned by noblemen who desired to read those romances in their own language. Other genres include history books (either translation of Spanish ones, or original creations like theChronicle of St. Mary of Iria, by Rui Vasques), religious books, legal studies, and a treaty on horse breeding.[42] Most prose literary creation in Galician had stopped by the 16th century, whenprinting press became popular; the first complete translation of the Bible was not printed until the 20th century.
As for other written uses of Galician, legal charters (last wills, hirings, sales, constitutional charters, city council book of acts, guild constitutions, books of possessions, and any type of public or private contracts and inventories) written in Galicia are to be found from 1230 to 1530—the earliest one probably a document from the monastery ofMelón, dated in 1231[43]—being Galician by far the most used language during the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries, in substitution of Latin.
Galician-Portuguese lost its political unity when theCounty of Portugal obtained its independence from theKingdom of León, a transition initiated in 1139 and completed in 1179, establishing theKingdom of Portugal. Meanwhile, the Kingdom of Galicia was united with the Kingdom of León, and later with the Kingdom of Castile, under kings of theHouse of Burgundy. The Galician and Portuguese standards of the language diverged over time, following independent evolutionary paths. Portuguese was the official language of the Portuguese chancellery, while Galician was the usual language not only of troubadours and peasants, but also of local noblemen and clergy, and of their officials, so forging and maintaining two slightly different standards.
During the reign ofAlfonso X, Spanish became the official language of the chancellery of the Kingdom of Castile. However, in Galicia and neighboring regions of Asturias and León in 1200–1500, the local languages remained the usual written languages in any type of document, either legal or narrative, public or private. Spanish was progressively introduced through Royal decrees and the edicts of foreign churchmen and officials. This led, from the late 15th century on, to the end of legal documents in Galician; the last ones were issued around 1530.[44] Also, from 1480 on, notaries of theCrown of Castile were required to obtain their licenses inToledo, where they had to prove their mastery of Spanish.[44]
14th-century inscription, in Galician language: 'ESTA : IMAGEE : HE : AQVI : POSTA : POR: ALMA : D(E) : I(O)HA(N) : TVORUM' 'This image is here in exposition for the soul of Joham Tuorum'.
In spite of Galician being the most spoken language, during the 17th century, the elites of the Kingdom began speaking Spanish, most notably in towns and cities. The linguistic situation in Galicia became one ofdiglossia, with Galician as the low variety and Spanish as the high one.[46] In reaction to the relegation of the autochthonous language, a series of literary and historical works (always written in Spanish) appeared in the 17th century through 19th century, meant to vindicate the history, language, people, and culture of Galicia.[47] The period from the 16th century to the early 19th century, when Galician had little literary—and no legal—use, is considered the dark age of Galician language. The Galician spoken and written then is usually referred to asMiddle Galician.
Middle Galician is known mostly through popular literature (songs, carols, proverbs, theatrical scripts, personal letters), but also through the frequent apparition of Galician interferences and personal and place names in local works and documents otherwise written in Spanish. Other important sources are a number ofsonnets and other lyric poetry, as well as other literate productions, including the forgery of allegedly mediaeval scriptures or chronicles under diverse pretensions—usually to show the ancient nobility of the forger's family—being these writings elaborated in an archaic looking Galician which nevertheless could not conceal the state of the language during this period.
Middle Galician is characterized by a series of phonetic processes which led to a further separation from Portuguese, and to the apparition of some of the more noteworthy dialectal features, among other phenomenons: emergence of thegheada or pronunciation of/ɡ/ as a pharyngeal fricative; denasalization of nasal vowels in most of Galicia, becoming oral vowels in the east, or a group formed by an oral vowel plus a nasal consonant in the west; reduction of the sibilant system, with the confluence (except in theBaixa Limia region) of voiced and voiceless fricatives, followed by a process of de-affrication which led to different results in the west and in the east.[48]
The most important author during this period of the language was the scholarMartín Sarmiento, unconditional defender and the first researcher of Galician language (history, evolution, lexicon, etymology, onomastics). HisElementos etimológicos segun el método de Euclides (1766), written in Spanish but dealing with Galician, was in fact one of the first comprehensive studies on sound change and evolution of any European language. He also defended that teaching in Galicia should be conducted in Galician, since it was the common language of most people.[49]
During the 19th century a thriving literature developed, in what was called theRexurdimento (Resurgence), of the Galician language.[50] It was headed by three main authors:Rosalia de Castro, an intimist poet;Eduardo Pondal, of nationalist ideology, who championed a Celtic revival; andManuel Curros Enríquez, a liberal and anticlerical author whose ideas and proclamations were scandalous for part of the 19th-century society.
The first political manifest asking for the officialization of Galician date to the late 19th century.
Speakers of Galician as a first language in 2001 and 2011, according to the Galician Institute of StatisticsGalician linguistic areasGalician-speaking areas outside Galicia (yellow)
Publishing of Galician-language material revived on a small scale in the 1950s.[52]
With the advent of democracy, Galician has been brought into the country's institutions, and it is now co-official with Spanish in Galicia.[52] Galician is taught in schools, and there is a public Galician-language television channel,Televisión de Galicia.
Today, the most common language for everyday use in the largest cities of Galicia is Spanish rather than Galician, as a result of this long process oflanguage shift. However, Galician is still the main language in rural areas.
TheRoyal Galician Academy and other Galician institutions celebrate each 17 May asGalician Literature Day (Día das Letras Galegas), dedicated each year to a deceased Galician-language writer chosen by the academy.
Use of Galician splits by age, with over half of those over 45 indicating that Galician is their primary language, with lower numbers for the younger population. Those under 45 were more likely than those over 45 to answer that they never use Galician.
Use of Galician and Spanish in Galicia (2003–2018)[53]
2003
2008
2013
2018
Always speaks in Galician
42.9%
1,112,670
29.9%
779,297
30.8%
789,157
30.3%
778,670
Speaks more often in Galician than Spanish
18.2%
471,781
26.4%
687,618
20.0%
513,325
21.6%
553,338
Speaks more often in Spanish than Galician
18.7%
484,881
22.5%
583,880
22.0%
563,135
23.1%
593,997
Always speaks in Spanish
19.6%
506,322
20.0%
521,606
25.9%
664,052
24.2%
621,474
Other situations
0.5%
13,005
1.1%
28,622
1.2%
29,536
0.8%
19,866
Use of Galician also varies greatly depending on the regions and municipalities of Galicia. While in two areas of theProvince of A Coruña (Costa da Morte and the Southeast) more than 90% of the population always or mostly speaks in Galician, only the 15,2% of the population does the same in the city ofVigo.[54]
Some authors are of the opinion that Galician possesses no real dialects.[55] Despite this, Galician local varieties are collected in three maindialectal blocks, each block comprising a series of areas, being local linguistic varieties that are allmutually intelligible. Some of the main features which distinguish the three blocks are:
The resolution of medievalnasalized vowels andhiatus: these sometimes turned intodiphthongs in the east, while in the center and west the vowels in the hiatus were sometimes assimilated. Later, in the eastern—except Ancarese Galician—and central blocks, the nasal trait was lost, while in the west the nasal trait usually developed into an implosive nasal consonant/ŋ/.[clarification needed][56][57] In general, these led to important dialectal variability in the inflection in genre and number of words ended in a nasal consonant. So, from medievalirmão 'brother',ladrões 'robbers',irmãas 'sisters' developed eastern Galicianirmao,ladrois,irmás; central Galicianirmao,ladrós,irmás; western Galicianirmán,ladróns,irmáns.[58]
An exception to this rule is constituted by the hiatus in which the first vowel was a nasalized i or u. In those cases, a nasal, palatal/ɲ/ or velar/ŋ/ was usually inserted:ũa 'a / one (fem.)' >unha (Portugueseuma), -ina > -ĩa > -iña (Portuguese -inha). Nevertheless, in Ancarese and Asturian Galician, this process did not take place: A-Gvecía, Ancaresevecĩa vs. standardveciña '(female) neighbor' (Port.vizinha), A-Gúa, Ancareseũa vs. standardunha (Port. uma).
The resolution of hiatus formed by oral vowels had similar developments, most notably those derived from the loss of/l/, which again had important consequences for the declension of words ending in/l/. So, Medieval Galiciananimaes 'animals' (sing.animal); central and western Galiciananimás; eastern Galiciananimais; Asturian Galiciananimales (/l/ is preserved).[59]
In the west,/ɡ/ is rendered as a fricative[x~ħ~h] (gheada), except after a nasal, where it can become a stop[k].[60]
Stressed vowelmetaphony is most notable in the west and center, while in the east it is unknown. It is triggered by a final/o/, which tends to closeopen-mid vowels, or by a final/a/ which tends to openclose-mid ones.
There are three mainsibilant systems, all derived from the medieval Galician one, which was richer and more complex:[61]
The common one, extended in the eastern and center regions, presents an opposition/ʃ/–/s/–/θ/. In the westernmost parts of this area the opposition of/s/ and/θ/ is lost in postnuclear position, in the coda, both being produced/s/.
In the coastal western areas the opposition is/ʃ/–/s/,/s/ being produced in some regions as a laminal or in some others as an apical. Sometimes this system is even further reduced to just a single/s/. On the other hand, in some areas final/s/ is produced as/ʃ/, as in plenty ofPortuguese dialects.
In the Limia Baixa region an old six sibilant system is still preserved, with voiced/voiceless opposition:/ʃ/–/ʒ/;/s̺/–/z̺/ (apical) and/s̻/–/z̻/ (laminal).[62]
Each dialectal area is then further defined by these and other more restricted traits or isoglosses:
Eastern Galician: Asturian area (Eonavian), Ancares area, Zamora area and Central-Eastern area.
Central Galician: Mindoniense area, Lucu-auriense area, Central Transitional area, and Eastern Transitional area.
Western Galician: Bergantiños area, Fisterra area, Pontevedra area and Lower Limia area.
Standard Galician is usually based on Central Galician characteristics, but it also incorporates western and eastern traits and features.
^Bold type indicate official standard spelling. On the phonemic representation.[63]
^Metaphony produced by final/a/ and by final/o/ (usually produced[ʊ]). All the diverse productions are considered admissible. In the east there's little to no metaphony.
^ Different evolution of the group/ste/ led to differentdesinences for the past tense formation along Galician geography.
Galician allows pronominalclitics to be attached to indicative and subjunctive forms, as does Portuguese, unlike modern Spanish. After many centuries of close contact between the two languages, Galician has also adopted many loan words from Spanish, and somecalques of Spanish syntax.
Galician usually makes the difference according to gender and categorizes words as masculine "o rapaz" (the young man) or feminine "a rapaza" (the young woman). This difference is present in the articles "o / a / os / as" (the), nouns "o can / a cadela" (the dog / the (female) dog), pronouns "el / ela", (he / she) and adjectives "bonitiño / bonitiña" (pretty, beautiful). There is also a neuter set of demonstrative pronouns "isto, iso, aquilo" (this / that). The most typical ending for masculine words is -o, whereas the most typical ending for feminine is -a "o prato / a tixola" (the plate / the frying pan). The difference in the grammatical gender of a word may correspond to a real gender difference in the physical world "xuicioso / xuiciosa" (sensible); the former adjective will qualify a male, and the latter, a female. However, there is no particular reason for objects to be ascribed to a particular grammatical gender or another, it has to do with the gender having been ascribed by tradition and the use of speakers as in the following examples: "o xis / o samba / a mesa / a caricatura" (chalk / the samba / the table / the caricature).
Galician expresses the difference in number with a form for the singular and another for the plural. The most typical suffix to express a plural number is "s", "cantiga / cantigas".
There are two different ways of addressing people: one is the most usual informal pronoun "ti" for the second person singular and "vos" for the second person plural. There are formal ways of addressing directly people "vostede" for the singular and "vostedes" for the plural.
The last review of the official grammar has established that, if there is no risk of confusion, the exclamation and question marks will appear only at the end of the sentence, thus deprecating the general use of Spanish-likeinverted question and exclamation marks.
The verb is inflected. There are regular and irregular verbs in the language. All verbs will appear listed by means of their infinitive form in dictionaries, and there are three typical endings for verbs "-ar / -er / -ir".
The current official Galician orthography is guided by the "Normas ortográficas e morfolóxicas do Idioma Galego" (NOMIGa),[64] first introduced in 1982, by the Royal Galician Academy (RAG), based on a report by the Instituto da Lingua Galega (ILG). These norms were not accepted by some sectors desiring a norm closer to modern Portuguese (seereintegrationism). In July 2003, the Royal Galician Academy modified the language normative to admit and promote some archaic Galician-Portuguese forms conserved in modern Portuguese, merging the NOMIG and the main proposals of the moderate sectors of reintegrationism; the resulting orthography is used by the vast majority of media, cultural production and virtually all official matters including education.
The reintegrationist movement opts for the use of writing systems that range from adapted to wholePortuguese orthography.
Syllabic stress is significant in Galician. One syllable in each word receives primary stress. The syllable receiving the primary stress can generally be identified by the spelling of the word according to the language's rules of orthography. In cases where the stress is not at the default location indicated by the spelling, anacute accent (´) is placed over the main vowel of the stressed syllable, as inpaspalhás orpaspallás ('quail'),móbil ('mobile'), andcárcere ('jail', 'gaol').
The acute accent has some other functions. Sometimes it shows that adjacent vowels represent separate syllables rather than a diphthong. Acute accents are written on top of upper- as well as lower-case letters:Óscar. An acute accent may also be used to distinguish between two words that are otherwisehomonyms.
^de Azevedo Maia, Clarinda (1997).História do galego-português: estado linguístico da Galiza e do noroeste de Portugal desde o século XIII ao século XVI [History of Galician-Portuguese: linguistic state of Galicia and northwestern Portugal from the 13th to the 16th centuries] (in Portuguese) (Reprint of the INIC 1986 ed.). Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian. pp. 883–891.ISBN9789723107463.
^Fernández Rei 2003, p. 17. "Today, from a point of view which is exclusively linguistic, both banks of the Minho river speak the same language, since the Minhoto and Trás-os-Montes dialects are a continuation of the Galician varieties, sharing common traits that differentiate them from the dialect of Central and Southern Portugal; but at the level of the common language, and in a sociolinguistic perspective, in the west of the peninsula there are two modern languages, with differences in pronunciation, morphosyntax and vocabulary", ["Na actualidade, desde o ponto de vista estrictamente lingüístico, ás dúas marxes do Miño fálase o mesmo idioma, pois os dialectos miñotos e trasmontanos son unha continuación dos falares galegos, cos que comparten trazos comúns que os diferencian dos do centro e sur de Portugal; pero no plano da lingua común, e desde unha perspectiva sociolingüística, hai no occidente peninsular dúas línguas modernas, con diferencias fonéticas, morfosintácticas e léxicas"].
^Àlvarez, Rosario; et al., eds. (2002).Dialectoloxía e léxico [Dialectology and lexicon](PDF) (in Galician). Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega [u.a.] pp. 41–68,193–222.ISBN978-84-95415-66-0.
^Vázquez Cuesta, Pilar (22 February 2002)."Non son reintegracionista" [I am not a reintegrationist].La Voz de Galicia (in Galician). Archived fromthe original on 8 December 2011. interview given toLa Voz de Galicia published on 22 February 2002 (in Galician).
^Recalde, Montserrat (1997).La vitalidad etnolingüística gallega [Galician ethnolinguistic vitality] (in Spanish). València: Centro de Estudios sobre Comunicación Interlingüistíca e Intercultural.ISBN9788437028958.
^"Os diphtongos são estes ão ẽe ij õo ũu. que temos comũs cõ os Gallegos, cuja lingoa & a nossa era toda quasi hũa." (the diphthongs are these ... which we have in common with the Galicians, whose language and ours was almost one).
^"Da qual lingoa Gallega a Portuguesa se aventajou tanto, quãto & na elegãcia della vemos. O que se causou por em Portugal haver Reis, & corte que he a officina onde os vocabulos se forjaõ, & pulem, & donde manão pera os outros homẽs, o que nunqua honve[sic] em Galliza." (From that Galician language the Portuguese got ahead as far as now we see in its elegance. This was caused because of Portugal having Kings, and a Royal court which is the office where words are forged and polished, and from where they flow to the other people; which Galicia never had.)
^"por todos estes motivos a alterar-se e distinguir-se a nossa Lingua da Galega, que permaneceo, sem alteração nem melhoramento, encantonada em hum Paiz, sem Côrte, e sem Universidade" (because all of these causes our language changed and distinguished from the Galician one, which remained, with no alterarion or improbement, in the country, with no court or study.
^Damaso Alonso Obras (1971).Obras Completas. Volume I: Estudios lingüísticos peninsulares (in Spanish). Gredos. p. 391.Like a rainbow between two close colours, there is a moment, in the way of the West, when we get to feel us into the Galician area, and another side, to the East, in which we get to feel us into Asturian, but there is also a mixed zone, in which, after all, the distinction depends on our way to appreciate and read will depend on a serial linguistics facts. Some another time, I will deal with this question.It is enough saying today that the oldest statement about Galician extending into Asturias up to the Navia River, (Menéndez Pidal, 'El dialecto leonés', § 1, 2, 1906) cannot be more right, in spite of typical linguistic Asturian features crossing to the west over that border. These dialects between the rivers Navia and Eo, mainly Galician, but with clear Asturian features, are what we call 'Gallego-Asturiano'.
^Laverde y Ruiz, Gumersindo (1862)."O dialecto asturiano".Revista ibérica de ciencias, política, literatura, artes e instrucción pública (in Spanish). Vol. 5. pp. 181–203 – via Hemeroteca Digital (Biblioteca Nacional de España).
^Lapesa Melgar, Rafael (1998).El dialecto asturiano occidental en la Edad Media [The western Asturian dialect in the Middle Ages] (in Spanish). Universidad de Sevilla.
^Alvárez Castrillón, José A., Los Oscos en los siglos X–XII, prólogo Ignacio de la Peña Solar, Oviedo 2001, p. 144–234.
^Minahan 2000, p. 279 "Following Franco's 1939 victory, the Galicians suffered severe punishment – their culture was suppressed, and edicts were issued forbidding the speaking, teaching, or publishing of books or newspapers in the Galician language."
^Fernández Rei 2003, p. 36. "O material recolleito para o citado ALGa (...) faime comparti-la opinion de García de Diego de que non-se pode falar de dialectos propiamente ditos no galego. Nos mapas deste capítulo pode apreciarse a extensión xeográfica desigual dalgúns fenómenos lingüísticos (...) e tamén como as isoglosas (...) poucas veces coinciden"
Fernández Rei, Francisco (2003),Dialectoloxía da lingua galega (in Galician) (3rd ed.), Vigo: Edicións Xerais de Galicia,ISBN978-84-7507-472-6
Ferreiro, Manuel (1999),Gramática histórica galega. I. Fonética e Morfosintaxe (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Edicións Laiovento,ISBN978-84-89896-43-7
Freixeiro Mato, Xosé Ramón (2006),Gramática da lingua galega (I). Fonética e fonoloxía (in Galician), Vigo: A Nosa Terra,ISBN978-84-8341-060-8
Gómez Sánchez, Anxo; Queixas Zas, Mercedes (2001),Historia xeral da literatura galega (in Galician), Vigo: Edicións A Nosa Terra,ISBN978-84-95350-79-4
Mariño Paz, Ramón (1998),Historia da lingua galega (in Galician) (2nd ed.), Santiago de Compostela: Sotelo Blanco,ISBN978-84-7824-333-4
Minahan, James (2000).One Europe, Many Nations: A Historical Dictionary of European National Groups. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press.ISBN978-0-313-04866-1.
Queixas Zas, Mercedes (2001).Historia xeral da literatura galega [General history of Galician literature] (in Galician). Vigo: A nosa terra.ISBN978-84-95350-79-4.
Sánchez Rei, Xosé Manuel (2011).Lingua galega e variación dialectal [Galician language and dialectal variation] (in Galician). Noia, Galiza: Edicións Laiovento.ISBN978-84-8487-208-5.
Souto Cabo, José Antonio, ed. (2008).Documentos galego-portugueses dos séculos XII e XIII [Galician-Portuguese documents from the 12th and 13th centuries] (in Galician). A Coruña: Universidade da Coruña.ISBN978-84-9749-314-7.
Castro, Olga (February 2013). "Talking at cross-purposes? The missing link between feminist linguistics and translation studies".Gender and Language.7 (1):35–58.doi:10.1558/genl.v7i1.35. Examines the arguments for and against the use of inclusive language in (literary) translation through an analysis of the "ideological struggle" that emerged from two ideologically disparate rewritings of gender markers into Galician ofThe Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, byMark Haddon (2003), focusing on the ideological, poetic and economic pressures that (still) define the professional practice of translation.
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