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Galician ( , ), also known as Galego (), is a Western Ibero-Romance language. Around 2.4 million people have at least some degree of competence in the language, mainly in Galicia, an autonomous community located in northwestern Spain, where it has official status along with Spanish language. The language is also spoken in some border zones of the neighboring Spanish regions of Asturias and Castile and León, as well as by Galician migrant communities in the rest of Spain; in Latin America, including Argentina and Uruguay; and in Puerto Rico, the United States, Switzerland and elsewhere in Europe.
Modern Galician is classified as part of the West Iberian language group, a family of Romance languages. Galician evolved locally from Vulgar Latin and developed from what modern scholars have called Galician-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 after the High Middle Ages, being especially 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 the Regles de Trobar by Catalan author Jofre de Foixà, where it is simply called Galician ( gallego).
Dialectal divergences are observable between the northern and southern forms of Galician-Portuguese in 13th-century texts, but the two dialects were similar enough to maintain a high level of cultural unity until the middle of the 14th century, producing the medieval Galician-Portuguese lyric. The divergence has continued to this day, most frequently due to innovations in Portuguese, producing the modern languages of Galician and Portuguese. The lexicon of Galician is predominantly of Latin extraction, although it also contains a moderate number of words of Germanic and Celtic origin, among other substrates and , having also received, mainly via Spanish, a number of nouns from Andalusian Arabic.
The language is officially regulated in Galicia by the Royal Galician Academy. Other organizations, without institutional support, such as the Galician Association of Language, consider Galician and Portuguese Reintegrationism, and other minoritary organizations such as the Galician Academy of the Portuguese Language believe that Galician should be considered part of the Portuguese language for a wider international usage and level of "normalization".
It was not until the century that linguists elaborated the first Galician dictionaries, and the language did not recover a proper literature until the century; only since the last quarter of the century has it been taught in schools and used in lawmaking. The first complete translation of the Bible from the original languages dates from 1989. Currently, at the level of rural dialects, Galician forms a dialect continuum with Portuguese in the south,. "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. and with Astur-Leonese in the east. Mutual intelligibility (estimated at 85% by Robert A. Hall Jr., 1989) is very high between Galicians and northern Portuguese.
The current linguistic status of Galician with regard to Portuguese is controversial in Galicia, and the issue sometimes carries political overtones. There are linguistics who regard Galician and Portuguese as two standard varieties of the same language. Some authors, such as Lindley Cintra, consider that they are still co-dialects of a common language in spite of differences in phonology and vocabulary, while others interview given to La Voz de Galicia published on 22 February 2002 (in Galician). 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, an ausbau language, a language through elaboration, and not an abstand language, a language through detachment.
With regard to the external and internal perception of this relation, for instance in past editions of the Encyclopædia Britannica, Galician was defined as a "Portuguese dialect" spoken in northwestern Spain. On the other hand, the director of the Instituto Camões declared in 2019 that Galician and Portuguese were close kin but different languages. According to the Galician government, universities and main cultural institutions, such as the Galician Language Institute or the Royal Galician Academy, Galician and Portuguese are independent languages that stemmed from medieval Galician-Portuguese, and modern Galician must be considered an independent Romance language belonging to the group of Ibero-Romance languages having strong ties with Portuguese and its northern dialects. The standard orthography has its roots in the writing of relatively modern Rexurdimento authors, who largely adapted Spanish orthography to the then mostly unwritten language. Most Galician speakers regard Galician as a separate language, Answers to the question "Name of the local language?" in the Atlas Lingüístico de la Península Ibérica.Montserrat Recalde (1997). 9788437028958, Centro de Estudios sobre Comunicación Interlingüistíca e Intercultural. ISBN 9788437028958 which evolved without interruption and in situ from Latin, with Galician and Portuguese maintaining separate literary traditions since the 14th century.
Portuguese Early Modern Era grammars and scholars, at least since Duarte Nunes de Leão in 1606, considered Portuguese and Galician two different languages"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). 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 a result of both the elaboration of Portuguese, through the royal court, its internationalization and its study and culture;"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 honvesic 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.) and of the stagnation of Galician."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. ]]The earliest internal attestation of the expression Galician language ("lingoajen galego") dates from the 14th century. In Spanish "lenguaje gallego" is already documented in this same century, circa 1330; in Occitan language circa 1290, in the Regles de Trobar by Catalan author Jofre de Foixà: " si tu vols far un cantar en frances, no·s tayn que·y mescles proençal ne cicilia ne gallego ne altre lengatge que sia strayn a aquell" ''If.
According to Reintegrationists, treating 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 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; however, the major Galician nationalist parties, Anova–Nationalist Brotherhood and Galician Nationalist Bloc, do not use reintegrationist orthographical conventions.
A "friendship and cooperation" protocol was signed between the Royal Galician Academy (RAG) and the Brazilian 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".
Galician is today official, together with the Spanish language, in the autonomous 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. By law it is supposed 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 the Bierzo region in León, and in four municipalities in Zamora. The other languages with official status elsewhere in Spain are Spanish, Catalan language (or Valencian), Basque language and Aranese language. Galician has also been accepted orally as Portuguese in the European Parliament, being used by some Galician representatives, among others: José Posada, Camilo Nogueira and Xosé Manuel Beiras.
Controversy exists regarding the inclusion of Eonavian (spoken in the western end of Asturias, bordering Galicia) in the Galician language, as it has some traits in common with Western Asturian (spoken in the middle west of Asturias). There are those defending these linguistic varieties as dialects of transition to the Astur-Leonese group on the one hand, and those defending it as clearly Galician varieties on the other (actually both views are compatible). The recent edition of the Cartulary of Oscos in the Old Common Council of Castropol and cartularies of Obona, Cornellana, Corias and Belmonte in middle west of Asturias have shown a huge difference in the medieval speech between the two banks of the Navia river. 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.Alvárez Castrillón, José A., Los Oscos en los siglos X–XII, prólogo Ignacio de la Peña Solar, Oviedo 2001, p. 144–234. 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 and , which became diphthongs in Asturian-Leonese, and the loss of intervocalic , preserved in the latter language.
The linguistic stage from the to the centuries is usually known as Galician-Portuguese (or Old Portuguese, or Old 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 and centuries as a language of culture, developing a 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 the Cantigas de Santa María, which are religious songs.
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 century, the Noticia de Torto (1211) and the Testamento of Afonso II of Portugal (1214), both samples of medieval notarial prose.
Its most notable patrons—themselves reputed authors—were King Dom Dinis in Portugal, and King Alfonso X the Learned in Galicia, Castile and León, who was a great promoter of both Galician and Castilian 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 and centuries became notable authors, such as Paio Gomes Charinho, lord of Rianxo, 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 with King Arthur written by Chrétien de Troyes, or those based on the war 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 the Chronicle of St. Mary of Iria, by Rui Vasques), religious books, legal studies, and a treaty on horse breeding. Most prose literary creation in Galician had stopped by the century, when printing press became popular; the first complete translation of the Bible was not printed until the 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 of Melón, dated in 1231—being Galician by far the most used language during the , and centuries, in substitution of Latin.
During the reign of Alfonso 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. Also, from 1480 on, notaries of the Crown of Castile were required to obtain their licenses in Toledo, where they had to prove their mastery of Spanish.
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 of diglossia, with Galician as the low variety and Spanish as the high one. 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. 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 as Middle Galician.
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 the gheada or pronunciation of 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 the Baixa 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.
The most important author during this period of the language was the scholar Martín Sarmiento, unconditional defender and the first researcher of Galician language (history, evolution, lexicon, etymology, onomastics). His Elementos 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.
The first political manifest asking for the officialization of Galician date to the late 19th century.
An important landmark was the establishment of the Royal Galician Academy, in 1906, soon followed by that of the Seminario de Estudos Galegos (1923). The Seminario was devoted to the research and study of the Galician culture. It was created by a group of students: Fermín Bouza Brey, Xosé Filgueira Valverde, Lois Tobío Fernández, with the collaboration of Ricardo Carvalho Calero, Antón Fraguas and Xaquín Lorenzo Fernández.
Following the victory of Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War, the written or public use of the Galician language was outlawed. "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."
Publishing of Galician-language material revived on a small scale in the 1950s.
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 of language shift. However, Galician is still the main language in rural areas.
The Royal Galician Academy and other Galician institutions celebrate each 17 May as Galician Literature Day (Día das Letras Galegas), dedicated each year to a deceased Galician-language writer chosen by the academy.
| Always speaks in Galician | 1,112,670 | 779,297 | 789,157 | 778,670 |
| Speaks more often in Galician than Spanish | 471,781 | 687,618 | 513,325 | 553,338 |
| Speaks more often in Spanish than Galician | 484,881 | 583,880 | 563,135 | 593,997 |
| Always speaks in Spanish | 506,322 | 521,606 | 664,052 | 621,474 |
| Other situations | 13,005 | 28,622 | 29,536 | 19,866 |
Use of Galician also varies greatly depending on the regions and municipalities of Galicia. While in two areas of the Province 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 of Vigo.
| A Barbanza-Noia | A Barbanza and Noia | 88.85 | 11.15 | 82,434 | 10,344 |
| A Coruña | A Coruña and Betanzos | 33.55 | 66.45 | 137,812 | 272,922 |
| A Mariña | A Mariña Oriental, A Mariña Central and A Mariña Occidental | 75.85 | 24.15 | 50,420 | 16,053 |
| Caldas-O Salnés | Caldas and O Salnés | 63.40 | 36.60 | 86,575 | 49,980 |
| Central Lugo | Terra Chá, Lugo, A Ulloa and Meira | 65.04 | 34.96 | 105,423 | 56,676 |
| Central Ourense | Valdeorras, Allariz-Maceda, Terra de Caldelas and Terra de Trives | 69.45 | 30.55 | 30,152 | 13,265 |
| Costa da Morte | Bergantiños, Terra de Soneira, Fisterra, Muros and O Xallas | 92.43 | 7.57 | 117,630 | 9,627 |
| Eastern Lugo | Os Ancares, A Fonsagrada and Sarria | 88.50 | 11.50 | 32,025 | 4,160 |
| Ferrol-Eume-Ortegal | Ferrolterra, O Eume and Ortegal | 33.75 | 66.25 | 60,202 | 118,162 |
| Northeast Pontevedra | O Deza and Tabeirós-Terra de Montes | 81.85 | 18.15 | 50,720 | 11,249 |
| O Carballiño-O Ribeiro | Carballiño and O Ribeiro | 76.42 | 23.58 | 30,586 | 9,436 |
| O Morrazo | O Morrazo | 40.56 | 59.44 | 31,554 | 46,233 |
| Ourense | Ourense | 39.85 | 60.15 | 52,632 | 79,450 |
| Pontevedra | Pontevedra | 38.82 | 61.18 | 45,865 | 72,292 |
| Santiago | Santiago de Compostela, A Barcala and O Sar | 55.39 | 44.61 | 102,260 | 82,374 |
| Southeast A Coruña | Arzúa, Terra de Melide and Ordes | 93.14 | 6.86 | 59,415 | 4,375 |
| Southern Lugo | Terra de Lemos, Quiroga and Chantada | 67.19 | 32.81 | 31,065 | 15,172 |
| Southern Ourense | A Baixa Limia, A Limia, Verín and Viana | 88.00 | 12.00 | 64,878 | 8,850 |
| Southern Pontevedra | O Baixo Miño, O Condado and A Paradanta | 58.56 | 41.44 | 60,392 | 42,737 |
| Vigo | Vigo | 25.50 | 74.50 | 99,968 | 292,115 |
| A Coruña | 5.34 | 14.64 | 31.40 | 48.62 |
| Ferrol | 6.71 | 10.98 | 29.59 | 52.72 |
| Lugo | 21.34 | 23.36 | 28.88 | 26.41 |
| Ourense | 10.71 | 22.80 | 38.85 | 27.65 |
| Pontevedra | 8.38 | 14.62 | 35.94 | 41.06 |
| Santiago de Compostela | 20.58 | 23.31 | 33.46 | 22.65 |
| Vigo | 3.85 | 11.36 | 39,49 | 45.31 |
Each dialectal area is then further defined by these and other more restricted traits or isoglosses:
| dogs |
| thieves |
| brother |
| light |
| five |
| eye |
| hour |
| you sang |
| animals |
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-like inverted 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 reintegrationist movement opts for the use of writing systems that range from adapted to whole Portuguese orthography.
| + Phoneme-to-grapheme correspondence |
| bebo '(I) drink', alva or alba 'sunrise', vaca 'cow', cova 'cave' |
| macio 'soft', caçar or cazar 'to hunt', cruz 'cross' |
| chamar 'to call', achar 'to find' |
| vida 'life', quadro or cadro 'frame' |
| feltro 'felt', freixo 'ash-tree' |
| fungo 'fungus', guerra 'war', o gato 'the cat' |
| molhado or mollado 'wet' |
| casa 'house', querer 'to want' |
| lua or lúa 'moon', algo 'something', mel 'honey' |
| memória or memoria 'memory', campo 'field', álbum |
| ninho or niño 'nest', onte 'yesterday', conversar 'to talk', irmão or irmán 'brother' |
| manhã or mañá 'morning' |
| algumha or algunha 'some' |
| carpa 'carp' |
| hora 'hour', colher or coller 'to grab' |
| rato 'mouse', carro 'cart' |
| selo 'seal, stamp', cousa 'thing', mesmo 'same', isso or iso "that" |
| trato 'deal' |
| gente or xente 'people', janela or xanela 'window', muxica 'ash-fly' |
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 otherwise .
| Our Father who art in heaven, | Noso Pai que estás no ceo: | Nosso Pai que estás no Céu: | Pai Nosso que estais no Céu: | Padre nuestro que estás en los cielos: | Pater noster qui es in caelis: |
| hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. | santificado sexa o teu nome, veña a nós o teu reino e fágase a túa vontade aquí na terra coma no ceo. | santificado seja o Teu nome, venha a nós o Teu reino e seja feita a Tua vontade aqui na terra como nos Céus. | santificado seja o Vosso nome, venha a nós o Vosso reino, seja feita a Vossa vontade assim na Terra como no Céu. | santificado sea tu Nombre, venga a nosotros tu reino y hágase tu voluntad en la tierra como en el cielo. | sanctificetur nomen tuum, adveniat regnum tuum, fiat voluntas tua sicut in caelo et in terra. |
| Give us this day our daily bread, | O noso pan de cada día dánolo hoxe; | O nosso pam de cada dia dá-no-lo hoje; | O pão nosso de cada dia nos dai hoje; | Danos hoy nuestro pan de cada día; | panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie; |
| and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, | e perdóanos as nosas ofensas como tamén perdoamos nós a quen nos ten ofendido; | e perdoa-nos as nossas ofensas como também perdoamos nós a quem nos tem ofendido; | Perdoai-nos as nossas ofensas assim como nós perdoamos a quem nos tem ofendido; | y perdónanos nuestras ofensas como también nosotros perdonamos a los que nos ofenden; | et dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris; |
| and let us not fall into temptation, but liberate us from evil. | e non nos deixes caer na tentación, mais líbranos do mal. | e nom nos deixes cair na tentaçom, mas livra-nos do mal. | e não nos deixeis cair em tentação, mas livrai-nos do mal. | y no nos dejes caer en tentación, sino líbranos del mal. | et ne nos inducas in tentationem; sed libera nos a malo. |
| Amen. | Amén. | Amém. | Amén. | Amen. | |
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