Mr Grumpy

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By Mr Grumpy - Thu 7th Jan 2010

 

After researching some of the better known and more widely understood Spanish regional languages, such as Catalan and Valenciano, my intrigue was piqued by reading about some of the quirkier ones like Basque. I decided to move along the northern coast of Spain (leapfrogging over Cantabria and the Asturias),to the isolated region of Galicia - the region stuck out on it's own on the Atlantic coast in the north-west of the country.

Apparently, up until the Middle ages, the Galician language (or Galego, as it is referred to in Spanish and in it’s native tongue) was the same a Portuguese. Even today Portugal considers the Galician language to be a dialect of Portuguese, but as you would expect from a Spaniard, the Galician Autonomous Government considers Galician to be a language in it’s own right.

In this respect it mirrors the argument between the Catalans and Valencians with regards to their regional “languages”.

Whatever it’s status as an International language, it is one of Spain’s 4 officially recognised languages (along with Basque, Catalan and Castilian) and, though officially named as Portuguese, it is a recognised language in the European Parliament.

As with the other regional languages, it would be too simple to leave things at that and as such the Language (if Indeed it is a separate language) is then agreed to have 3 separate dialects – the East, West and Central.

Galician is estimated to be spoken by 3 Million People – mostly living in Galicia, but also living in other areas of Spain and further afield in other European cities and even in certain enclaves of Portuguese South America. It is also a commonly used language/ dialect in the Spanish Region of Extremadura.

To the uninformed foreigner the differences between Galician and Portuguese is largely one of pronunciation, and as such the table of useful phrases below contains an additional column to show the close relationship between the two languages.