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- The use of the language in various fields
GalicianIntroductionGalicia (29,574 km2, pop. 2,731,900, 1/1/2000) is in the north-west of the Iberian Peninsula. Since 1981 it is an autonomous community. It has four provinces (A Coruña, Lugo, Ourense and Pontevedra; capital, Santiago de Compostela). About 70,000 Galician-speakers live in neighbouring parts of the regions of Asturias and Castilla y León, the ‘Franxa Exterior’. Galician belongs to the same branch of the Romance languages as Portuguese. During the golden age of troubadour poetry in the 13th-14th centuries, they were virtually the same. Thereafter, Galician was to remain the language of a rural society while Portuguese was standardised on the basis of the Lisbon dialect and became the language of the royal court; so the two developed separately. Today oral Galician, peppered with loans and borrowings from Spanish, shows the effects of belated and often contested standardisation. The 1983 Language Act adopted the standards formulated jointly by the Real Academia Galega and the Instituto da Lingua Galega, though the so-called Lusistas do not accept this. 2,421,102 persons (aged 3 or more) speak Galician (91% of the total, 1991 census), while 1,322,937 people read it (50%) and 923,441 can write it (35%). 73% of the 11-14 age group were literate. 1,459,028 (55% of the total) said they always speak in Galician, 885,497 (33%) sometimes used it, and 142,166 (6%) never used it. Another study171 concluded that Galician is the first language spoken by 62% of the population. The 1998 CIS survey found that 89% could speak Galician. The discrepancy between knowledge and use among youngsters was striking, barely half of those who have learned Galician at school claiming to be regular users of it. Speaking the language is associated with rural life, old age and lower incomes. Yet knowledge of written Galician is more widespread among young people and those in higher socio-economic categories. In towns, the use of Galician has been on the decline for years, despite a university-fuelled revival. Moreover, Galician-speakers have a fairly low opinion of their own competence in Galician; in a recent survey, only 11% felt they spoke the language ‘well’ or ‘very well’. 48% believed that Galician would advance in the next ten years. Emigration from Galicia is centuries old (between 1951 and 1975 net emigration was equivalent to 1/6 of its 1950 population). Until the 80s, Galicia also experienced internal migrations, the more developed coastal provinces gaining population at the expense of the rural hinterland. In 1991, 27% of Galicians lived in cities with over 100,000 inhabitants, and a further 37% lived in towns of between 10,000 and 100,000 inhabitants. In the 1990s, 29% of the active population worked in agriculture or fishing, 15% in manufacturing industry, 9% in the construction industry and 41% in the services. Despite modernisation, farms have become smaller; many farmers rely on further sources of income. Per capita income is still below the Spanish average, though the gap has been closing for some years. Galicia was an independent kingdom in the 10th-11th centuries and became an important place of pilgrimage (Santiago de Compostela). Until the mid-16th century, Galician was the language of the whole of society and of the administrative and court systems. Having no native nobility or bourgeoisie, Galicia came under permanent Castilian domination in the 13th century. Politically marginalized within Spain, and impoverished by archaic social and economic structures, since the 17th century the demographic weight of Galicia within Spain has steadily declined, and industrial development was late and limited. The 19th century cultural ‘Rexurdimiento’ (revival) and galleguista movement defended political regionalism. Though the Real Academia da Lingua Galega (founded 1904) did not manage to complete its work on the standardisation of the language, a significant body of literature emerged led by Rosalía de Castro. Spanish Civil War (1936-39) nipped political autonomy in the bud, and the use of Galician was repressed under Franco. Industrialization, from the 1950s, and the spread of the education system and Spanish TV, generalised the penetration of Spanish, which had hitherto only slowly into a largely rural society. The 1981 Galician Statute of Autonomy172 declared Galician to be Galicia's own language and the official language alongside Spanish. The Statute grants all citizens the right to know and use Galician. The regional government (‘Xunta de Galicia’) set up in 1981 has taken steps to promote the knowledge and use of Galician, although their effectiveness is often questioned. The 1983 Galician Language Standardisation Act173 made Galician the usual language of the regional administration and its associated bodies. Other provisions refer to the status of Galician in education, the promotion of Galician culture, the media, the use of Galician in the regional administration’s dealings with citizens, and its use in the courts and in local authorities. The Real Academia Galega was empowered to set language norms. The use of the language in various fieldsEducation: The use of Galician is compulsory in all schools174, and many primary schools teach through it, though some teachers apparently ignore regulations and use Spanish. The Xunta has implemented policies to increase the use of Galician in schools: most activities relate to in-service language courses for teachers. In 1998 the 16 beginners’ courses, 12 improvement courses and 3 training seminars for teachers had 900 students. It also organizes seminars, training activities and the sharing of expertise for those in charge of the language promotion process and for teachers in general. It supports projects (€512,000 in grants to 887 schools, 1998) and the publishing of teaching material (€1,277,000 for 231 projects). At university level, government policies support the language promotion offices and advisory services in Galicia’s three universities; research projects on the Galician language; university publications; and seminars and conferences devoted to language promotion. The courts: Some judges usually use Galician in their professional duties. The Xunta has established language promotion offices in the regional high court and in three of the four provincial courts: Pontevedra, Lugo and Ourense. Public Authorities and services: The 1983 Act made Galician the usual language of the regional administration and it’s associated bodies, and it is widely used. It is the main language used in the regional Parliament. A 1988 Act governs the use of Galician in local councils. The regional government (Xunta) attaches importance to all civil servants being able to serve citizens in both official languages. To support the promotion of the Galician language as laid down in the Language Act, it runs languages courses for its civil servants. Some are specially designed to meet work place requirements. Courses at different levels are organised for local central government officials. Locally, the Galician government supports the translation offices of the provincial councils, the 50-plus language promotion offices in local councils and training courses for local civil servants. Regional civil service examinees have to pass a Galician test, or present a certificate, which is issued after a 60h course. Mass media and Information technology: The regional government founded TV Galega175, which broadcasts solely in Galician. The DG for Language Policy promotes Galician in all social domains through agreements with public and private companies, such as (i) Galician TV, to edit and broadcast educational programmes related to the language, (ii) the Secretariat General for Mass-media, to implement activities to promote the use of Galician in the mass-media (especially in the daily press) and (iii) with the main regional newspapers (Atlántico Diario, Diario de Pontevedra, El Ideal Gallego, El Progreso de Lugo, La Región, Editorial Compostela, El Correo Gallego, O Correo Galego, and La Voz de Galicia) to increase the use of Galician. The Arts: In 2000 books published in Galician rose to 1,197. Books are not limited to literary creation: books cover many other genres (historiography, education, economy, social sciences, law, etc.). The number of publishing houses has also grown considerably. Much local council (Lugo, Vigo, etc.) and some publishers run contests for Galician literary production: novels, children’s literature, theatre, etc.). Every year tribute is paid to leading writers on the Día das Letras Galegas. A CD of songs based on texts of leading Galician writers was recently published. Galician has greatly advanced on the stage in recent years: nearly all local theatre productions are in Galician, largely thanks to the Centro Dramático Galego, (founded 1986) and the Instituto Galego das Artes Escénicas e Musicais (1989). There are many popular local festivals, e.g. the Mostra de Teatro Infantil ‘Xeración Nós’, Mostra de Teatro Cómico-Festivo de Cangas, the Ribadavia International Theatre festival, etc. A number of feature films (Continental, Urxa, Sempre Xonxa, A metade da vida, Dame Lume, Dame Algo, A lei da fronteira, O pico das viúvas) have been made in Galician in recent years. Finally, Galician music is slowly recovering from the crisis following the effervescence of the 1970s and the early 1980s. Milladoiro is the most well known group: it has won prizes in many countries. The business world: Galician is not widely used in the socio-economic domain except in informal oral relations, where it is widespread. Some wines are now labelled in Galician. The Xunta grants every year subsidies in order to promote the use of Galician in the private sector, not only as regards labels, advertisement and general promotion of commercial products of concrete companies but also as regards associations of entrepreneurs, offices of language normalisation within the companies and professional associations, and language training programmes for workers. Family and social use of the language: Official campaigns have encouraged parents to speak to their children in Galician, in view of disturbing trends. It is extremely widely used in the community. Following the Basque (‘Korrika’) and Catalan (‘Correllengua’) examples, Galician language associations have launched an annual sponsored run to promote the use of the language in the public education system: the ‘Correlingua’ will it be hoped cover all Galicia. Trans-national exchanges: There are no official exchanges. The authorities treat Galician and Portuguese as different languages. The so-called ‘Lusista’ movement has strong ties with cultural and linguistic organisations in Portugal. References Fernández Rei, Francisco (1999) ‘A situación do galego en Galicia e no Occidente de Asturias, de León e de Zamora’. In: Francisco Fernández Rei; Antón Santamarina Fernández, eds. Estudios de Sociolingüística Románica. Linguas e variedades minorizadas. Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela. Recalde, Montserrat (1997) La vitalidad etnolingüística gallega. Centro de Estudios sobre Comunicación Interlingüística e Intercultural, vol. 9. València: Universitat de València.
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