Re: [tied] Galicia.

----- Original Message -----

From: Mark Odegard

To: cybalist@egroups.com

Sent: Thursday, September 14, 2000 4:48 PM

Subject: [tied] Galicia.

 

Mark wrote:

 

I didn't know it had the status of a full language. I've always heard it described as a 'Spanish dialect', even by a co-worker I had, whose parents were Gallegos.

 

Galician (Galego) is one of the four officially recognised languages of Spain (beside Spanish, Catalan and Basque). I suspect Spanish is the first language of a majority of Galicians; I don't quite trust the results of recent surveys, which may reflect the strength of Galician identity rather than genuine language ability, though it may be true that in many rural areas most people are first-language or even monolingual Galego-speakers. However, Galicians seem to be greatly dedicated to the full revival of standard Galego and to its social spread. All street names in Santiago, placenames on official maps of Galicia and names of regional institutions (including A Xunta de Galicia, i.e. the govermnent of the province), are in Galician. Characteristically Galician first names (e.g. Xosé instead of José) are widely used. Even restaurant menus are typically bilingual, with Galego first and Castilian second. There is a local TV channel (TVG) that broadcasts in Galician. Standard Spanish predominates in the local newspapers, but every issue features at least a few articles in Galician.

 

The description of Galician as a "Spanish dialect" is incorrect. Though strongly influenced by Spanish since the 15th century, Galician is linguistically more akin to Portuguese.

 

 

I always have to think twice when trying to spell Galicia. For some reason, I think the one in Poland and the one in Spain should be spelled differently.

 

 

Perhaps they should. The name of Ukrainian and Polish Galicia -- once an Austrian crown land as a result of the first partition of Poland in 1772 -- is a Latinised derivative from Halych (Polish Halicz), a town in modern W Ukraine. The official term "Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria" was employed in the Habsburg empire, but it had originally been coined to express the territorial claims of Hungarian kings, who from the 13th c. onwards used the title "Rex Galiciae et Lodomeriae", i.e. "King of Halych and Volodymyr (Wlodzimierz)". The term "Galicia" has no official status at present, and is used mainly with reference to the period 1772-1919.

 

Piotr