I think I'm correct in saying that the vocabulary and grammar of
Galician is virtually identical to Portuguese, but strangely it
sounds more like Spanish at least to me. Spanish speakers have few
difficulties understanding Galician, but Galician speakers find
Portuguese difficult. That is what Galicians have told me. Isn't the
dialect of the Minho district of northern Portugal called Galego?
Perhaps our Portuguese specialists can help.
Regards
David
-- In
cybalist@egroups.com, "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...> wrote:
>
> ----- 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