Everything about Galician-portuguese totally explained
Galician-Portuguese (also known as
galego-português or
galaico-português in
Portuguese and as
galego-portugués or
galaico-portugués in
Galician) was a
West Iberian Romance language spoken in the
Middle Ages, in the northwest area of the
Iberian Peninsula. It was spoken at first from the
Bay of Biscay to the
Douro River, but it expanded South with the
Christian Reconquest. It is the common ancestor of modern Galician, Portuguese, and
Fala languages.
The term "Galician-Portuguese" also designates the subdivision of the modern West Iberian group which is composed by Galician, Portuguese, and the Fala language.
Galician-Portuguese is also how the Portuguese language is officialy called in Galicia.
Language
Origins and history
Galician-Portuguese developed in Roman
Gallaecia from the
Vulgar Latin taken by Roman soldiers, colonists and magistrates. Although the process may have been slower than in other regions, the contact with Vulgar Latin tended, after a period of bilingualism, to displace the local native languages, leading to the development of a new variety of Latin with Gallaecian features. A
Celtic/
Lusitanian (also Galaico-Lusitanian) substratum was thus incorporated into Vulgar Latin, and this can be detected in some Portuguese-Galician words as well as in place-names of
Celtic or
Iberian origin (for example Bolso). In general, the more cultivated variety of Latin spoken in Roman
Hispania by the elite of educated Hispano-Romans already seems to have had a peculiar regional accent, referred to as
Hispano ore and
agrestius pronuntians. The more cultivated variety of Latin coexisted with the popular variety. It is assumed that the
Pre-Roman languages spoken by the
native people, each used in a different region of Roman
Hispania, contributed to the development of several different dialects of
Vulgar Latin and that these diverged increasingly over time, eventually evolving into the early
Romance Languages of the
Iberian Peninsula. It is believed that by the
year 600 Vulgar Latin was no longer spoken in the Iberian Peninsula. A
Romance form of Galician-Portuguese was already spoken in the Suebic
Kingdom of Galicia (later split politically into
Galicia and
Portugal) and by the year 800 Galician-Portuguese was the spoken language of the northwestern part of the peninsula. The first known
phonetic changes in
Vulgar Latin which are reflected in the
lexicon took place during the
Germanic rule of the
Suevi (411-585) and
Visigoths (585-711). And the Galician-Portuguese
nasal vowels may have evolved under the influence of local
Celtic languages (as in
Old French). They would thus be a phonologic characteristic of the
Vulgar Latin spoken in Roman
Gallaecia, but they're only attested in writing after the VI-VII centuries.
The oldest known document with words in Galician-Portuguese (found in
Portugal), though otherwise composed in
Late Latin, is called
Doação à Igreja de Sozello and was written in the year 870. Another document from 882 also written with some words in Galician-Portuguese is the
Carta de dotação e fundação da Igreja de S. Miguel de Lardosa. In fact, many Latin documents written in Portuguese territory contain Romance forms. The
Notícia de fiadores, written in 1175, is thought by some to be the oldest known document written in Galician-Portuguese. The
Pacto dos irmãos Pais, recently discovered (and possibly dating from before 1173), has been said to be even older. But despite the enthusiasm of some scholars, it has been argued that neither of these documents is really written in Galician-Portuguese; they're in a mixture of Late Latin and Galician-Portuguese phonology, morphology and syntax. The
Notícia de Torto, of uncertain date (c. 1214?), and the
Testamento de D. Afonso II (27 June 1214) are most certainly Galician-Portuguese. The earliest poetic texts (though not the manuscripts in which they're found) date from c. 1195 to c. 1225. Thus by the end of the 12th century and the beginning of the 13th there are documents in prose and verse written in the local Romance
vernacular.
Literature
Galician-Portuguese had a special cultural role in the literature of the
Christian kingdoms of medieval Iberia, comparable to that of
Occitan in France and Italy during the same historical period. The main extant sources of Galician-Portuguese
lyric poetry are:
The language was used for literary purposes from the final years of the
12th century until roughly the middle of the
14th century in what are now
Spain and Portugal and was, almost without exception, the only language used for the composition of lyric poetry. Over 160 poets are recorded, of whom one might mention a few in particular: Bernal de Bonaval, Pero da Ponte, Johan Garcia de Guilhade, Johan Airas de Santiago, and Pedr'Amigo de Sevilha. The main
secular poetic genres were the
cantigas d'amor (male-voiced love lyric), the
cantigas d'amigo (female-voiced love lyric) and the
cantigas d'escarnho e de mal dizer (including a variety of genres from personal invective to social satire, poetic parody and literary debate). All told, nearly 1,700 poems survive in these three genres. And there's a corpus of over 400
cantigas de Santa Maria (narrative poems about miracles and hymns in honor of the
Holy Virgin). The
Castilian king
Alfonso X composed his
cantigas de Santa Maria and his
cantigas de escárnio e maldizer in Galician-Portuguese, even though he used
Castilian for prose.
King Dinis of Portugal, who also contributed (with 137 extant texts, more than any other author) to the secular poetic genres, made the language
official in Portugal in 1290. Until then, Latin had been the official (written) language for royal documents; the spoken language didn't have a name, being simply known as
lingua vulgar ("ordinary language", that's Vulgar Latin) until it was named "Portuguese" in King Dinis' reign. "Galician-Portuguese" and
português arcaico ("Old Portuguese"), are modern terms for the common ancestor of modern Portuguese and modern Galician. Compared to the differences in
Ancient Greek dialects, the alleged differences between 13th century Portuguese and Galician are trivial.
Divergence
As a result of political isolation, Galician-Portuguese lost its unity when Portugal and Galicia found themselves under different ruling dynasties. The Galician version of the language followed an independent evolution and became influenced by Castilian, as still happens today. Two of the most important cities at the time,
Braga and
Porto, lie in Portuguese territory, while
Santiago de Compostela was already a separate entity before the independence of Portugal. Galician was preserved in Galicia because those who spoke it were rural or "uneducated", while Spanish was taught as the only "correct" language. Galician was only officially recognized in Spain in the late
20th century, after the end of
Franco's regime.
The linguistic classification of Galician and Portuguese is still discussed today; there are those, mostly a minority among Galician nationalist groups, who demand their reunification, as well as Portuguese and Galician
philologists who believe that both are
dialects of a common
language. See
Reintegrationism, for further information.
The
Fala language, spoken in a small region of the Spanish autonomous community of
Extremadura, underwent a similar development to Galician.
Galician is the national language of Galicia (sharing co-officiality with Spanish), and it's spoken by the majority of its population, while Portuguese continues to grow in use, and today is the 5th most spoken language in the world.
Phonology
2 Probably in
complementary distribution with [ʒ].
Culture and Oral Traditions
The Galician-Portuguese region encompasses Galicia and Northern Portugal, an area where many forms of common culture and folklore can be found. In
2005 the governments of Portugal and Spain jointly proposed that Galician-Portuguese oral traditions be made part of the
Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. The work of documenting and transmitting that common culture involves several universities and other organizations.
Galician-Portuguese folklore is rich in oral traditions. These include the
cantigas ao desafio or
regueifas, duels of improvised songs, many legends, stories, poems, romances, folk songs, sayings and riddles, and ways of speech that still retain a lexical, phonetic, morphological and syntactic similarity.
Also part of the common heritage of oral traditions are the markets and festivals of patron saints and processions, religious celebrations such as the
magusto, entrudo or
Corpus Christi, with ancient dances and tradition — like the one where Coca the dragon fights with
Saint George; and also traditional clothing and adornments, crafts and skills, work-tools, carved vegetable lanterns, superstitions, traditional knowledge about plants and animals. All these are part of a common heritage considered in danger of extinction as the traditional way of living is replaced by modern life, and the jargon of fisherman, the names of tools in traditional crafts, and the oral traditions which form part of celebrations are slowly forgotten.
Further Information
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