Galician Language Evolution: 1936 to Present

The Galician Language in the Late 20th and Early 21st Centuries

During the Spanish transition to democracy, Spain began to be organized territorially into autonomous communities. Galicia was recognized as a "historic community."

With the advent of democracy, the demand for cultural and linguistic diversity in Galicia has increased. The language became the object of study and research to reach a standard. This involved the expurgación of dialectalisms, removing hiperenxebrismos, and adaptation to new environments of use: the city, media, normalization, and standardization.

• 1976: The University Department of Galician-Portuguese was created.
• 1978/1981: Thanks to the Constitution (1978) and the Statute of Autonomy (1981), Galician was recognized as an official language.
• 1979: A decree established the obligation of bilingual teaching of Galician from childhood until the end of secondary education.
• 1982: The orthographic and morphological rules of the Galician language were published.
• 1983: The Law of Linguistic Normalization was promulgated.
• 1986: Radiotelevisión Galicia began broadcasting.
• 1988: The Bureau of Linguistic Normalization was created.
• 1994: The first newspaper published entirely in Galician, O Correo Galego, appeared.

New Galician publishers emerged, and other Spanish publishers began publishing in Galician.

Galician also started to be used in computer science. In 1999, the first search engine in Galician (CRUX) was launched.

Since Galician was recognized as an official language, its social perception has improved. Nevertheless, there is a desgaleguizadora tendency among the younger generation. There is a regression caused by poor language planning by the autonomous governments in recent years.

The Galician Language Between 1936 and 1975: Levels of Communication and Use

The Civil War and the postwar period brought repression that halted the process of normalizing the Galician language and culture, which had begun in the Renaissance.

Spanish became the only vehicle of communication for the royal and official church, schools, administration, and the media, although Galician continued to be the most spoken language in Galicia.

During these years, Buenos Aires became the cultural capital of Galicia due to exile: editorials were founded in Galician, lectures were given in Galician, and radio programs, publications, and courses in Galician were created.

In the 1950s, a slow recovery of Galician culture began. In 1951, Editorial Galaxia was founded, which would become a major instrument of Galician cultural recovery.

In the 1960s, cultural associations like O Facho, O Galo, and Abrente also worked on linguistic and cultural recovery. At the same time, workers' struggles and student movements opened the political consciousness of an entire generation of young people.

In 1971, the Galician Language Institute was created, which would begin to define the cultural norms of modern Galician.

Franco died in 1975, ending the dictatorship and beginning a period of political transition towards a democratic state, full of new expectations.