Galician Language: Usage, Status, and Revitalization

The Use of Galician

Galician's habitat is predominantly in rural areas and villages, where it is the majority language. However, it is a minority language in cities. Older Galician speakers predominate among the older generations, while its presence is reduced among the younger population.

Three Positive Aspects of the Use of Galician

• Official recognition: Galician is recognized as an official language.
• Attitudes and prejudices: Negative attitudes towards Galician have gradually reduced. Over 80% of the population has a positive view and welcomes its enhancement.
• Increased use: Its use has increased in public media, cultural life, education, and commercial activity.

Language Definitions

• Original language: The language a person learns to speak and is expressed in during the early years of their life.
• Common language: The language a person speaks most often in their daily life.
• Majority language: The language spoken by a large proportion of the population.
• Minority language: A language that, historically, a people were restricted from using due to the pressure of a more prestigious foreign language.
• Diglossia: The coexistence of two languages in the same territory, characterized by an imbalance between them. They are used in different contexts, with the predominant language having more social prestige and being used in everyday and formal situations. The language with less prestige is relegated to informal and family contexts.
• Standardization: The process by which a community's language overcomes the oppression exerted on it by a foreign language and becomes the language of normal use in that community.

The Process of Normalization

1. Recognition: A language can only reach its standard when a community perceives its value as a symbol of identity.
2. Official approval: Specific legislation must be enacted to take measures to promote and protect the language.

The Grupo Nós

The Grupo Nós consisted of Castelao, Cuevillas, Vicente Risco, Otero Pedrayo, and Antón Losada. Its merits include social developments for Galicianism at an early stage of cosmopolitanism. It was founded in 1920, disappeared in 1936, and published 144 issues. It was the most important publication in pre-war Rio de Janeiro and spanned multiple facets: archaeology, ethnography, anthropology, geography, and history.