Galician is a Romance language with around 2.4 million speakers, primarily in Galicia, Spain, where it is official along with Spanish, and some surrounding zones where the language is recognized by the local governments.
During the Middle ages, it was a very important language of the Iberian peninsula and it had a rich cultural and lyrical tradition because of the many pilgrims of Santiago de Compostela. However, after the Kingdom of Castile absorbed the kingdoms of Galicia and Leon, the language stopped being typically written and became a de facto spoken language. During the Century XIX, the Rexurdimento happened, a movement to reclaim the use and normalization of the Galician language, cultural identity, fix the social and economical problems in Galicia and achieve autonomy within Spain.
The Galician language shares its early history with the northern part of Portugal, because during the Roman era, Galicia and northern Portugal were part of the same Roman province: Gallaecia, where the Galician language started evolving as a dialect of Latin. During the period of the Reconquista, the Galician Language expanded to the northern part of Portugal, which would later become the Kingdom of Portugal, and due to Portugal and Galicia's political separation, the Galician and Portuguese languages diverged by the 1400s, along with two other minor languages of Spain known as Galician-Asturian and Fala.
The Galician Literature Day is held yearly in Galicia on the 17th of May, to celebrate the Rexurdimento and the Galician language.
External resources[]
General/multiple resources[]
Dictionaries[]
Courses[]
- LingoHut - Galician Course
Grammar references[]
Tools[]
Content in Galician[]
- Galipedia - Galician Wikipedia
- A Voz de Galicia - Galicia's most widely used newspaper
- A Galega - Galicia's TV Channel