sociolinguistics of spanish in galicia

8/14/2019 Sociolinguistics of Spanish in Galicia

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Sociolinguistics of Spanish in Galicia*

FERNANDO RAMALLO

Abstract

The aim of this article is to present the major characteristics of Spanish in

Galicia, where certain linguistic solutions of Spanish came into contact with

Galician, the vernacular language following the fragmentation of Latin into

the peninsular Romance languages. This study should be supplemented by

others primarily concerned with the study of Spanish of Galicia.

1. Introduction

The sociolinguistic situation of Galicia1 and, more specifically, the social

stratification of Spanish in this territory, have been little studied outside of

Spain. Consequently, the volume of work in circulation in Spanish as

well as in other widely-spoken languages is even scarcer. This is due to

several factors, among them the fact that Spanish publications have only

recently become available in translation (cf. Monteagudo and Santamar-

ina 1993). This has, to a large extent, conditioned the presentations that

we find in the international bibliography, which, in some of the more well-known cases, are either extremely brief (cf. Mar-Molinero 2000 or Hualde

et al. 2001), or lack the thoroughness required of this type of publication.

2. Configuration of bilingual areas

Since its beginnings as an independent Romance language in the early

Middle Ages, Galician gradually became consolidated as an everyday

language in the more informal registers and in the early literature. It isfound especially in lyric poetry, where it became a koine, appearing be-

yond the confines of the medieval kingdom of Galicia (Lopez Carreira

2005). Its popularity, however, particularly in the more formal registers,

01652516/07/018400021 Intl. J. Soc. Lang. 184 (2007), pp. 2136

6 Walter de Gruyter DOI 10.1515/IJSL.2007.012


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declined notably due to the gradual pressure brought to bear by Castilian

political, economic, and religious interests, eventually causing the domi-

nant classes to abandon the Galician language, in a gradual process of

linguistic assimilation (from the top down). This process accelerated, fromthe sixteenth century onwards, for this language that shared a common

origin with Portuguese due to the particular development of neo-Latin

languages in the western part of the Iberian Peninsula. In spite of its grad-

ual decadence, Galician continued to be almost exclusively the oral lan-

guage of the majority of the population until the early twentieth century.

It is common practice to pinpoint the origin of the current language

contact situation found in Galicia in the thirteenth century. Since that

time, with the ascent to the throne of Fernando II in 1230, by then King

of Castile since 1217, the medieval kingdom of Galicia was to become yet

another of the territories ruled by the Castilian crown. It would also un-

dergo the sociolinguistic consequences that arise from such a political

change. The implantation of Castilian was not a rapid process, but rather

a gradual one that lasted until the final consolidation of the language

many centuries later. In fact, the joining of the two crowns did not entail

an immediate decline in the cultural and political peculiarities of each in-

dividual fraction of the kingdom, among other reasons because Castiles

political leadership in the rest of the peninsula, with the exception of Por-

tugal, was not to occur until the fifteenth century. Very slowly, certain

varieties of Castilian began to appear among the inhabitants of Galicia,

initially as received speech, and only much later as spoken language. In

other words, contact had no immediate consequences in Galicias linguis-

tic adaptation. In fact, we should remember that the most splendid period

for Galician-Portuguese Romance literature runs from the thirteenth cen-

tury to the first quarter of the fourteenth century.

Several factors explain the substantial decline of the Galician language

beginning in the sixteenth century. Certainly, the most notorious factoris the linguistic assimilation mentioned earlier, to which the languages

bordering on the Kingdom of Castile were subject due to the pressure

from Castilian. In fact, the sixteenth century marks the first stage of a lan-

guage shift process that was to last for several hundred years and, in Ga-

licia, is generally known as the Dark Ages. In the sixteenth century,

Castilian became the ocial language of the kingdom and, consequently,

it is at this point that it began to be notably consolidated outside of Cas-

tile. Nevertheless, to accurately understand the Galician case, it is neces-

sary to hark back to the mid-fourteenth century and the coming intopower of the Trastamara dynasty. The presence of this Castilian nobility,

accompanied by a host of servants, scribes, and clergy, all speaking the

language of Castile, led to the extension of a new sociopolitical and

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cultural model. From this time on, Galicias sociolinguistic fate was

sealed: in an attempt to recover their lost social prestige, the Galician

nobles gradually substituted their language for that of the Castilian nobles,

and Galician as a written language vanished once and for all from the o-cial documents after the first third of the sixteenth century, shattering the

consolidation of Galician as a literary language (Monteagudo 1999).

3. Historical presence of Spanish in these territories

At the end of the medieval period, Galicia had no ruling classes of its own

to foster the consolidation of its languages social prestige. For this rea-

son, Castilian slowly gained ground, increasing in prestige and extending

its presence to the formal domains of the new foreign ecclesiastical hierar-

chy and throughout the echelons of civil and military administration. The

result was that the written and institutional use of Galician fell into decay

and it was not until the close of the eighteenth century that signs of re-

newal were to arise. Galician, however, continued to be the everyday lan-

guage of the common classes. Over time, as Galicia began to recover eco-

nomically, Spanish would become the reference language of commerce

and the still-developing urban centers. Meanwhile, Galician was gradually

taking refuge in rural areas, where the centralist government took rela-

tively little interest and, above all, where it had a more relative capacity to

exert its influence. In general, this geolinguistic stratification the urban

as opposed to the rural has remained in place until the present day.

In the centralist environment that characterized the eighteenth century

with the arrival of the Bourbon dynasty and its drive towards construct-

ing the national Spanish state, the need for linguistic uniformity appears

as a primordial element for the cohesion of the new political structure. At

this time, encoding began to take place in the Spanish language a phe-nomenon which was to enormously facilitate its spread among the popu-

lation (Moreno-Fernandez 2005), and was achieved primarily by means

of an educational system that tended towards uniformity, and which

would soon comprise a vital part of political centralization. As far as

Galician was concerned, its exclusive oral use contributed to its notable

fragmentation and dialectalization, making it very dicult to create a

cultivated variety until well into the twentieth century.

Despite the fact that at the close of the eighteenth century there were

highly commendable attempts to bring back Galician as the language ofculture, it was not to be until the second half of the nineteenth century

that the non-institutional recovery of the cultural uses of the Galician lan-

guage was to occur. This was also when the first Galician grammars and

Spanish in Galicia 23


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dictionaries, essential for encoding a standard, were published. All of this

overlaps with the period when the Spanish national state was finally es-

tablished and, with it, the ocial status of the Spanish language.

The first third of the twentieth century was a promising time for theGalician language. This point in history witnessed its renewal as a liter-

ary, cultural, and historical language, while the prevailing political cli-

mate seemed to foster its ocial recognition. Nevertheless, the Civil War

and, later, the Franco dictatorship, destroyed all attempts to recover Ga-

lician. During the Franco regime (19391975), Galician was rendered

invisible. There was no ocial or explicit prohibition on the use of the

language, but by using a linguistic praxis that favored Spanish and a cen-

tralist sociopolitical ideology over any political identitary cultural mani-

festation, Francos regime established, de facto, a unique acknowledge-

ment of Spanish and put into practice a surreptitious persecution of the

peripheral languages, hindering cultural production in the Galician lan-

guage. The language shift sped up during this period. Spanish finally

anchored into urban centers among the more learned population and

among the younger generation. Such stratification parameters are what,

broadly speaking, still exist today.

To a large extent, intergenerational transmission of the Galician lan-

guage took a marked downturn due to the economic consequences arising

from the late urbanization process occurring in Galicia. Many rural fam-

ilies, needless to say, speakers of traditional Galician, came into contact

with urban culture and, eager to integrate as quickly as possible, they

adapted to the reference system particular to urban areas where the Span-

ish language was yet another ingredient of the modernity to which they

had committed themselves. In this manner, they added Spanish to their

repertoire, not only in the more formal registers, but also, and more im-

portantly, in the informal, including the transmission from one generation

to another (Ramallo 2000). The most immediate consequence of this phe-nomenon was the gradual increase of bilingualism, especially in the gen-

eration of those aged 30 to 40 in the urban environment (Seminario de

Sociolingustica 1995). The repercussions that the political change of

1978 brought about in the social distribution of the languages spoken in

Galician are dealt with in the final part of this article.

4. Linguistic characterization of Spanish in the bilingual areas:

consequences of linguistic contacts

The phenomena arising from the linguistic contact between Spanish

and Galician are too complex to be covered in any detail in this brief

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presentation. Despite the extensive bibliography on the situation of Gali-

cia written over the last few years, almost all of these works have focused

on characterizing the interferences of Spanish in Galician, while only a

few focus on the linguistic characterization of the varieties of Spanishused in Galicia (see, among others, Alvarez Caccamo 1983; Garca and

Blanco 1998; Mas 1999; Porto Dapena 2001; Castro 2003; Rojo 2004;

Geeslin and Guijarro-Fuentes 2005).

This section describes some of the features of the linguistic varieties of

Spanish spoken by the population that normally uses this language and

for whom it has been their first language. Rather than it being a matter

of Galician interferences in Spanish, we are dealing with a case of histor-

ical integration of elements particular to Galician that are also a part of

the process of acquiring Spanish as a mother tongue (Mackey 1970). For

this reason, we do not include any reference here to phenomena such as

gheada or seseo, very frequent in the normal speakers of Galician

when using Spanish, but far less common in native speakers of the vari-

eties of Spanish in Galicia (Rojo 2004).

There is a commonly held opinion that the phonic level is the most

outstanding feature of the Spanish used in Galician; the pitch accent is

the suprasegmental attribute that immediately sets a Spanish speaker

in Galicia apart. Castro (2003) has shown that in the final position of

each phonic group, or the prototypical melodic unit of Spanish, high

pitch is perceived as being linked with Galician, through instances

of open and closed mid vowels in those positions (Castro 2003: 46).

Apart from the particular melody, the varieties of Spanish of Galicia use

a vowel system that is very similar to that used in Galician, a language

that distinguishes between seven vowels with four degrees of opening:

/i e E a O o u/.

In the Spanish used in Galicia, the dierences between the medium de-

gree vowels are not distinctive (or are not always distinctive, cf. Garcaand Blanco 1988; Porto Dapena 2001) but they certainly are present in

the sharper way of speaking in Galician Spanish than in peninsular Span-

ish (Rojo 2004). The tonic [e] and [o] of peninsular Spanish are usually

pronounced open [E] [O], whereas the atones of the same series in the

initial or pretonic position are usually closed. Another of the phonic fea-

tures found in the Spanish used in Galicia is a reduction of the first con-

sonant of the cultured word groups: estrutura [estructura], acion [accion],

manfico [magnfico], diretor [director], etc.

In terms of the grammatical level, various aspects should be high-lighted. The frequent use of the diminutive particular to Galician

-ino/-ina [-ito/-ita], the presence of demonstrative first and second forms

such as estes and eses, instead of the standard estos and esos, the use of



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the locution de aquella with the meaning of so, the neuter pronominal

form lo que with the value of the standard que or the incursion of this

neuter pronoun into expressions such as the following, are very common:

(1) A.: Donde esta Juan? [Donde esta Juan?]

Where is John?

B: Ah lo viene. [Ah viene]

Here he comes.

In the verbal system, we find one of the most outstanding characteristics

of the Spanish used in Galicia. Traditionally, it was very strange to hear a

speaker of these varieties using compound tenses. Nevertheless, for some

years now these forms are being increasingly used (Dubert 2002), not al-

ways coinciding with the rules of standard Spanish (hypercorrections,

anomalous uses, etc.). Even when bearing this statement in mind, cer-

tainly the opposition between escrib un libro I wrote a book and he es-

crito un libro I have written a book is almost non-existent in Galicia.

This phenomenon is undoubtedly explained by the solutions reached by

Galician in its verbal paradigm. In Galician, there are no compound

tenses, meaning that a fair part of the value entailed by such tenses is con-

veyed by a complex system of verbal periphrases. In fact, there is a degree

of periphrastic transfer from one language to the other (Alvarez Caccamo

1983). For instance, the Spanish speakers in Galicia can be heard to use

the periphrasis darpast participle [givepast participle], a construction

that does not exist in standard Spanish:

(2) no doy hecho todo el trabajo

equivalent to no soy capaz de hacer el trabajo I cant complete the work;

the frequency of periphrasis, as in tenerpast participle [havepast parti-

ciple], llevarpast participle [have spent], or venir depast participle [have

justpast participle] is also very high. Another notorious aspect is the useof forms of the imperfect subjunctive with the meaning of pluperfect in-

dicative, as in the following example:

(3) el estuviera destinado anteriormente en San Sebastian

meaning: el haba estado destinado anteriormente en San Sebastian he had

previously been sent to San Sebastian alternating in some contexts with

el estuvo destinado anteriormente en San Sebastian he was previously sent

to San Sebastian (Pollan 2001).

Another morphological feature characteristic of the Spanish used inGalicia is found in the use of the present subjunctive of the verbs dar

give and estar be. As opposed to the canonical forms in standard

Spanish yo de I give, tu des you give, el de he give . . . yo este I am,

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tu estes you are . . . , in Galicia it is common to hear yo dea, tu deas . . . ,

yo estea or tu esteas, etc., especially in speech (Garca and Blanco 1998).

As is well known, although in standard Spanish the choice between the

copulative forms ser to be and estar to be show semantic and prag-matic restrictions, the form estar has extended its presence to contexts tra-

ditionally restricted to the use of ser. This change of status of estar in

Spanish, especially in contexts of [copula adjective] has been widely

documented (Fernandez Leborans 1999). In the case of the Spanish used

in Galicia, Geeslin and Guijarro (2005) have noted some dierences in

terms of what occurs in other syntopic varieties. The comparison between

three groups of speakers, one bilingual Galician/Spanish, another mono-

lingual in Spanish used in Galicia and the last, monolingual in the Span-

ish used outside Galicia, leads these authors to conclude that the process

of copula selection in Galicia [ . . . ] diers from monolingual regions of

Spain in the frequency with which each copula is selected (Geeslin and

Guijarro 2005: 15). Certainly, the dierences are noted only in the higher

frequency usage of estar in general, by the group that speaks the Spanish

used in Galicia, without detecting a dierent dependence on linguistic and

social variables among the dierent groups.

Other features include the frequent use of an ethical dative, as in:

(4) te es un individuo a tener en cuentameaning es un individuo a tener en cuenta you are a person to bear in

mind, you, or in the expression y luego?to express surprise. This expres-

sion is dicult to translate both into peninsular Spanish and into English.

A rough approximation would be: y eso? and . . . ?. It is also easy to

document pronominal expressions with no reflexive, as for example

(5) voy descansar

instead of me voy a descansar Im going to have a rest.

Lexis presents distinguishing peculiarities. As anywhere, there are hun-dreds of words, set expressions and other lexical constructions, which, in

the Spanish used in Galicia take on meanings dierent from the ones they

may have in standard Spanish. By way of an example, the crossover

noted in the Spanish used in Galicia between the verbs sacar withdraw

and quitar take out is well known. Quitar usually appears in place of

sacar and vice versa (Mas 1999):

(6) Quito a su hijo del colegio. [Saco a su hijo del colegio]

He took his son out of the school.(7) Como me porte mal, me saco la paga. [Como me porte mal me quito

la paga]

Since I was bad he withdrew/stopped my pocket money.



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5. Use of Spanish by domains

The social stratification of languages in Galicia is a consequence of his-

torical vicissitudes and of the dierent linguistic policies, which, eitherexplicitly or implicitly, have been applied in Galicia. From a historical

viewpoint, a clearly defined dichotomy is noted between the two compet-

ing languages. Spanish was an urban language, used by the dominant

classes, but also the language of prestige, with a frequent use in formal

registers by the popular classes. Galician was mainly heard in rural, more

economically depressed areas, with largely illiterate populations. School-

ing was entirely in Spanish, this being the language used by the media, the

administration, the church, and the business world. Although this dichot-

omy has been present for centuries, it was during Francos regime (1939

1975) when it became more evident.

Over the past few decades, the situation described above has begun to

change. Alongside traditional Galician, which continues to be in use

mainly in the rural areas, a cultured variety has appeared and spread

among the urban middle classes, in the media, and in the educational sys-

tem. Curiously enough, for some authors, it is a variety which, particu-

larly in its phonetic component, scarcely diers from the cultured variety

of the Spanish used in Galicia (Vidal 1997; Regueira 1999).2 The most

immediate consequence of this new situation is, in part, contradictory:

Galician has infiltrated domains that were exclusive to Spanish, at the

same time that Spanish has broadened its presence throughout the Gali-

cian population due to the waning social prestige of Galician that has

caused a de-Galicianization process in the heart of Galician speaking

families. This may be explained by a change in the use of the language.

Galician has been ritualized, giving way in the instrumental uses and ex-

panding in the symbolic. Spanish has not only not stopped losing pres-

ence, but rather, during the twentieth century, its advance has been spec-tacular (Seminario de Sociolingustica 1995).

Research carried out over the last fifteen years underscores some inter-

esting facts that bear comment.3 We will start with a description of the

individual uses, moving on to describe the uses of the language in do-

mains such as the following: the family, the church, and the media. The

domain of education will be dealt with in Section 8.

Practically the entire Galician population has mastery of both lan-

guages, at least at the level of oral competence. In fact, as far as indi-

vidual uses are concerned, for some years now, the majority of the popu-lation declares itself to be bilingual, although an analysis over time

reveals a return to monolingual practices, both in Spanish and in Galician

(Table 1). In more informal interactions, for example at an administrative

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level, and particularly with the doctor, the use of Spanish has increased its

presence considerably in comparison with the frequent language. Mono-

linguism in Spanish increased almost twofold between 1992 and 2003 in

the generic variable (frequent language), which we take as a reference forour considerations on individual linguistic uses.

Since these data are relevant for an initial approximation of the private

linguistic usage by the Galician population, we should not overlook the

fact that there are certain variables that allow for a more clearly defined

stratification of the languages, for example, age and habitat. Where there

is a younger population, the use of Spanish increases considerably in all

of the interactions studied in recent years. In this regard, the data for

2003 are striking: only one in ten people aged over 65 is monolingual in

Spanish, whereas among those under sixteen years of age, this proportion

rises to one in three. In terms of residency habitat, towns versus cities, the

use of Spanish is notably higher than the use of Galician, especially

among younger generations. In this sector of the population (


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for improving the status and presence of Galician, though seldom in det-

riment to Spanish (Seminario de Sociolingustica 1996). The majority of

the population defends a situation where Galician and Spanish share sim-

ilar degrees of prestige and presence in the media, at school, in familytransmission, in the community, etc., which, in view of the current state

of imbalance, should be understood as a certain positive discrimination

towards Galician. Qualitative investigation has revealed that, in certain

segments of the population, some prejudice still exists with regard to the

greater use of Spanish in general and in the labor market in particular,

which, in turn, can negatively aect attitudes towards learning Galician

(Iglesias 2002).

In terms of identity issues, the pro-Galician position is the stronger one.

Only 2% of the population exclusively identifies Spanish as Galicias own

language, whereas 58% considers that it is Galician, and 40% considers it

to be as much one as the other (Seminario de Sociolingustica 1996). Con-

trasting data of this type with data on usage highlights a situation nothing

short of surprising; attitudes towards Galician are very favorable, but the

use of this language is decreasing over the years. Furthermore, the popu-

lation that feels more favorably towards Galician is the younger sector,

precisely those who least incorporate Galician into their linguistic reper-

toire in an active manner.

This apparent paradox can be explained if we consider, on one hand,

the symbolic dimension of the language and the identity reference points

involved and, on the other hand, the practical dimension and the inertia

created by practices in a given community with its system of leaderships,

acknowledgements, sanctions, etc. (Wenger 1998).

7. Legislation on the use of the Spanish language

The Spanish Constitution (SC), as a high-ranking standard text, com-

prises the starting point for any analysis of linguistic policy in Galicia. In

fact, since it was passed in 1978, all Spaniards have the duty to know

Spanish and the right to use it, this being the ocial language of the State

(Art. 3.1 of the SC). In other words, in Galicia, as in the other bilingual

territories in Spain, Spanish speakers have their duties and linguistic

rights clearly mapped out.

In this regard, it should be recalled that the SC introduces a dierence

between Spanish and Galician, which is echoed in the wording of theStatute of the Autonomous Region of Galicia, 1981. In Article 5.2, it es-

tablishes that the Galician and Spanish languages are the ocial lan-

guages of Galicia and all have the right to know and to use them. In



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other words, the Galician-speaking group in Galicia only has duties with

regards to Spanish but not to Galician, which is, according to the Statute,

Galicias own language (Art. 5.1, Statute of the Autonomous Region of

Galicia). This is the most outstanding innovation introduced by the Stat-ute of Autonomy in terms of the text of the constitution: the legitimiza-

tion of an own language dierentiated from the states ocial language.

Although in the standard texts referred to we do not find an explicit dif-

ferentiation of what is understood by own language, it is obvious that this

terminology seeks to make visible Galicias sociolinguistic reality as well

as to acknowledge the historic presence of Galician, on one hand, and the

wish for its preferential use in the public domain on the other.

The legal interpretation is not without controversy. The Spanish Con-

stitutional Tribunal has, on several occasions, expressed itself to be

against the autonomous legislator that establishes, by law, the duty of citi-

zens of the Autonomous Regions that have their own languages to know

them, even in the passive sense of understanding and not in the sense of

knowing. In other words, only the duty to know Spanish and not Gali-

cian is legitimized. In this respect, it appears contradictory that the com-

pulsory teaching of an own language to everybody is constitutional, as

occurs in Galicia and as expressed in Art. 14.1 of the Law on Linguistic

Standardization, 1983 (Huerga Fidalgo 1999; Ferreira Fernandez et al.

2005).

8. Teaching of Spanish at school and university

In Galicia, Spanish is the predominant language at all levels of education.

This is the case despite the fact that there has been a movement in the Re-

gional Government to tailor Galicias distribution of economic resources

with the goal to revitalize the Galician language. Linguistic legislation as-signs a series of items for regulating the use of the two languages in the

pre-university levels of education. The purpose of this, once schooling is

completed, is for all students to attain a similar degree of competence in

both languages. It is interesting to note that the model has no bearing on

the increased use of Galician, but rather it aects optimization of basic

skills, both in Galician and in Spanish, regardless of the students lan-

guage of origin.

In Bouzada et al. (2002), we find the conclusions of a recent investiga-

tion into the stratification of languages in primary education (pupils agedfrom 3 to 5) and infantile education (pupils aged from 6 to 11). The con-

clusion that these authors come to is that Spanish is the dominant lan-

guage in all primary and infantile levels, especially in private schools.

32 F. Ramallo


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Over the last 25 years, Galician has increased its presence, particularly if

we take into account the starting point, which was practically anecdotal.

In many primary schools, the use of Galician is limited to those areas

regulated by the legislation, whereas schools that teach predominantly inGalician are in the minority. There is also a small percentage of schools

that fails to comply with the legislative rule, but rather teach Galician ex-

clusively as the subject Galician language and literature. This percent-

age increases in the schools located in urban environments and in those of

a private nature.

The university system in Galicia has three public centers that take in

practically all the university students. Although, according to the indi-

vidual regulations for each of the three universities, Galician is the own

and ocial language, the practical consequence of this situation is a nota-

ble dierence between the more ritualized uses such as internal docu-

mentation, service records, registration envelopes, and even the oral uses

requiring more solemnity where Galician is the dominant language

and more everyday uses, such as giving classes (Table 2), where Spanish

acquires a greater presence, especially in the technological and scientific

fields. Both at the University of Santiago and the University of Vigo, the

percentage of use of Spanish in classes is over 60%, rising to 80% if we

include those who usually conduct their classes mostly in this language.

9. Conclusion

This article presents a brief overview of some of the aspects that char-

acterize the social situation of spoken Spanish in Galicia. Despite the

fact that recent years have seen an increase in research and publica-

tions regarding the sociolinguistic status of the languages spoken in Gali-

cia, we consider that more extensive studies focusing on the stratificationof the dierent varieties of Spanish found in this territory are called for.

Current research shows that Spanish in Galicia is extremely vital, espe-

cially among the young and urban population. It is the dominant language

Table 2. Use of languages in classroom activity

Santiago* Vigo**

Monolinguism Spanish 63 62.5Galician 16 13.9

Mostly Spanish 18.1 18.1

Galician 2.9 3

Sources: *Rodrguez Neira (1998); **Lorenzo Suarez et al. (1997)



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in the media, both in the press and in audio-visual productions, and learn-

ing it is guaranteed throughout the educational system. For centuries, it

has been the language used by those in political power, and it has taken

on a prestige that is still maintained today. Despite some changes in thedialectics of Galicia, there are domains in which Spanish has hardly suf-

fered from the political decision to legitimize Galician as the own and co-

ocial language of Galicia. This is precisely because the current legisla-

tion has not involved any deterioration of the status of Spanish. In terms

of the demographic characteristics of Galicia, it can be said that practi-

cally the entire population can express itself in both languages, at least in

the oral registers. In turn, this fact reduces the pressure for the use of one

or another language in many communicative situations.

University of Vigo

Appendix

Notes

* I wish to thank Gabriel Rei-Doval and Anxo M. Lorenzo for their useful comments on

an earlier version of this article and Ian Emmett for the English translation.

Map 1. Provinces of Galicia (A Coruna, Lugo, Ourense, Pontevedra)

34 F. Ramallo


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1. Galicia is a regional community covering approximately 29,574 km2, with a population

of 2,760,000 inhabitants. Although it has seven towns with over 50,000 inhabitants, the

main demographic characteristic of Galicia is population spread. The structure of the

Galician population, with almost 30,000 unique settlements, involves hybridization be-

tween the rural and the urban, a tremendous geographical scattering and high density.

If, on top of that, we take into account an endemic emigration, an extremely acute de-

mographic downward trend and a production system modernized only recently, it is

easy to understand that Galicia ranks among the most depressed communities in Spain,

with a 14% unemployment rate and a GDP per capita of 14,000, that is, 75% of the Eu-

ropean Union of 25.

2. Since the real situation of Galician sociolinguistics is a more complex and dynamic one,

we should talk of a continuum of varieties. In this regard, it would be more useful to es-

tablish a typology of speakers who use the continuum of speech forms acting as ex-

pressive forms in Galicia. See, for example, Alvarez Caccamo (1989) and Dubert (2002).

The latter author, for example, considers the co-existence of five varieties of the Spanishspoken in Galicia, from the most Galicianized to the closest form to standard Spanish.

3. In order to provide an analysis over time, we shall use data gathered in two dierent re-

search studies: the Sociolinguistic Map of Galicia (SMG), drawn up from 1990 to 1997

by the Seminar on Sociolinguistics at the Royal Academy of Galician (Seminario de So-

ciolingustica 1994, 1995, 1996) and the Survey on family living conditions (SFL), drawn

up by the Galician Institute of Statistics (2004). Although these works are of a dierent

nature, the questions related to the use of languages in dierent domains are equivalent.

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