Portuguese-Galician
From Free net encyclopedia
Galician-Portuguese (known as galaico-português or galego-português in Portuguese and galaico-portugués and galego-portugués in Galician) was an Iberian Romance language, spoken in the Middle Ages, in the western area of the Iberian Peninsula. It arose via Vulgar Latin, and was spoken, at first, from the Cantabric Sea to Douro River, though it extended South with Portuguese Reconquista.
Portuguese-Galician had a special cultural role in the Christian kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula which can be seen in its literature. It can be compared to the role of Occitan in the Mediterranean coast.
The three Portuguese-Galician medieval lyrics compositions remaining are:
- "Cancioneiro de Ajuda"
- "Cancioneiro de Vaticana"
- "Cancioneiro Colocci-Brancutti" (or Biblioteca Nacional)
Some known poets were Bernardo de Bonaval, Arias Nunes, Pero da Ponte, and Pero Amigo. Until 1350, Portuguese-Galician was the only Latin-derived written, language in the Christian peninsula. The Castilian king Alfonso X, composed his "Cantigas de Santa Maria" and the "Cantigas de Escarnio e Maldizer" in Galician-Portuguese, his favourite language for poetry. The Portuguese king, Denis also wrote his Cantigas and declared Portuguese as an official language in 1290. Until then Classical Latin was the official language of Portugal. Then, the spoken language did not have a name, was simply known as Língua Vulgar ("common language" or Vulgar Latin) until it was named Portuguese in the reign of King Denis. The term Portuguese-Galician or Old Portuguese is a modern term for the common ancestor of modern Portuguese and modern Galician.
The language had its maximum expression in the final years of the 12th century until the 14th century in Spain. As a result of political isolation, Portuguese-Galician lost its unity when Portugal and Galicia fell under different ruling dinadsties. The Galician version of the language followed an independent evolution and became influenced by Spanish, which is still happening today. Two of the most important Galician cities at the time, Braga and Oporto, became independent with Portugal, while Santiago de Compostela was already a separated entity previous to the independence of Portugal. Galician was preserved because those who spoke it were rural or never went to school, where Spanish was taught as the only correct speaking. The language was only officially recognized in Spain in the late 20th century. The linguistic division (or not) of both languages is still discussed today; there are those, mostly some Galician nationalist groups, who demand the reunification of the language. Many Portuguese and Galician philologists would agree that both are dialects of a same language.
The Galician version of the language group is still spoken by more than three million people in Galicia, while the Portuguese version continues to grow in use, and today is the sixth most spoken language in the world.
Portuguese-Galician is also known as the first period of Old Portuguese.ca:Galaicoportuguès es:Galaicoportugués pt:Galaico-português