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 is
found especially in lyric poetry, where it became a koinè, appearing be-
yond the confines of the medieval kingdom of Galicia (López Carreira
2005). Its popularity, however, particularly in the more formal registers,

0165–2516/07/0184–00021 Int’l. J. Soc. Lang. 184 (2007), pp. 21–36

6 Walter de Gruyter DOI 10.1515/IJSL.2007.012
22 F. Ramallo

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, from
the 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 Castile’s
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 Galicia’s 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 factor
is 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 o‰cial 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 into
power of the Trastámara 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
 Spanish in Galicia 23

cultural model. From this time on, Galicia’s 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 language’s 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-Fernández 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 di‰cult 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 of
culture, 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
24 F. Ramallo

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 o‰cial status of the Spanish language.
The first third of the twentieth century was a promising time for the
Galician 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 o‰cial recognition. Nevertheless, the Civil War
and, later, the Franco dictatorship, destroyed all attempts to recover Ga-
lician. During the Franco regime (1939–1975), Galician was rendered
invisible. There was no o‰cial 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, Franco’s 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
Sociolingüı́stica 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
 Spanish in Galicia 25

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 Spanish
used in Galicia (see, among others, Álvarez Cáccamo 1983; Garcı́a 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 di¤erences between the medium de-
gree vowels are not distinctive (or are not always distinctive, cf. Garcı́a
and 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], ación [acción],
manı́fico [magnı́fico], diretor [director], etc.
In terms of the grammatical level, various aspects should be high-
lighted. The frequent use of the diminutive particular to Galician
-iño/-iña [-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
26 F. Ramallo

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.: ¿Dónde está Juan? [¿Dónde está Juan?]
‘Where is John?’
B: Ahı́ lo viene. [Ahı́ 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 escribı́ 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 (Álvarez Cáccamo
1983). For instance, the Spanish speakers in Galicia can be heard to use
the periphrasis darþpast participle [giveþpast 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 can’t complete the work’;
the frequency of periphrasis, as in tenerþpast participle [haveþpast parti-
ciple], llevarþpast participle [have spent], or venir deþpast participle [have
justþpast participle] is also very high. Another notorious aspect is the use
of forms of the imperfect subjunctive with the meaning of pluperfect in-
dicative, as in the following example:
(3) él estuviera destinado anteriormente en San Sebastián
meaning: él habı́a estado destinado anteriormente en San Sebastián ‘he had
previously been sent to San Sebastian’ alternating in some contexts with
él estuvo destinado anteriormente en San Sebastián ‘he was previously sent
to San Sebastian’ (Pollán 2001).
Another morphological feature characteristic of the Spanish used in
Galicia 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 dé ‘I give’, tu des ‘you give’, el dé ‘he give’ . . . yo esté ‘I am’,
 Spanish in Galicia 27

tú estés ‘you are’ . . . , in Galicia it is common to hear yo dea, tú deas . . . ,
yo estea or tú esteas, etc., especially in speech (Garcı́a 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 þ adjective] has been widely
documented (Fernández Leborans 1999). In the case of the Spanish used
in Galicia, Geeslin and Guijarro (2005) have noted some di¤erences 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 [ . . . ] di¤ers from monolingual regions of
Spain in the frequency with which each copula is selected’’ (Geeslin and
Guijarro 2005: 15). Certainly, the di¤erences 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 di¤erent dependence on linguistic and
social variables among the di¤erent groups.
Other features include the frequent use of an ethical dative, as in:
(4) te es un individuo a tener en cuenta
meaning 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 di‰cult 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 ‘I’m 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 di¤erent 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) Quitó a su hijo del colegio. [Sacó a su hijo del colegio]
‘He took his son out of the school.’
(7) Como me porté mal, me sacó la paga. [Como me porte mal me quitó
la paga]
‘Since I was bad he withdrew/stopped my pocket money.’
28 F. Ramallo

5. Use of Spanish by domains

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

torical vicissitudes and of the di¤erent linguistic policies, which, either
explicitly 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 Franco’s 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 di¤ers 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 Sociolingüı́stica 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
 Spanish in Galicia 29

Table 1. Individual linguistic choice. Evolution over time

Spanish Galician Bilingual

Frequent language 1992 10.6 38.7 50.7

2003 18.5 44.4 37.2
Language with the doctor 1992 38 40 21.5
2003 33 39.5 27.5
Language with the administration 1992 24.5 53.5 21.9
2003 27.3 43.3 29.3

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 for
our 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 (<16 years
of age), 87.6% prefer to use Spanish, while only 12.4% express themselves
in Galician.
Spanish is the language that is most used in the majority of domains.
Its use is particularly predominant in the media and in the church, and
at community level it is increasingly in the forefront. The media, espe-
cially the mass media, have made a firm commitment to Spanish as the
language of expression. With the exception of audio-visual media directly
managed by the Galician regional government, such as Galician Radio
and Television, the presence of Galician is merely symbolic. Furthermore,
Spanish is the only language present on digital television broadcasting or
on cable channels. As far as the printed word is concerned, some highly
meritorious initiatives survive that are committed to expression in Gali-
cian, aware not only of Galicia’s historical reality, but also of the fact
that there is a sector of the market that identifies with these practices.
In terms of the church, it should be stated that its relationship with the
Galician language has never been an easy one. The Catholic church in
Galicia did not play the role that it did elsewhere, where it explicitly
30 F. Ramallo

backed linguistic minorities (in Catalonia or in Sardinia, to name but two

examples), despite the fact that the majority of their practitioners — and
of their preachers — are Galician speakers who disapprove of the posi-
tion held by the Catholic hierarchy. This is what led López Muñoz and
Garcı́a Cendán (2000) to believe that there is a historical anomaly at the
heart of the Galician church: its faithful mostly identify themselves as Ga-
lician speakers, but the institution is a bastion of de-Galicianization. Con-
sequently, the Church can be considered as one of the most influential
mechanisms in the process of language shift.
The Galician family was, undoubtedly, one of the basic driving forces
behind the continued use of the Galician language and its modern day re-
vival. The high proportion of galegophone people made it possible for the
Galician language to move into the twenty-first century with an impor-
tant degree of social vitality and institutional drive. We cannot, however,
overlook the fact that the many di‰culties that the Galician language is
currently going through are motivated by two elements central to modern
Galician society: intergenerational transmission of the language and the
linguistic uses of the younger part of the population. In both cases, fami-
lies and young people prefer Spanish over Galician, this decision chal-
lenging the social viability of the latter. In the last century, the drop in
exclusive transmission of Galician rose to 70 points out of 100, leaving
practically no room for maneuvering (Seminario de Sociolingüı́stica
1995). Consequently, the young people, increasingly competent and
with better attitudes towards the Galician language (see Section 7), keep
themselves cut o¤ from the a¤ective, identitary, and symbolic values of
Galician. In addition, we should not overlook the fact that the majority
of the leisure and free time activities are constructed in Spanish, granting
Galician a low practical value.
In terms of Galician industries, publishing is most highly committed to
Galician, producing almost 2,000 books per year, although in very small
print runs; theater in Galicia is also almost entirely in Galician, whereas
Spanish is practically the only language in which cinema is made. Dub-
bing products designed for the large screen into Galician is still in the de-
velopmental stages, though there is a social demand that is managing to
achieve some changes in the relevant linguistic policy. It is common prac-
tice, however, to dub films on Galician television.

6. Linguistic attitudes

The Galicians are in favor of acknowledging the instrumental and sym-

bolic value of bilingualism. Generally speaking, there is very clear support
 Spanish in Galicia 31

for improving the status and presence of Galician, though seldom in det-
riment to Spanish (Seminario de Sociolingüı́stica 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 family
transmission, 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 a¤ect 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 Galicia’s own
language, whereas 58% considers that it is Galician, and 40% considers it
to be as much one as the other (Seminario de Sociolingüı́stica 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 o‰cial 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 di¤erence
between Spanish and Galician, which is echoed in the wording of the
Statute of the Autonomous Region of Galicia, 1981. In Article 5.2, it es-
tablishes that the Galician and Spanish languages ‘‘are the o‰cial lan-
guages of Galicia and all have the right to know and to use them.’’ In
32 F. Ramallo

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,
Galicia’s 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 di¤erentiated from the state’s o‰cial 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 Galicia’s 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 Fernández 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 Galicia’s 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 a¤ects optimization of basic
skills, both in Galician and in Spanish, regardless of the student’s 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 aged
from 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.
 Spanish in Galicia 33

Table 2. Use of languages in classroom activity

Santiago* Vigo**

Monolinguism Spanish 63 62.5

Galician 16 13.9
Mostly Spanish 18.1 18.1
Galician 2.9 3

Sources: *Rodrı́guez Neira (1998); **Lorenzo Suárez et al. (1997)

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 in
Galician 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 o‰cial language, the practical consequence of this situation is a nota-
ble di¤erence 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 stratification
of the di¤erent 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
34 F. Ramallo

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 the
dialectics of Galicia, there are domains in which Spanish has hardly suf-
fered from the political decision to legitimize Galician as the own and co-
o‰cial 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

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

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.
 Spanish in Galicia 35

1. Galicia is a regional community covering approximately 29,574 km 2 , 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, Álvarez Cáccamo (1989) and Dubert (2002).
The latter author, for example, considers the co-existence of five varieties of the Spanish
spoken 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 di¤erent 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-
ciolingüı́stica 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 di¤erent
nature, the questions related to the use of languages in di¤erent domains are equivalent.

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