LINGUIST List 6.1594

Fri Nov 10 1995

FYI: A New Electronic List Of Galician Culture

Editor for this issue: Ljuba Veselinova <lveselinemunix.emich.edu>

Directory

1. system PRIVILEGED account, Invitation

 GALICIA
 A NEW ELECTRONIC LIST OF GALICIAN CULTURE

Galicia is a country situated on the North-west coast of the Iberian
Peninsula, on one of the several "Fines terrae" of Europe. Its Romanic
language -Galician-Portuguese- was the vehicle of an important lyric
production in the Middle Ages, which was studied from Galicia to
Seville and from Seville to Provence, including the court of
Toledo. Santiago de Compostela was, at that time, an atraction for
pilgrims of all Europe.

The separation of Portugal in the twelfth century created a new
kingdom, a new language -Portuguese- which is the oficial language of
several states nowadays. The political union of Galicia with Leon and
Castile and, later on with Spain, made it easier the development of
Galician peculiarities which were already present in the medieval
period, and the progressive distance from Portuguese. In addition, the
autonomous normalization which was taken place since the late
eighteenth century gave way to an autonomous language -Galician.

Since the end of the Middle Ages the process of formation of a Spanish
State based on one oficial language -Spanish, also known as Castilian-
and the progressive extinction of other languages -Galician, Basque
and Catalan, together with Asturian-Leonese and Aragonese was taking
place. However, that process was not so successful as expected, as
those languages are still alive at the end of the twentieth century.

As a consequence of this failure and the existence of complex
cultural, social and political movements of defence of their own
personality in Galicia, Euskadi and the Catalan Countries since the
late eighteenth century, a new constitution was passed in 1978 in
Spain. This document acknowledges, for the first time, the coexistence
of Spanish as a co-oficial language in those territories where other
languages were originally spoken. In Galicia, no school or legal
activities had been carried out in Galician since the sixteenth
century. In 1995, Galician has achieved a high degree of competence in
Galician society, although it has to face many problems.

Nowadays, there are lots of studies on Galician culture and a thousand
works are published every year in Galician. In addition, the interest
of non-Galician scientists and many foreign universities in our
country, its culture and its language is increasing.

The creation of the Centre of Linguistic and Literary Researching
Ramon Pinheiro -CIRP- in Santiago de Compostela makes us it feel
necessary to create an electronic list to offer all INTERNET users a
way of exchanging information and discussion about several aspects of
Galician culture (language, literature, history, etc.).



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