Galician-Portuguese
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Galician-Portuguese (also known as galaico-português or galego-português in Portuguese and galaico-portugués or galego-portugués in Galician) was a West 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 the Reconquista.
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[edit] Galician-Portuguese language
The oldest known document found in Portugal, that already has some words in Galician-Portuguese mixed with Latin, is called Doação à Igreja de Sozello and was written in the year 870. The Notícia de fiadores was written in 1175 and is believed to be the oldest document known written in Galician-Portuguese. The Pacto dos irmãos Pais, recently discovered, claims to be the oldest document found, and was probably written before 1173.
Galician-Portuguese had a special cultural role in the literature of the Christian kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula, compararable to that of Occitan in France and Italy, during the same historical period.
The main existing sources of Galician-Portuguese lyric poetry are:
- The four extant manuscripts of the Cantigas de Santa Maria
- Cancioneiro de Ajuda
- Cancioneiro da Vaticana
- Cancioneiro Colocci-Brancuti (or Cancioneiro da Biblioteca Nacional (Lisbon))
The language was used for literary purposes from the final years of the 12th century until the 14th century in what are now Spain and Portugal. Over 160 poets are recorded, of whom one might mention in particular Bernal de Bonaval, Pero da Ponte, Johan Garcia de Guilhade, Johan Airas de Santiago, and Pedr'Amigo de Sevilha. Until 1350, Galician-Portuguese was the only Latin-derived written language in the Christian peninsula. The Castilian king Alfonso X also composed his Cantigas de Santa Maria and his Cantigas de Escarnio e Maldizer in Galician-Portuguese, using this language for his poetry, even though he used Castilian for prose. King Denis of Portugal, who also contributed to this literary genre, made Portuguese the official language in 1290. Until then Classical Latin had been the official (written) language for royal documents; the spoken language did not have a name, being simply known as Língua Vulgar ("common language" or Vulgar Latin) until it was named "Portuguese" in King Denis' reign. "Galician-Portuguese", or Português Arcaico (Old Portuguese), is a modern term for the common ancestor of modern Portuguese and modern Galician. Compared to the differences in ancient Greek dialects, the alleged differences between 13th century Portuguese and Galician are trivial.
As a result of political isolation, Galician-Portuguese lost its unity when Portugal and Galicia found themselves under different ruling dynasties. The Galician version of the language followed an independent evolution and became influenced by Spanish, which still happens today. Two of the most important cities at the time, Braga and Porto, lie in Portuguese territory, while Santiago de Compostela was already a separate entity before the independence of Portugal. Galician was preserved in Galicia because those who spoke it were rural or 'uneducated', while Spanish was taught as the only "correct" language. Galician was only officially recognized in Spain in the late 20th century, after the Franco regime ended.
The linguistic division (or not) of Galician and Portuguese is still discussed today; there are those, mostly a minority among Galician nationalist groups, who demand their reunification, as well as Portuguese and Galician philologists who believe that both are dialects of the same language. Galician is still spoken by more than three million people in Galicia, while Portuguese continues to grow in use, and today is the sixth most spoken language in the world.
[edit] Galician-Portuguese Culture and Oral Traditions
The Galician-Portuguese region is a territory that encompasses Galicia and Northern Portugal, a region where can be found many forms of a common culture, a common folklore. The Galician-Portuguese Oral Traditions were proposed as a Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by a joint candidacy of the governments of Portugal and Spain in 2005. The work to document and transmit the common culture involves several schools, universities and organizations.
The Galician-Portuguese folklore is very rich in oral traditions which include the “cantigas ao desafio” or “regueifas”, improvised duels of sung poems, a varied number of legends, stories, sung poems, romances, folk songs, sayings and riddles and the ways of speech that still retain a lexical, phonetic, morphological and syntactic similitude.
Also part of the common heritage of oral traditions are the markets and festivals of patron saints and processions, religious celebrations such as the "magusto", "Entrudo" or Corpus Christi with ancient dances and tradition like the one where Côca the dragon fights with saint George; The traditional clothing, and adornments, crafts' skills, working tools, carved vegetable lanterns, superstitions, ancient knowledge about plants and animals. All makes part of a common heritage that is considered in danger of extinction as the traditional way of living is substituted by modern life, and the jargon used by fisherman, even the name of tools in traditional crafts or the oral traditions that are part of the celebrations are slowly forgotten.
