Language name: Galician

Brief historical overview

The Galician language has its origin in the evolution of Latin introduced by Roman soldiers and settlers on the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula between the 1st and the 4th century of our times. The result was a Romance language with almost no trace of the Celtic languages which existed before the Roman invasion, only in vocabulary and place names.
From the 13th to the 15th century there is a clear consolidation of Galician as the language of administration and literature. Throughout this time, both the territories north (Galician) and south (Portugal) of the river Miño belonged to the same linguistic area. The Galician-Portuguese lyrical poetry is precisely one of the most evident signs of the splendour and force of this neo-Romance language during the Medieval period.
At the end of this Medieval period highbrow Galician language and literature went into a decadence period. In this political context, Galician was absent from written uses during a long period of three centuries –16th, 17th and 18th– called Séculos Escuros (Dark Centuries).
"Rexurdimento" (resurgence) is the name of the culture regeneration movement which took place along the second half of the 19th century. Cantares Gallegos, the first work totally written in Galician language, by Rosalia de Castro and published in 1863, inaugurated the full "Rexurdimento". The first Galician grammar and dictionary, essential for its standardization, also appeared in the 19th century.
The recovery of Galician as a language of literature and culture was confirmed throughout the 20th century. In parallel, during this period there was an evident backing down in less formal oral uses, particularly in urban areas. Thanks to work done in the last three decades by public authorities and the society, the process of legitimization and modernization of Galician was a success and its use has notably expanded both demographically and functionally.
The Royal Galician Academy, an institution founded in 1906, is legally competent in all matters regarding language standards. The last ortographic and mophological rules of Galician were passed in December 2003. They altered in some respects and criteria the rules which had been in force since 1982.
Nowadays there are three Galician dialectal groups: the western, central and eastern group.