Galician (or Galego, the name of the Galician language in Galician), still maintains some traces of the former habitants of Galicia: those of pre-indeuropean origin and the Celts.

Therefore we can find in contemporanean Galician words like "amorodo", "lastra" "veiga", etc. and Celtic words such as "berce", "bugallo", "cróio"... which arrived to our language directly or through Latin. The Celtic heritance in Galician language can be also and specially found in the present toponimy: Barra, Brión, Carnota...

The Romans arrived to Galicia (I BC) very much later than they did to the rest of the Iberian Peninsula (III BC). Thus romanization begun late. This process leads to the assimilation of the Celts to the language of conquerors. Latin becomes the language of Galician people, although this was a quite slow process, achieved by marriages and several administratives advantages such as gaining roman citizenship, lands distribution, etc.

This process of romanization also successed in other places. This explains why Romance languages evolved from the language spoken at that time, vulgar latin.

After the 5th century peoples of germanic race and language arrived to Galicia. They could not assimilate the language of the Galician-Romans. The same happens whith arabs and the new arrivals of Celts from Britany (in 7th century). These contacts gave Galician language a number of loanwords of both Germanic ("laberca", "espeto", "roupa", etc) and arab origin, although the last ones were less and arrived more indirectly (Mamede, "laranxa", "aceite", "azucre"...)

From latin to Galician

From the ninth century, the language spoken in the north-western corner of the Iberian Peninsula was so different from Latin that Latin and Galician can be considered two separate languages. However, written texts in Galician have only been found dating from the end of the twelfth century, because Latin continued to be the cultured language for legal documents, for lithurgy and teaching, not only in Gallaecia but throughout medieval Europe.

The oldest known document is the poem Ora faz ost'o Senhor de Navarra by Joam Soares de Paiva, written around 1200. The first non-literary documents in Galician date from the early thirteenth century, the Noticia de Torto (1211) and the Testamento of Afonso II of Portugal (1214), both samples of medieval notarial prose.

From the eighth century Galicia was a political unit with the kingdoms of Asturias and Leon, but was able to reach a degree of autonomy becoming an independent kingdom at certain times in the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries. Galician was the only language in oral use and Latin was used to a decreasing degree in written language. This oral monolingualism was able to exert such pressure in the thirteenth century that it led to a situation of dual official status for Galician and Latin in notarial documents, edicts, lawsuits, etc; Latin, however, continued to be the universal vehicle for culture.

From XII to XV centuries

This was the "golden age" of Galician literature. Galician became the language par excellence for lyrical poetry throughout the whole Iberian Peninsula, except Catalonia (troubador poetry). It would be more precise to speak of Galician-Portuguese lyrical poetry.

At this time, Galician was something of an international language, being used not only by writers (from Galicia, Portugal, Castile, Occitaine, Sicily, etc.) but also in royal and feudal courts (Santiago, Toledo, Coimbra, Lisboa)...

The Cantigas de Santa María, composed in praise of the Virgin, are a sample of the religious facet of this Galician-Portuguese lyrical poetry and constitute the most important collection of Marian poetry in the whole of the Iberian Peninsula. They were composed in the court of Afonso X the Wise, who not only directed their writing but even wrote parts himself. They give witness to the prestige obtained by the Galician language for literary uses at the end of the thirteenth century.

In comparison with lyrical poetry, there is little medieval literary prose in Galician and it appeared later. It must be remembered that the cultural centres at the time were the monasteries and religious schools where the use of ecclesiastical Latin predominated. But, from the end of the thirteenth century, and especially in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the subjects with the widest interest in medieval Europe were written in the Galician language. An example are the Breton cycle of stories about King Arthur, the texts relating the story and destruction of Troy, such as the Historia Troiana and the Crónica Troiana; and the Miragres de Santiago, a collection of short stories recounting the destruction of Jerusalem until the miraculous intervention by the Apostle in various situations. Some texts taken as prose are really translations from other languages or versions: Crónica Xeral Galega, General Estoria, Crónica Galega de 1404 and Crónica de Santa María de Iria.

The dark ages

At the end of the medieval stage (fourteenth to fifteenth centuries), the most glorious period of Galician writings, the Galician language and literature entered a period of decline.

There were various factors behind this gradual decline, including the arrival in our country of foreign nobility which was intransigent with the culture and language of Galicia. These people were able to substitute the Galician nobility which was defeated after supporting the losers in the dynastic battles for the crown of Castile, first Pedro I against Henry II of Trastamara and later (1475-1479) Xoana the Beltranexa against the future Isabel la Catolica; other factors were the absence of a bourgeoisie able to defend its own interests and those of the country, a drop in population, the loss of autonomy of the Galician church, etc.

The growing centralist and interventionist policy of Castile gave impetus to the process of decline of Galician in the upper classes of society and prevented the consolidation of Galician as a literary language. The concept of a "national State" appeared within this centralising system alongside the need for linguistic uniformity to achieve cohesion of the new political structure.

Over a long period of three centuries -the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth, known as the "Séculos Escuros"- the Galician language was not used for written purposes, whereas Castilian (which became Spanish) and our brother language, Portuguese, became consolidated and codified, thus entering the category of languages for culture. However, Galician continued to be the normal means of communication for practically all the local population. This exclusively oral use brought with it dialectisation and fragmentation and it was thus considered an aliterary language which was of no use for science and culture.

Galician literature, therefore, did not participate in the Renaissance and the Baroque periods, and its darkest period was when the Golden Age of Castilian literature overshadowed it. Nevertheless, a few letters, documents and occasional literary samples show us the language of the time. Parallel to this lack of erudite literature, popular lyricism survived in the form of cradle songs, blind ballads, carnival songs, riddles, legends, romances, stories, farses, etc., many of which have reached us through oral transmission.

In the eighteenth century the so-called 'enlightened' voices expressed their concern for the under-development of Galicia and made proposals for the restructuring of economic, social and cultural life. Organisations such as the Economic Association of Friends of the Country and the Academy of Agriculture of the Kingdom of Galicia.

The most outstanding figure in this minority group of intellectuals was the versatile Padre Frei Martín Sarmiento -naturist, linguist, bibliophile- who defended the use of Galician in education, the administration and in the Church, basically its use as the vernacular of the Galicians. Other members of the group were Padre Feijóo, the first to refuse to accept that Galician was a "dialect", and Padre Sobreira, who continued the lexicographic work of Sarmiento. He was the first to call attention in his works to the complex linguistic situation which was later to be seen in the second half of the nineteenth century.

The Revival

"Rexurdimento" (revival) is the name given to the nineteenth century in the history of Galician literature and implies that the recovery was not only literary but also cultural, political and historical.

After the French invasion of Spain (1809) and the conflicts between the absolutists and liberals the first texts were written in Galician, printed on loose sheets or in newspapers for propaganda purposes. Some called the peasants to defend their country and others defended liberal ideas.

Throughout the century, after the end of the absolutism and the start of the constitutional monarchy, various Galician movements grew up based on the defence of the individuality and personality of Galicia. The first, in the forties, was "Provincialism" which proclaimed the social abandonment of the country and attempted to achieve social esteem for its art, customs and history. These movements were left outside political circles after their support of the failure of the Solís military uprising -the shooting of the "Carral Martyrs"- and they took refuge in the world of culture and literature. The second 'Galicianist' generation, "Regionalism", brought together culture and politics, with the language being their main concern.

A step along the way towards linguistic and literary strengthening, were the first "Floral Games" held in A Coruña in 1861. The prize-winning compositions, with samples of contemporary poetry, appeared a year later in the Album de la Caridad, which was the first anthology of the Galician "Rexurdimento".

The publication in 1863 of the Cantares Gallegos, entirely written in Galician by our superb poetess, Rosalía Castro, marked the beginning of the "Rexurdimiento" in full.

The quality of the works by Rosalia de Castro crossed the frontiers of Galicia and became part of universal literature. Her poetry was the object of many studies and translations into other languages.

1880 was a year of many publications. Compositions by the most famous authors of the times appeared: Follas Novas by Rosalía Castro, Aires d'a miña terra by Curros Enríquez, Saudades Gallegas by Lamas de Carvajal. And six years later, the Queixumes dos pinos by Eduardo Pondal was published.

Curros Enríquez was one of the favourite authors of his time. His poetry reported the social injustices (emigration, opression ...) and defenced progressive ideas. Curros set up a tradition of combative poetry carried on later by a number of writers (Cabanillas, Celso Emilio...). Pondal, author of the Galician anthem, looked for the pre-historic and Celtic roots of his people, highlighting its cultivated side in order to exalt it from its individuality. Pondal aimed to fix Galician as a cultivated and literary language.

The "Rexurdimento" authors were not aware of the rich tradition of medieval Galician lyric poetry. They wrote under the conviction that they were the first to use the language for literary purposes. They therefore had no idiomatic rules to follow and had to base their writing on oral usage.

The limits to our literature stretched slowly beyond lyrical poetry to narrative, essays and didactic prose. The consolidation of Galician prose did not take place until the twentieth century, but by the end of the nineteenth there were already important precedents: Maxina ou a filla espúrea (1880) by Marcial Valladares, the first contemporary Galician novel. A work which reached great popularity among the popular classes was O Catecismo do labrego by Lamas Carvajal, and A Tecedeira de Bonaval, O Castelo de Pambre and O niño de Pombas made their author, Antonio Lopez Ferreiro, the best prose-writer of his times.

Playwriting was less popular. After the publication of A Casamenteira in 1812 no theatrical works were published until the eighties.

In the last decades of the nineteenth century the first grammars and dictionaries of the Galician language appeared and these were essential for the standardisation process: Compendio de gramatica gallega-castellana by Francisco Mirás (1864), and the Gramatica Gallega by Saco and Arce which was a serious study of the Galician language.

The presence of Galician in the press brought great prestige to the language. In 1876 Valentín Lamas Carvajal promoted the publication of the pioneer of newspapers printed completely in Galician, O Tio Marcos da Portela. The success of this newspaper, and its clear anti-caciquism, was spectacular. Between 1886 and 1888 the press in Galicia became consolidated with the appearance of a number of new monolingual initiatives: O Galiciano in Pontevedra, A Monteira in Lugo and As Burgas in Ourense.

One of the last manifestations of the "Rexurdimento" in the twentieth century was the constitution in 1905 of the "Real Academia Galega" (the Royal Academy of the Galician Language).

Beginning of the XXth century

By the end of the nineteenth century, there had been a marked recovery of Galician as a literary, cultural and historical language; there had also been a drop in the level of oral use. The Galician language had not yet become widespread and this produced a backward movement in the social sphere -in the upper and middle classes- and in specific geographical and urban areas.

The socio-political context was in marked contrast to the prolific political and cultural activity. Galician society at the beginning of the twentieth century was still hampered by the concentration of economic power in minority sectors because of a feudal agricultural system and increasing emigration which was draining the countryside of its inhabitants. Associations channelling social protests appeared and had a great following among the country people. One such was the "Agricultural League for Galician Action".

The growing political awareness of this sector of the population, encouraged by their access to land ownership, together with the trend towards nationalism, brought about a qualitative leap in the use of the language. Nationalism became so closely linked to the language that it came to be considered the essence of the collective identity, and this was first expressed through the "Irmandades da Fala". These were created to defend, dignify and cultivate the language, and the first "Irmandade da Fala" was founded in A Coruña in 1916. Others appeared in the main cities and towns of Galicia (Ferrol, Ourense, Betanzos, Santiago, etc.). To circulate their ideas, they created a newspaper printed entirely in Galician: A Nosa Terra. The most outstanding members were the Vilar Ponte brothers, Losada Diéguez, Vicente Risco, Ramón Cabanillas, etc.

In 1918 the "I Asamblea Nazonalista Galega" was held and its conclusions included the claim to complete autonomy, the official status of the language and the inclusion of Galicia in the League of Nations in Geneva.

The "Irmandades", or brotherhoods, promoted the production of dictionaries and grammars, linguistic studies and demanded the presence of Galician in public administration and in education. They encouraged publishing activity in the main Galician cities: Céltiga in Ferrol, Lar in A Coruña, Alborada in Pontevedra and many others, in addition to frequent sections in Galician in the Castilian press. In this context the Journal Nós appeared written by Vicente Risco, Otero Pedrayo and Florentino Cuevillas who made up the well-known "Grupo Nós". Alfonso Daniel Rodríguez Castelao was to join them later.

The 20's and 30's

The aims of the members of "Nós", with their wide intellectual background, were to eliminate the folkloric nature from the Galician culture by updating it, standardising it and making it widely known. The journal carried articles by foreign writers (Portuguese, Irish, Catalan, French) who kept it in touch with European thinking, as well as translations and articles on both scientific subjects -such as archaeology, ethnography, anthropology, sociology- and literary subejcts.

The use of Galician in scientific studies was fostered with the creation of the Seminar of Galician Studies (1923) which carried out research into Galician subjects and studied all its manifestations. It was founded by a group of young university students -Fermín Bouza Brey, Filgueira Valverde, Lois Tobío- and they were soon joined by others such as Ricardo Carvalho Calero, Antonio Fraguas, Xaquín Lorenzo.

The literary works of these intellectuals, who recovered fields such as essay-writing thus opening up new horizons, gave Galician prose a degree of full development and introduced Galician culture into the European context. Arredor de si, Devalar, Os camiños da vida by Ramón Otero Pedrayo and Os europeos en Abrantes, O porco de pé by Vicente Risco, are titles which enriched our literature -by covering universalist, legendary, exotic or urbane subjects and philosophical thinking- using new creation techniques which were being applied in European literature.

The weak tradition in theatrical writing received a great impetus from the creation by the "Irmandades" of the "Conservatorio Nacional de Arte Galega" in 1919, which soon changed its name to "Escola Dramática Galega".

The avant-garde movements in Europe did not remain foreign to Galician writing. The authors of the so-called "Xeración do 25" (Generation of 1925) -Manuel Antonio, Amado Carballo, Bouza Brey- showed a great concern for creative originality which led them into open conflict with traditional poetic forms.

The versatile figure of Castelao deserves special mention. He became a classic in Galician literature in all the areas he was involved in: novels, plays, short stories and political essays -Sempre en Galiza, the masterwork of Galician nationalism- and other works which reflect his capacity as both artist and writer. Castelao achieved great political significance as a result of his essay-writing and his active and direct participation in the politics of the country, as a Member of the Parliament under the Republic for the Partido Galeguista.

This party was created in 1931 and achieved the passing of the Statute for Autonomy for Galicia, in which the Galician language for the first time acquired recognition as the "official language of Galicia". This very important achievement was never put into practice because of the start of the Civil War (1936) and the most difficult stage for the non-official languages of the new fascist Spanish State.

From 1936 to 1950

The end of the Civil War and the start of Franquism led to the disappearance of the Galician language from the public arena, from education and socio-economic activities. Those whose only way out was exile -Castelao, E. Blanco Amor, Luis Seoane, Rafael Dieste- were able to keep alive the flame of Galician culture, language and identity but from outside Spain. Galician cultural development took place in Argentina, Venezuela, Mexico and Cuba.

The social situation of the Galician language worsened, firstly, with compulsory education at primary level using Spanish as the only language for teaching and, secondly, with the popularisation of the communication media.

These difficult circumstances did not dampen the spirit of Galician feeling and the language gradually started to re-appear in the cultural sphere. In 1946-47 four works of poetry were published. Important, too, were the appearance of the poetic anthology Benito Soto, the Bibliófilos Galegos and the bilingual weekly supplement to the Santiago newspaper La Noche.

The key to the recovery of the written language was the creation of the publishing house Editorial Galaxia in 1950. Its main promoters, Otero Pedrayo, Ramon Piñeiro, F. Fernández del Riego and others, showed once more that the Galician language could be used perfectly well for any genre or subject matter. Galaxia became the centre for several periodic publications: Revista de Economía de Galicia; a journal on cultural and artistic subjects, Atlántida, and another on thought, Grial, which was prohibited the year after its creation.

The sixties

After 1960, a number of changes in economic and social matters brought with them a slight relaxation of censorship.

Examples of this were the renewed publication of journals which had previously been prohibited such as Grial, the first celebration of the "Día das Letras Galegas" by the "Real Academia Galega", new publishing houses such as Ediciós do Castro, and the birth of new cultural associations in defense of Galician: O Facho, O Galo, the Asociación Cultural de Vigo... The Galician University also became involved in this movement and took an active part with the creation in 1965 of the Department for Galician Language and Literature with Ricardo Carballo Calero holding the Chair. Six years later the "Instituto da Lingua Galega" was created and has not ceased its research work since.

In the fifties, literary works of a more solid nature were again being published in Spain. Lyric poetry once again was the first manifestation of the literary rebirth. Longa noite de pedra by Celso Emilio Ferreiro in 1962 represented the social and civic themes which characterised poetry in the sixties. Lueiro Rey, Bernardiño Graña and Manuel María are some of the authors of this poetry which attempted to combine political and literary thought.

Narrative writing suffered a long period of drought from 1936 to 1951, when Carballo Calero published his first novel A Xente da Barreira.

Between the fifties and sixties three important writers, Álvaro Cunqueiro, Blanco Amor and Ánxel Fole, each with their individual styles, created works of universal quality.

In the sixties, Gonzalo Mourullo, Xosé Luis Méndez Ferrín and Carlos Casares, amongst others, echoed the innovations appearing in European writing by creating what was called "Nova narrativa" [The New Narrative], a renovative and revitalising movement in Galician prose-writing.

The seventies and the eighties

The consolidation of Spanish democracy brought with it the consolidation of this type of writing and fostered the appearance of new authors and genres. An attempt was made to restore the impact the essay had had before the war. Works of a philosophical nature were published, together with translations of German works and original studies by writers of the category of Ramón Piñeiro. New essay genders appeared such as socio-linguistics and literary theory -Basilio Losada, Francisco Pillado... theology and religion -Torres Queiruga, Chao Rego...-, philosophy -Martínez Marzoa...- history -Ramón Villares, Felipe Senén, ... politics, economy, etc.

Playwriting underwent drastic changes in the second half of the twentieth century; the work of authors in the immediate post-war period such as Álvaro Cunqueiro and Carvalho Calero, existed alongside that of the new writers such as Manuel María, Vidal Bolaño or Manuel Lorenzo, who aimed to formally break with the past. All of them opened up the theatrical world to the latest trends. At the end of the 60's and beginning of the 70's a number of Theatre companies were born: "Grupos de Teatro Independente" -O Facho, Teatro Crico...-. In 1973 the I Mostra de Teatro de Ribadávia is hold and in 1984 the Centro Dramático Galego was created. During these years a number of associations try to promote theatre by focusing on a youthful audience.

New publishing houses appeared -Xerais, Sotelo Blanco, Vía Láctea, Ir Indo, etc. - in response to prolific literary production and the need for educational books. However, the big majority of the press and the media do not participate in this qualitative rise in the local language, using Spanish alone.

New narrative tendecies shown up with authors who made their debut before 1975 (María Xosé Queizán, Alfredo Conde, Paco Martín, etc) and later (Víctor Freixanes, Xavier Alcalá, Carlos Reigosa, Suso de Toro, Martínez Oca, Manuel Rivas...).

One of most valuable contributions to the normalization of the Galician language was the publishing of children's and teenager's collections (Xabarín, Doce pro vintedous, Fóra de xogo, Gaivota, Arbore, Merlín, Sotelo Blanco Infantil, etc.)

Under the democratic regime, Galicia became an Autonomous Community with two official languages -Galician and Spanish-. In addition to legislation regulating the use of the language, it was also necessary to lay down the rules for the standard language. In 1982 the "Instituto da Lingua Galega", which had been created in 1971, and the "Real Academia Galega" proposed the Normas Ortográficas e Morfolóxicas do idioma galego (Spelling and Morphological Rules for the Galician language) which became official with the promulgation of the "Law for Linguistic Standardisation" by the Galician Parliament which was passed in 1983 but it's still infringed in many of its sections.

At the entry of the twenty-first century, the Galician language is very much alive, being protected by law and spoken by a large number of people. All that still needs to be done is to continue along the path begun, taking as an example the unceasing work of those who, both inside and outside Galicia, fostered the presence and contribution of the Galician people in the world.

Many changes and advances in the process of Galician language dignifying have followed the approval of the Law for Language Normalization and other provisions of the Statute.

On the other hand, the favourable attitude of the Galician people as a whole towards the enlargement of the social use of the Galician language has lead to the development of a number of campaigns aiming both to increase the prestige of the language and to promote the change of individual attitudes.