Rate of change

[Frank Rossi]

Rick Mc Calister wrote on 11 March:

>/tsoBu, LoBu/ are found in E. Galicia according to Galician
speakers I've talked and /shoBu/, I believe is found elsewhere.

E. Galicia (!nos gustari'a!) could mean what the Galician nationalists call
la "Franxa exterior" (Cast. "Franja exterior"), i.e. the transition areas
of Asturias and Leon that speak Galego and/or Asturo-Leonese, depending on
who's judging.

The two strongest iso-glosses are:
initial L palatised in AL and not in Galician, e.g. Gal. "lobo", Ast.
"llobu", Cast. "lobo":
Latin short "o" and "e" as dipthongs in AL and not in Galician, e.g. Gal.
"ollo" (= Port. "olho"), Ast. "uello", Cast. "ojo".

In Asturias, the local dialects as far as the river Navia are officially
called "a nosa fala", to avoid using the word Galego! (Somewhat like not
using the N word on the IE list FR) !Ay, ay, ay! (see, as suggested by Max
W. Wheeler, A. Zamora Vicente, Dialectologia Espan~ola, 1967, map on page
84). To call the rest of Asturias "Galicia" is like calling Arizona "Sonora
Norte" or Ontario "Que'bec Ouest"!
	
>One problem is that spoken Galician is largely rural and fragmented.

True

>There is, evidently a "neo-Galician" which amounts to a Castillian
>pronunciation of written Galician. And, I'm told, this is used by
>Castillian speakers in Galicia with nationalist leanings.

Not quite. It's also used by those who, like me (Pilar)  were deprived of
their language. For example, in my  schooldays in the 40's under the Franco
regime we were made to kneel on rocks if we used Galego words or
expressions in our Castillian. We Galicians, whether Castillian or Galician
speaking, have always valued our identity, even those of us who are not
(ultra) Galician nationalists. Franco himself, although he persecuted
Galician nationalists, made no attempt to play down his Galician origins
(El Ferrol), and he frequently came to Galicia during the summer, where he
had a residence known as the "Pazo" (Cast. "Palacio"). The Galicians are
famous for their "retranca", which means answering a question with another
question. There is a story that Hitler after meeting Franco at Hendaye
said: "Rather than meet that man again, I prefer to go the dentist!"

>The difference between the two is probably like that between Catalan and
>Valencian --which sounds like Catalan being spoken by a Castillian.

Galego sounds like Castillian, e.g. "theta", etc., because it followed a
parallel path of development (see Pilar Va'zquez Cuesta, Ed. Gredos,
Madrid, in particular the chapter on "El Gallego"). If anything it was
Portuguese that changed with the Reconquista of Lisbon with its Mozarabic
population (ibid.). The "Portuguese Galician" of Minho, for example, is
still close to, although different from, "Spanish Galician".
The socio-linguistic situation in Galicia is indeed very similar to
Valencia, where the cities and the upper classes speak Castillian.
There is a story in Valencia that if you go to the market early in the
morning, the people speak Valencian and the language becomes gradually more
Castillian as the day goes on. The same applies to La Corun~a or Vigo.
In Barcelona, on the other hand, an immigrant from southern Spain, who
worked on the construction of the subway, was recorded as saying: "Very few
people spoke Catalan, when we built the subway. The people who spoke
Catalan worked in the offices".

>In any case, rural Galician is definitely more difficult for a
>Spanish speaker to understand than Portuguese.

Probably.

Joint message from Frank Rossi and Pilar Iglesias Lo'pez, Galega
Bergamo, Italy
iglesias at axia.it