The galician language is trapped in a paradox. After resist 40 years of marginalization and contempt during the dictatorship, faces a troubling crisis in four decades after that democracy would open the doors of the school and the institutions. Studies sociolinguistic alert that the transmission to the children, which still today is the most spoken language in Galicia is breaking up. “The language needs a daily food to survive, and what has happened is that parents have stopped speaking to them in galician to their children,” says Pilar Ponte, professor in the secondary school with almost 20 years of experience and awarded for their innovative initiatives for the linguistic normalisation.
The report of the Council of Europe warning that the setback suffered by the own language of Galicia in the last decade has confirmed the worst forecasts, it considers that the school is one of the causes, and urges the Government to amend its language policy. Entities and organizations of teachers and parents had been warned in 2010 that the school model implemented that year by the regional Government of the PP would put at risk the maintenance of the language amongst the young, who already was throwing signs of weakening. Alberto Núñez Feijóo, abandoning the path marked by Manuel Fraga, decided to withdraw the priority to galician in the classroom. Established that their use is exactly the same as the Spanish, marked some subjects specific to each language, excluding the language of certain subjects such as math or physics, and abolished the volunteer programs, language immersion in early Childhood Education to children from environments Spanish-speakers. The percentage of kids who never speaks in galician has soared 15 points in a decade, from 29% to 44%.
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The Council of Europe warns of the serious setback of the galician language languages, rights issue, monolingualism in Spanish is triggered between the children gallegos
“The galician is escaping between the fingers, because we are not adopting the policies necessary to keep it”, points to Henrique Monteagudo, secretary of the Real Academia Galega, an institution that tried unsuccessfully to stop the regulations Feijóo in the courts. The justice endorsed the legality of the model, but the Council of Europe argues that it does not respect the international commitments of Spain to preserve the co-official languages and in their latest resolution calls on the Government to so amend. The galician Government has made it clear that it does not intend to do so.
The Government boasts that the same statistics that reveal the loss of use of galician among children and young people confirm that the percentage of citizens trained to speak and write in the language of the community is “the highest in history.” “In the strip that goes from 15 to 29 years, which will affect the decree [of the use of languages in the school], the 90,16% of the population says to know how to speak galician a lot or quite a lot, which is a fact very well”, defends the General Secretariat of Linguistic Policy citing data from this year of the Institute Galego of Statistics. “The galician is the language co-official status with more use of all of Spain”, he recalls.
“What I convey to the friends who have, like me, children gallegohablantes is that when you get to school in 15 days lose their language,” says Rute Pallarés. She has taught to their children in a public school in the rural area of Vigo in which both the families and the teaching staff are very committed with the use of the galician language. “We are all clear that in this way children will be competent in the two languages, because Spanish is the language environmental when they leave the school,” explains Pallarés, a member of the parents association of the CEIP Paraixal. And deals: “I want my children to know Spanish, it would be silly if it were not so, but without losing the gallego; that would rob them of wealth and culture”.
Xosé Soto, a teacher at a school in Oroso (A Coruña), believes that reducing the presence of galician in the classroom the Government challenged for the first time in democracy, the need to protect the language itself. “You reopened a debate in the educational community and in the families that I, after 30 years in the teaching profession are considered overcome,” he says. With both languages “rolling in equality,” despite the fact that galician is in inferiority of conditions, he argues, the children are passed into Spanish because “they perceive that this is the language of success”. “It has been prohibited for certain subjects such as math are given in galician, and for those that are, can teach, support materials to which we can access on the Internet are in Spanish”, he adds.
Exclusions and prejudices
In the world in which they move the teens, the galician conspicuous by their absence, underlines Ponte. There is not a version in this language for Whatsapp or Instagram. Neither the radiofórmulas or video games tend to use the own language of Galicia, and on platforms such as Netflix has only been released up to now a series. The Council of Europe has recriminat the State to its scarce presence in the central Administration and in the judicial system. “The exclusion of galician in the Administration, in justice and in the socio-economic activities is evident. It is not a problem of demand. It’s simply that we refuse any offer that would allow the full exercise of linguistic rights,” says we Want to Galego, the citizen platform integrated by 600 entities that was formed to protest against the school model introduced by Feijóo.
Rute Pallarés also points to prejudices still existing that have their roots in the dictatorship. “I still have family members who speak in galician, but when directed at children, do it in Spanish. It is something that creeps from the past, but also influences which today is very valid that having an own identity is wrong”, he says.
Rogelio Carballo, president of the galician confederation of associations of parents of students (Confapa), is declared gallegohablante and goes mostly to their children in this language, also spoken by their parents. But their children express themselves in Spanish. “At your age I did the same and now I speak in galician”, he argues. Advocates “to promote their use by way of prestige, utility and enrichment, but not by the imposition: if the gallego has a future, is because convinced, not because they set out obligations”.
The sociolingüistas are immersed in unraveling the causes of this crisis. Between 2015 and 2016, the Consello da Cultura Galega, dependent of the Xunta, was detected in a study of a “weak commitment” of the young with the use of galician in spite of having a “good image” of the language and admit the “delicate situation” that crosses. “My grandparents always spoke galician, and to me always spoke in Spanish”, had a thrill-seeker adolescente Viveiro (Lugo), in a discussion group. “Since my parents speak in galician, but, I don’t know why, it happens to me as to you, I speak Spanish”, terciaba another boy. The report, which included a survey of 800 kids between 15 and 25 years, made a conclusion: “When asked about the language of transmission to their offspring, the majority opts for the Spanish.” It is a phenomenon for which the respondents confessed to “not find explanation.”
“Stop dying the tongue is like throwing away the cathedral of Santiago,”
Four of every ten children gallegohablantes who started their schooling in the college of Agro do Muíño of the municipality of Ames, bordering Santiago, were passed at some time in their school career at the Spanish. This was revealed in 2018 a study coordinated by the Real Academia Galega, one of the most comprehensive carried out so far to attempt to design measures to combat this decline. This center is a “clear example” of how the Spanish are moving to the galician in the areas close to the cities, where this last one was until now majority.
Mari Carmen Linares, the director, criticises the fact that they have been matched since 2010, the hours of class in both languages when the Spanish take the kids out of school “everywhere: in the media, in video games…”. In the classroom, he defends, it should strengthen the language co-official status for children to be truly bilingual: “The proof of this is that children in the rural [more gallegohablante] dominate both languages and those in urban areas or peri-urban have difficulties to express themselves in galician”. And is very concerned about the future of the language: “Let miss is like throwing away the cathedral of Santiago”.
The linguist Pilar Ponte admits that the school is a “fundamental pillar” to preserve the languages, but warns that “no miracles”. “The galicians nor can we think that if our language disappears, it is only the fault of the school, it is a posture quite comfortable that frees us from responsibility,” he says. “A culture is maintained in good part by the willingness of the citizens, and the question is if the galicians want to defend and keep yours beyond the dances, and the churrasco”.
