The city of Pollença, in the north of Mallorca, has the particularity of being the only place on this island that does not uses articles salats (derived from IPSU), but instead a special form of the articles literaris (derived from ILLU). As far as I know, this derivation from Latin is unique in all of Catalan speaking lands. Dialectical diversity is a wonderful thing.
Whereas this ILLU becomes el, els, la, les in non-Balearic dialects of Catalan, in Pollença, it becomes u, u, la, les.
For masculine singular, before a substantive beginning with a consonant, the article is u.
u tema - el tema u temas - els temes
But when masculine singular before a substantive beginning with a vowel:
l'home - l'home
When masculine plural before a substantive beginning with a vowel:
us (/uz/) homes - els homes
You can hear the dialect from Pollença in this video where they are blanching figs in order to make a bread out of it. Note the use of the articles, e.g. les figues, l'aigua, u sol, u fonoll.
It's possible that I have not underlined how rapidly the language loss in Galicia is moving, and how significant the damages are. We are seeing the breaking of linguistic transmission before our very eyes, for the first time in Galician's extremely long history. From it's beginning as a variety of Latin until the 20th century, it has never been in the situation it is now.
I've read from Galicians the optimistic and yet pessimistic comment that Franco couldn't kill our language, we'll survive this. I beg to differ. Democracy can kill a language dead just as well as a dictatorship. The percentage of 5 to 14 year old children who mostly or exclusively communicate in Spanish (monolinguals basically), moved from 53% in 2003 to 75% in 2013. That is a difference of 22 percent in just 10 years. The percentage of mostly or only Galician speaking youth of the same age group decreased from 40% in 2003 to 25% in 2013. A decrease of 15% in just 10 years. On the other side of the age spectrum, more than half of the Galician monolingual (that mostly or exclusively use Galician) speaker population is over 65 years old.
Just so we are clear, this is what language death looks like.
The Partido Popular de Galicia is the right-wing party that has continuously held power from between 1990-2005, and from 2009 to today. That's 25 years, 25 years that has pushed Galician to the edge of this chasm. 25 years of policies that favoured parent's choices' and nice bilingualism 'because we don't want to force the language on anyone, not like those bad, very bad Catalans'. In 2010, the PP government modified the existing education policy in Galicia, with a new policy called 'O decreto de plurilingüismo'. It allowed the language to be used in education to be that of the home language of the children. In practice, that is Spanish, not immigrant languages etc of course.
As Spanish is now the most widely spoken language in urban areas, the majority of Galician children in the 21st century are brought up speaking Spanish by Spanish speaking parents. By introducing this policy, they effectively made Spanish into the automatic language of instruction in pre-primary education in urban areas, where the majority of Galician children live. In the 9 years since the introduction of this policy, the language shift among youth to monolingualism has only sped up.
Another cynical attack against bilingual education took place right here in the Balearic Islands.
In 2013 the right wing PP government, with then president José Ramón Bauzá who I have previously had occasion to talk about, at its head, decreed unilaterally their intention to introduce a trilingual education system, known as the 'Tratamiento integrado de lenguas'. The government sent parents surveys in 2011 and 2013 to ask them if they wanted their children to study in Catalan or in Spanish (and to convince them to choose the latter). The results were overwhelmingly in favour of Catalan. Something like 90% of the respondents. The PP government did not have the support to move forward, but they did it anyway.
The TIL would break the existing Catalan immersion language system and replace it with equal time for English, Spanish and Catalan: 33% of the teaching time in each language. The justification for this change was 'freedom of choice' and 'English is important'. Let's be clear, it would never have worked anyway and it would be disastrous for the children from a pedagogical point of view (all the pedagogical experts said so). But the aim was to break Catalan linguistic cohesion in the islands, replacing it with Spanish. Using English as the wedge.
Bauzá unwittingly woke up a sleeping lion. On the 29th of September 2013, up to 90,000 people marched in the streets of Palma: parents, students, teachers, normal citizens. Teachers went on mass permanent strikes. One teacher even went on a hunger strike. It was the greatest and largest civil protest ever seen in the Balearic Islands.
In 2014, the TIL was struck down by the highest judicial authority in the autonomous community, the Tribunal Superior de Justicia de las Islas Baleares. The next year, PP in the Balearic Islands suffered the worst electoral slide in their history, and they were replaced by a coalition of left wing parties at the head of the government. Thank God, this left wing coalition has been in power since then.
So devastating was the defeat, that the right thought hard before going after Catalan again. Until this electoral year. Right now the autonomous community elections are being held. Right wing parties like Ciudadanos openly campaign again on the basis of making Spanish the language of the schools and administration in the Balearic Islands, claiming that Catalan is being imposed.
What's insidious is that - prima facie - what they argue might sound reasonable, but by using these words, they really denature them. I'm a strong supporter of multilingualism: it is the Catalan, Basque and the Galician speakers who are the most multilingual people in Spain. So, what can I say about people who claim to want trilingual education and yet their every action promotes monolingualism? As an English speaker, it makes my blood boil to see Spanish nationalists use my language as a weapon to bludgen minoritised language speakers.
What can I say about people like Toni Cantó, deputy of Ciudadanos, who claims that it is the Spanish language which is endangered in Spain, and that 'the Spanish language has disappeared in places like Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, the Valencian Community, in the Basque Country and Galicia'? I wish I lived in something remotely resembling Cantó's version of reality, that would be a Spain I'd like to live in.
What can I say about people who claim that Galician, Catalan, Basque is being imposed by linguistic extremists but refuse or are incapable of seeing that it is actually Spanish that is being imposed on everyone else?
In other news, for the upcoming Easter holidays, I will finally be travelling to Galicia. I'm going to go with a bag that is as empty as possible because I plan to come back with many, many books in Galician. I plan to use Galician as much as possible and Spanish as little as possible. Statistically speaking, some 90% of the population is said to understand Galician, so why I should I speak Spanish when I want to practice Galician with Galicians? And I plan to eat octopus. Lots of octopus. Galicia is like holy ground for me. I've dreamed of this country for so long...
I don't know how to begin, so I'll start with the end.
My second to last day in Santiago de Compostela started with me waking up on a rainy and cold day. I limped to the centre of the city to have some coffee at a place that I had walked into the day before.
It's called Ratiños. I normally don't repeat experiences while I am travelling. After visiting one restaurant or café, I don't come back to it the next day.
However, I liked this place because it is ridiculously small, unpretentiously bare-bones, and the person who runs the shop continued to speak to me in Galician after I came in.
Today, while I was taking my coffee and reading a magazine in Galician on the counter, I couldn't help but overhear (literally, this place is standing room only for like 5 people, so it is impossible not to eavesdrop) a customer.
While the customer, a she, was waiting for her coffee, she was talking to the other person who works in the shop, a he. He was Latin American and spoke in Spanish, she was Galician and spoke in Galician. She did not switch from Galician to Spanish throughout the entire conversation, and he understood her perfectly.
I turned around and thanked her in Galician for not changing languages on people like us who are foreigners. She thanked me for thanking her and thanked me for speaking Galician. "How can we expect foreigners to speak Galician if we don't speak to them in Galician?" was her response.
Now the conversation was between three people. At this point, he started to talk in Galician. With stops and starts, but in Galician. He has been living in Santiago de Compostela for two years, and although he understands the language, he says he does not speak it. And yet here he was, thanks to a customer who made him feel comfortable and welcomed for speaking it.
She had to go off to university, but gave me her number in order to meet later for coffee.
The rest of the day, I did a whole lot of other things, which I simply don't have time to go into, except for one thing that is related.
It was raining even harder when I left, so I took shelter under the eaves of a shop. Next to me was an elderly gentleman. I asked him in Galician the directions to a certain place. He replied to me in Galician, and we continued to talk in Galician for the next twenty minutes there. He was patient and listened to my stammering efforts and congratulated me on my Galician, saying that I spoke it well. He asked me if I lived here, I said no, but I am studying the language. At the school of languages? No, by myself. Well, he said I should come back and live here.
Excuse me, he said at one point, my Galician is bad. I just learned it from my parents, I never studied it. As if one has to study a language to speak a good version of the language! I wanted to tell him that many neofalantes would kill to speak Galician as a native language like him.
Linguistic insecurity on the part of native speakers with regards to their natural dialects vis a vis the standard dialect is a thing. Perversely, comparing their natural dialect with the standard dialect can make them feel inadequate, given that many never acquired the standard dialect and now they see it being used everywhere around them on TV, in books etc.
Afterwards I met with the woman again, whose name is Marina. She is a medieval art historian studying at the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela. Her thesis was on a church in Toledo.
She is a neofalante. Her parents were Galicians but they did not speak to her in Galician, so she learned the language much later in life by herself. And now by conviction, she speaks in Galician always. Regardless of situation and whoever. She also speaks German and English and French. But thanks to God, she spoke to me in Galician.
It was in fact her experience in France that awakened her linguistic consciousness about Galician. She went to work on the farm of a French man, in the Lot departement. He started to take Occitan classes, and she came along, and began to learn Occitan with him. After the classes she would come home and sit with the man's mother, a native speaker, and practice with her. But she was conscious that it was an endangered language, it was a looked down upon language that people were ashamed of, she learned of France's annihilation of its different cultures. She came home and decided: I will never let Galician become like Occitan.
Afterwards, she took me to the Museo do Pobo Galego, a brilliant ethnographical museum of the Galician people, its history, its culture. I highly recommend going there, it is extremely well done.
As she was a qualified museum guide, she got free entry. She showed me around. The museum is built on the former convent of Santo Domingo de Bonaval. In the beautiful church built in Gothic and Renaissance style that is located within the convent, she showed me the vaults of the dome which were decorated by what I thought at first were flowers. Her professor wrote a paper about the symbolism of these 'flowers' on the roofs explaining that in actual fact, they are stars (they don't have to be pointy to be stars), and represent the Apocalypse when the stars fall down. This church also happens to be - fortuitously - the resting place of the Galician Pantheon, the important and famous men and women of Galicia, such as Rosalía de Castro. And what do you know, I found myself looking at the tomb of Castelao, whose book 'Sempre en Galiza' was resting in my backpack. I honestly had no idea, I thought he had been buried in Buenos Aires.
Later we went to a bar-restaurant that is frequented and loved by native picheleiros (inhabitants of Santiago de Compostela) for its tortillas. It's called Moha Rúa Nova and I highly recommend it. As we were coming out, we ran into one of her friends, a Latinist who is studying Ovid. Oh, I must also mention that this person, she also spoke in Galician to me. In fact when I was walking through the USC History and Geography campus, I noticed that the students mostly spoke in Galician to each other in the hallways. Students of the humanities subjects use Galician much more often, not necessarily because they are native speakers, often they aren't, but because they are politically committed to saving their language. University students are like that.
Here is a graffiti that was outside the Filoloxia deparment:
Notice the reintegrationist orthography.
The USC History and Geography library is beautiful by the way, I made a special stop there because I wanted to see it. Here is a picture I found on the web:
Anyway, I have to stop here. I could say lots more about this day because a ton of other things happened, but then it would go on forever. And I still have so much to write about my previous days.
What a fun, interesting read. I'm always impressed by your dedication, diligence, and pride with regard to Catalan, Basque, Galician and other minority languages (see, I'm using the term correctly this time). I only wish I could be as respectful and passionate as you in your quest to learn these languages, and about the people who speak them. You're an inspiration.
Unha flor, un amor, unha alborada, unha fonte, un río, unha praia, unha estrela, un camiño, unha alma, unha terra, un pobo e unha fala
A flower, a love, a dawn A spring, a river, a beach A star, a road, a soul A land, a people and a language
A maneira de busca-lo noso pan, unha forma de bailar no noso chan, muiñeiras, alalás ou foliadas, unha terra, un pobo e unha fala
The way of earning our keep A way of dancing on our land Muiñeiras, alalás or foliadas A land, a people and a language.
busca-lo noso pan - literally, of finding our bread muiñeiras - a muiñeira is a kind of traditional Galician music, as well as a dance. alalás - an alalá is a kind of traditional Galician song. foliadas - a foliada is a kind of night party.
Un viñedo, un carballo, unha gaita, a morriña espallada polo mundo, a muller que na casa está emigrada, unha terra, un pobo e unha fala
A vineyard, an oak, a gaita, The morriña scattered around the world, The woman who at home, has emigrated A land, a people and a language.
carballo - the oak is the Galician tree par excellence. Before the introduction of the eucalyptus tree, it was one of most harvested trees in Galicia. morriña - the Galician saudade. There is a huge Galician emigrant community in Europe and in America, due to the harsh economic conditions within Galicia. There is hardly a family in Galicia that does not count among its number a relative who had to leave their home, and one feels morriña when one thinks of one's home.
Castiñeiros, carballeiras, romarías, eirexados, mosteiros, gandeiría, rebordelas, corredoiras embruxadas, unha terra, un pobo e unha fala
Chestnut trees, oak groves, romarías Eirexados, monasteries, animal-rearing, Rebordelas, enchanted cart paths A land, a people and a language
romarías - a short pilgrimage, accompanied by music and food and dancing. A kind of festival. eirexados - the band is from the municipality of San Sadurniño. O Eirixado is a tiny little place within this municipality, but there are numerous other places across Galicia that have this name 'Eirexe, Eirixe'. It seems to be a derivation of the word for church, igrexa. rebordelas - Rebordela and similar variants are the name of numerous towns in Galicia, it seems to be derived from the word for oak in Latin ' rōbur'. corredoiras - a corredoira is the path made by and for the travel of carts, which were basically how Galicians travelled before the invention of automobiles. There are many that are still in active use dating from way back before the Roman times.
O mareiro vento desta costa, o batir das olas en Fisterra, un ardente corazón que sinte e cala, unha terra, un pobo e unha fala
The sea wind of this coast The beating of the waves in Fisterra, A burning heart that listens and hushes A land, a people and a language
Fisterra - as the name suggests, the westernmost point of Galicia and the 'end of the world'. Many pilgrims end their pilgrimage here.
One of the most famous muiñeiras in the Galician repertoire is the muiñeira de Chantada. In this video, from 2:00 onwards, the Galician musician Carlos Nuñez plays it on the gaita. The first piece of music is the Alborada de Veiga, named after its composer, Pascual Veiga, who was also the one who created the music to accompany the Galician hymn. Nuñez is accompanied by the Irish group The Chieftains. Notice the muiñeira dance as well as performed by the two Galician dancers.
I hope with time, I will be able to expand upon what an alalá is or what a romaría is, or what kind of clothing the dancers are wearing...all these things are highly interesting, but I never find enough time to write about them.
I stayed for a day in Madrid, Meeting up with friends and people I had not seen – in some cases – for three years. One of my friends is ‘castizo’, he’s lived in Madrid – the city - for almost his entire life, although he was originally born in a town in the community of Madrid. I lived with him for almost a year, and he has been my greatest influence on my idiolect, as I’ve consciously worked to make my lexicon, intonation etc similar to his. Including laísmo, a traït typical of central dialects of Spanish, and especially stereotyped of Madrid.
Laísmo consists of using the forms la and las as indirect object complements, when the referent is femine. The norm would be the use of le and les. So, for exemple, we were sitting in the park sharing a Beer, he was telling a story, and he said ‘la dijo’ – he said to her. On another occasion that I recall very clearly, several years ago on the metro, I heard a man and a woman discussing a gift. The man said ‘la gustó’ (a ella). This man was dressed in a business suit and a tie. Clearly, class is no barrier to the use of laísmo in informal conversation.
Laísmo seems to be however a desprestigious traït. In school, one is constantly taught not to do it, at least in writing. Although it must be said that perhaps it has a covert prestige as well, marking the speaker as coming from Madrid or from surrounding areas, and so to an in-group, it can be a sign of belonging.
Bierzo
Afterwards I went to Bierzo, which is a commarca in the autonomous community of Leon. How did I end up there? I followed another friend, who although he was born in Madrid, his parents come from here. It is about 3-4 hours by driving from Madrid.
Bierzo is a frontier zone between Leon and Galicia. It is sometimes called, humorously and sometimes seriously by some Galician revanchists, the fifth province of Galicia. The other four would be A Coruña, Lugo, Ourense and Pontevedra.
Especially in the western towns of Bierzo, closer to the Galician border, you can hear Galician (although Spanish predominates). In the eastern towns, like the one I am in now, you will mostly hear...Spanish, which is the overwhelmingly predominant language, but the traditional Language spoken here is the Asturleones language, which is extremely endangered. In the map above, Ponferrada is a city in Bierzo.
I’ve already had occasion to mention Asturian spoken in the autonomous community of Asturias. Asturian ITSELF is a variety of the Asturleones language, which is spoken by approximately 600,000 people across two different countries (Portugal and Spain). Asturleones in Portugal is an officiallLanguage, but only in one place, Miranda, where it is known as Mirandese, although it is also spoken in other places in Portugal. However, this officiality is toothless because it enforces nothing and Mirandese is still an endangered Language.
In Leon proper, the Leonese variety was used administratively and literarily in the kingdom of Leon, until this kingdom was united with the crown of Castilla in 1230, from which point on, the language of Castille, Castillian (Spanish) marginalised Leonese, until the point where we are at today, where Leonese is severely endangered. There are perhaps 25,000 or so speakers of Leonese today. A familiar story with all the other languages of the Iberian península, except for Portuguese which escaped by virtue of separating from the kingdom of Leon and becoming its own kingdom.
What’s interesting is that my friend, whose parents come from Bierzo, but who was born in Madrid, does not consider Leonese to be a language. He states that they merely have different words here and there. That kind of attitude is unfortunately much too common in Spain. Whilst most people thankfully recognise that Catalan, Galician and Basque are you know, languages, the other languages of Spain are often disgracefully thought of as mere variations of Spanish. My friend, though very familiar in other respects with the town of his parents, knows very little about the language that is spoken there, and long term residents in the town weren't necessarily better.
Asturleonese is hardly ever considered on the grand national stage, barely mentioned in school textbooks, not massively taught even in these regions where it is taught, and although they are mentioned in the estatus d’autonomia of their respective communities where they are spoken as languages that must be protected, they are nowhere official in Spain.
Aside from the persecution of these languages at the hands of Spanish speakers, a series of other events: the deruralisation of Spain, the poor econòmic condition of these areas (the fault of who?) has lead to a massive decline in speakers in the last hundred or so years.
Leonese native speakers don’t call their variety Leonese. It was only until the 19th century with dialectological studies and the reclaiming of the language as a vàlid form of expression, that people all along the north of Spain decided that the varieties they spoke should be considered one language. Which is now called by linguists, nationalists, and the defenders of the Language, ‘Asturleones’, whereas ordinary native speakers call their varieties by their local names, which normally derive from the town names.
In Bierzo, I stayed in a town called Igüeña: a bit over a thousand people live there. It is a stunning place. Rural, tranquil as a rural town can be, small, situated among mountains, the air is Crystal clear, the landscape is green tinged with rose from the wildflowers that are blooming, a roaring river flows through it which during summer, they close off with a barrier to form a deep pool in which people can swim. They call it with good humour ‘la playa’. And it rains quite constantly.
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Unlike Mallorca, where agriculture and animal raising has mostly disappeared as a viable source of substinence, here one can and still does live off the land. Which also means that most people who live here year round are locals and tourists are still not freqüent. The houses are made of Stone and wood sourced from the area, with the roofs made of rock tiles that look like scales of a fish. There used to be a coal mine here, it closed down in the 80s I think, depressing the economy. Many houses still run on old-school coal heaters, the ones where you shove wood inside for it to heat up the entire house - a real necessity during winter. That was the case of the house of my friend's parents where we were staying. Asturias still has active coal mines, which is where Leon gets their coal.
There are three bars in the town, I visited two of them.
The first bar was where I had my first inkling that perhaps I would be able to hear Lleonese here, because the signs on the toilets and the entrance were in Leonese. Excited, I asked the bartender who here I had to listen to to listen to Leonese. She told me, only the older clients speakers. I was faintly disappointed not to hear it that day. But I just had to come back. Before I left, I tried the local liquor, created on the basis of what they call here in Iguena, abrunos – in English they are called blackthorns, of the species Prunus spinosa. It is the equivalent of the Navarran patxaran.
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In the morning we visited a nearby town (of around 80 people) called Colinas del Campo de Martín Moro Toledano and had an epic lunch with my friend and his two cousins, their kids and their Husband. During the lunch, another cousin popped in. My friend has a seemingly unending list of cousins, all of whom were born in Madrid like him, but who came back to Bierzo every summer since they were kids. Consequently, they know this commarca very well.
A Roman era bridge in said town:
At the bar: local, simple but generous and delicious food, extremely cheap. All made here, from local ingredients. Including the alcohol, the honey, the jam etc. The husband of one of the cousins is a lawyer and finishing his doctorate on the workers rights of unions. He is Valencian. We spoke in Catalan. the wife works in audio-visual industry and for that reason She has watched many of the most famous movies from New Zealand, where I grew up: The Piano, Once Were Warriors, Whale Rider...not Boy however. I explained to her from my perspective the situation of the indigenous peoples in New Zealand and Australia. I was seriously impressed that she knew so much about my country!
I also met a native of the town, called Ovidio. His father was called Ovidio as well. I was very curious, because that’s not exactly a common name, to be named after a Roman poet. He and his father and his father’s father and so forth came from this town. I regret not asking him if he spoke Leonese, as with his pedigree, he was my best shot...
I will say this, the people in Igüeña have a really interesting accent. Even if they do not speak Leonese nor Galician, they have an accent that people from outside characterise as ‘Galician’. It’s really a Leonese accent, it seems to me, but given the low lingüístic consciousness of outsiders with regards to Leonese, it’s not surprising that they identify it as a Galician accent. I’ve put a fragment here for you to hear.
The second bar to which I went is considerably smaller, less fancy perhaps, but the food is fantàstic. I mean you can simply peek over the counter and see that the wife of the owner is in the kitchen making the food. Quality guaranteed.
And they make their own Leonese lemonade, a traditional drink of Semana Santa, which is the time when I was there. I was told by the people in the bar that the act of drinking this lemonade was called ‘matar judios’, that is to say, to kill Jews. Kind of awkward for my German friend who was there with me! Leonese lemonade is made from wine, fruit, sugar and cinammon.
I honestly thought they were pulling my leg but no, it’s a traditional name for knocking back a wine lemonade that goes back all the way to the Middle Ages. One of the stories goes that a Leonese noble organised a pogrom during Semana Santa, targeting a Jewish debtor he didn’t want to pay back, and after massacring the Jews, he celebrated by drinking this drink. Another story says that officials allowed the drinking of this diluted wine in order to stop Christians from massacring Jews during the Holy Week.
Saying that I've 'killed a few Jews' really leaves a bad taste in my mouth, so I don't think I'll say it, no matter how good the drink tasted.
The owner of the bar turned out to be Galician and I spoke with him in Galician. I asked him what he was doing in this little town of all places, he smiled and looked over to his wife and said ‘máis tiran dúas tetas que dúas carretas’ – two tits have more pull than than two carts. Er, a lovely expression I guess?
There was one other Galician client who wandered in as the night went on, I think he was the doctor of the town! It was sad however that in Igüeña, a traditionally Leonese speaking land, the only Galician I heard and used was by Galician immigrants and only because I wanted to speak Galician. Otherwise it was overwhelmingly Spanish.
Before leaving to go to Galicia (which I did via hitchhiking), I also wandered around for a bit around Igüeña just talking to people. It’s a tiny town and I met two brothers and their mother, both of them woodworkers and creators of for example, the wooden spoons that are in the house of my friend’s parents. Again, I couldn’t be sure they were speakers of Leonese because they simply didn’t speak it to me, but their Spanish was the strongest Leonese-accented I had met yet, saying things like ‘polu menus’.
For people reading this, I suggest visiting Igüeña and other isolated towns in the region of Bierzo (not Ponferrada and other big towns along the highway) and check it out for yourself. I would like to come back in summer, this time with a lingüístic aim in mind as well as some toggs for swimming! But mostly for Asturleonese. I'd really like to learn the language.
Old school esclops (Catalan), madreñes (Asturian), zocas (Galician). Traditional footwear, still sometimes made and worn in rural areas in Spain.
Last edited by nooj on Sat Sep 14, 2019 12:20 pm, edited 2 times in total.
The constant sensation I had that some of the people I met in Igueña could speak Leonese is not entirely baseless, because there is video evidence of people who do speak it.
Here is a video taken by the language advocacy group El Teixu. Turn on subtitles for Asturleones.
During our trip to Leon, my German friend asked me why I learn these Spanish languages, and I replied that it's because it allows me to have a different relationship to the land and its people. She accepted that, but then asked why I do not learn German in order to have a different relationship with her.
This was a question that completely threw me for a loop, because it was completely true. With each other, we only speak in Spanish. Ever since we knew each other, Spanish has been our language. And that is normality for me, but if I wanted to feel closer to her, I would learn German, wouldn't I?
Why exactly am I learning Basque, the language of one of my friends, but not German, the language of one of my other friends? Am I just a 'friki' for small languages and do I look down contemptuously on big languages? Or is it because I live in Spain, and if I were to live in Germany or Austria or Switzerland, I would be learning German with as much enthusiasm as I am learning Spanish languages
I don't want to learn a language because I feel guilty. I want to learn what makes me happy...
I hitchhiked from Bierzo to Galicia. Originally I wanted to go to Lugo, one of the two cities that was most recommended to me by Galicians, and which was only one hour or so by car from the petrol station from where I was soliciting my ride. What happened was that I didn't want to wait too long and eventually a couple stopped and offered me a ride. They were going way further, to Ferrol. A city I knew nothing about.
With the idea in my head that 'nothing in Galicia can be bad', I accepted the ride. It turned out the wife was American, but her parents were Galician. They never spoke to her in Galician, but she eventually moved to Galicia and has been living there for years: she also speaks Galician. Her husband is a native of Galicia and is a Galician teacher. He teaches Galician language and history in a high school. While the wife helpfully (but not helpfully to me!) spoke in English, he spoke to me only in Galician, for which I was profoundly grateful. He gave me suggestions on books, on places to visit in Ferrol and elsewhere in Galicia, on foods, on liquors...a good start then on my journey.
Ferrol is a highly interesting town. Ferrol achieved its glory days when it was converted into a a naval base...in fact, THE naval base in the 18th century for the Spanish navy. It had one of the best protected ports in all of Spain. The economy flourished with its ship building industry. In fact, at one point, it was the second most populated city in Galicia after Santiago de Compostela.
I was warned me that Ferrol is not the best place to practice Galician. Perhaps because of its situation as a military centre into which soldiers from around Spain came and because like other urban centres in Spain, Spanish is the daily language used there. In fact, Ferrol is the Galician city where Galician is least used. Less than 15% of Ferrolans have Galician as their native language, only 7% speak it always, only 8% speak Galician more than Spanish. These are quite conclusive figures. What hope did I have of speaking Galician there? Well, you'd be surprised...
Shipbuilding has moved to South Korea, a fact that the Ferrolans did not cease to point out to me when I told the I was born in Korea and consequently the city has fallen onto hard times, with much of the population moving out of the city to nearby regions like Naron.
In fact, Ferrol encapsulates the malaise that is striking Galicia in general, with the population aging and the birth rate falling. Only 10.8% of the population of Ferrol is less than 15 years old. There are less than 70,000 people living in the city and dropping.
Ferrol definitely feels like a former industrial, port city that is struggling to retransition to other sectors like tourism. There are numerous parts of the city that are literally falling into ruin. The Old City, formerly a suburb for fishermen, is one of those areas, so too the suburb of Canido which was actually my favourite part.
A bit like Vallecas in Madrid, Canido was a rough neighbourhood in the 90s, full of drugs, crime and falling into decreptitude. It has since undergone quite an interesting transformation, helped by -of all things- artistic intervention. A local artist, Eduardo Hermida, wanted to help his neighbourhood and taking inspiration from Las Meninas, the famous painting by Diego Velázquez, he started spray painting urban art in Canido.
Miraculously, his idea took off and local and even international artists came to decorate the neighbourhood with artwork based off Las Meninas. There are now over 400 pieces of artwork in the neighbourhood, and it has completely revitalised the dynamic of a dying neighbourhood. I was given a walking tour through the neighbourhood by a group of Ferrolans, some of whose artist friends created murals there.
Numerous Ferrolans sometimes glumly, sometimes angrily, asked me why politicians don't do more about this situation, because the city is dying slowly but surely. Despite all that, I found Ferrol to be lovely and I recommend it to everyone. It has the feeling of a city where because it is small and growing smaller, the people know each other better and better...
I also learned from Ferrolans that Ferrol was the birthplace of the dictator Francisco Franco, and that from the Civil War until 1980, it had been named 'Ferrol del Caudillo' in his honour!
Before we left for a beach, a Ferrolan man drove me to a wall to see a plaque that had been installed there in homage to the people who were shot in reprisals, dock workers for example for defending the Second Republic. Fresh flowers and a Republican flag hung next to it.
I was dropped off at the centre of the city at around 6pm and feeling hungry, I went to the fish market, where they had set out tables and chairs outside. The terrace was bustling with people chatting and eating. I sat down at a table and ordered a beer, intensely conscious the only person who was sitting alone.
At the same time, I noticed a family who were looking for somewhere to sit, so I waved them over and we sat together. It was two mothers, two girls, one father. We got to talking. It turned out that they were all from Ferrol, but only the father was a native speaker of Galician. Only he spoke to me in Galician, the rest in Spanish.
Regardless, we enjoyed many beers together, and then I tagged along with them to see the Semana Santa processions for which Ferrol turns out to be famous for. Something I had absolutely no idea about but happened to be happening at that moment. The streets were packed with families, at least that day the city felt alive, although I was told that it is not normally like this at night and it becomes quite sad.
Seeing as I was still very hungry, they took me to their favourite place in Ferrol to eat, a bar-restaurant called Mesón O Cabazo. We got there juuuuust in time, at around 11pm, because shortly thereafter there was not a single spare seat, as locals rushed in. Now I have to say something, this place is the BOMB. The food is fantastic and cheap and Galician beer is the best in Spain (Estrella Galicia). I especially recommend the callos (animal guts), but honestly choose anything on the menu because Galicia has some of the best food in all of Spain, and that is saying something.
Seeing as I had no accommodation, the husband started asking other clients in the bar where I could stay. More and more people added themselves to the conversation, each one suggesting this place or that place. Finally, we settled on a small, cozy hotel. Again, luck, because it was Semana Santa, it was almost completely full with people who came to see the processions, but there was a room for me. Before we parted ways, one of the women told me that she was going to Santiago de Compostela in a few days and that I could come with her in her car. That sure beats hitchiking in a petrol station, so I gladly accepted, and that is how I went to Santiago de Compostela, how I met her boyfriend, how we explored the city. But that's another story.
Let me recount two experiences with the Galician language in Ferrol during the three or so days there.
I went to the tourism office, where in accordance with my rarely broken rule of 'always start in Galician, keep on speaking Galician and don't stop', I spoke to the pair of bored tourist agents. Now this is how it usually works with me:
1) I start off with a greeting in the target language (Catalan, Galician etc), such as bos dias.
2) They respond back, sometimes in the exact same language (Catalan, Galician), often in Spanish.
3) Then there's a pregnant, unspoken moment on their part. They must think that I learned one greeting to break the ice, and now they expect me to switch to English or Spanish.
4) The next sentences I speak are in Catalan or Galician.
5) Now the ball is in their court, they can either speak to me in Spanish or they can speak to me in my language of choice. If they are speakers of the target language, they almost always switch to accommodate me. If they are not comfortable with the language or if they are not speakers, they speak to me in Spanish.
That's how it worked with the tourist agent, who greeted me in Spanish, but then switched with me to Galician after the first greetings and then my first sentences, and gave me really good advice about what to look for and where to do it. Only as I was about to leave did she ask me where I learned Galician and why. I have heard of people who are unable to get local people to talk to them in their target language, but personally I have never had that problem.
The second instance is when I went to the Natural History Museum in Ferrol, which is run by a non-profit environmental organisation, the Sociedade Galega de Historia Natural. The women who ran the museum were super nice. Same thing happened with them as with the tourist office. When I talked to them in Galician at the counter they switched to it. In fact, I had randomly come just in time for a museum tour run by one of them, a former scientist I think, who congratulated and thanked me for learning Galician, when quote unquote, many Spaniards don't bother to. It's an odd response that I noted among several Galician speakers, thanking a foreigner for learning their language. She also apologised for the tour being in Spanish.
Here's what I loved about the museum. ALL the exhibits and dioramas were in Galician. Not a trace of Spanish. No accommodation to tourists or for Spaniards from outside Galicia. The animals, plants, rocks and minerals are pretty much all from Galicia. There's a whale skeleton there for example that comes from a whale washed up along the beaches of Galicia, and a preserved giant squid corpse that also washed up on a Galician beach. I mean, you really come away from the museum knowing more about what kind of place Galicia is, I recommend it.
Though the guide explained everything in Spanish to the audience (mostly families with kids), she made a special effort to point out Galician words and get kids talking. For example, "bla bla bla, but kids do you know how we say this in Galician?". It did make me wonder why the tour was even in Spanish in the first place, seeing as how the families were all Galician.
After the museum tour which ran for about an hour and a half, I asked her for some advice on where to go next, as I'm interested in nature and so forth, and she literally dumped a pile of maps on my lap to take away. She particularly insisted that I go to Fragas do Eume, a nature reserve not far from Ferrol. I was unfortunately not able to go this trip, but next trip...
Aside from Franco, surely the most (in)famous son of Ferrol, there are also respectable Galician patriots who come from this city.
People like Ricardo Carvalho Calero, the key theorist of Galician reintegracionism in the 20th century. This is a Galician poem of his that was put to music by a group called A Minha Embala. Embala is an Angolan Portuguese word, taken from the Kimbundu language spoken in Angola, meaning 'community, town'.
The singer is Aline Frazão, an Angolan singer who lived for a time in Santiago de Compostela, and César Herranz on percussion, from Segovia in Spain. Lyrics of the song down below in reintegrationist orthography. Note that the presenter is Galician and communicates with Aline in Galician.
Cabeleira de chuva, olhos de névoa Maria silêncio, esfarrapada, à espreita Sempre aguardando pela noite as vagas Tua angúria fala com olhadas
Mane of rain, eyes of fog Maria Silence, dressed in rags, waiting and watching Always waiting at night for the waves Your anguish speaks with looks of the eye.
Maria nocturna, no peirão, que esperas? Pelo dia não vives? Nasces cada solpôr? cais da primeira estrela? Maria silêncio, sempre dura e muda Maria silêncio, qual é a barca que aguardas?
Maria of the night, on the docks, what do you wait for? Don't you live for the day? Are you born every sunset? Do you fall from the first star? Maria Silence, always hard and mute Maria Silence, what is the boat that you are waiting for?
Da fonte dos teus olhos fluem rios de sono pero ti Sempre dura e desvelada, batida pelo vento no peirão Maria silêncio, eu roubaria no céu a estrela de mel Na água a estrela de prata para te mercar a fala
From the fountain of your eyes flows rivers of dreams, but you Always hard and sleepless, beaten by the wind on the dock Maria Silence, I would steal from the sky a star of honey In the water, a star of silver, to buy your words
Se queres ulir flores, Dar-te-ei a flor da lua
If you want to smell flowers, I will give you the flower of the moon
Maria do mar, que barca aguardas? Maria do mar, qual é a barca que aguardas
Maria of the Sea, what boat do you wait for? Maria of the Sea, what is the boat you wait for?
"queres o sol -- carne de lua fria? O sol é um porco-espinho difarçado No mar agora, estrela do mar, vive Pescado pela cana do abrente Dar-to-ei eu, raiolante e molhado Maria silêncio"
"You want the sun -- flesh of the cold moon? The sun is a porcupine in costume It lives now in the sea as a seastar Fished by dawn's rod I will give it to you, radiant and wet Maria Silence
Maria silêncio, voz dormida, fala Maria silêncio, a que afogado esperas? Maria silêncio -- da sombriça esperança -- aguardas a tua voz? Maria silêncio, as ondas do mar levado roubaram-cha
Maria Silence, with sleepy voice, speak! Maria Silence, what drowned man do you wait for? Maria Silence - of gloomy hope - do you wait for your voice? Maria Silence - the waves of the furious sea, stole it from you
De chuva e vento vestida Maria silêncio, calada...
Dressed in rain and wind Maria Silence, hushed...
Calero was an expert on Galician-Portuguese literature, so his reference to as ondas do mar levado 'the waves of the furious sea', are not a coincidence, they refer to the Galician-Portuguese troubador medieval literature. The Galician troubador Martín Codax (13th-14th century) composed this poem, belonging to the 'cantiga de amigo' genre where a woman is the protagonist:
Ondas do mar de Vigo, se vistes meu amigo? E ai Deus!, se verra cedo?
Ondas do mar levado, se vistes meu amado? E ai Deus!, se verra cedo?
Se vistes meu amigo, o por que eu sospiro? E ai Deus!, se verra cedo?
Se vistes meu amado, por que ei gran coidado? E ai Deus!, se verra cedo?
Waves of the sea of Vigo Have you seen my friend? Ay, God! Will he come soon?
Waves of the furious sea, Have you seen my beloved? Ay, God, will he come soon?
Have you seen my friend, For whom I sigh? Ay, God, will he come soon?
Have you seen my friend, for whom I care for greatly? Ay, God, will he come soon?
