The Romance Languages

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Galician - Galego

BASIC INFORMATION
The Galician language is spoken by a people living principally within the borders of the north-westernmost territory of Spain known as Galicia (Galiza). Although it is a language with no more than four million speakers, its importance is not found in its numbers. It is an offshoot of the predecessor to both the Portuguese language and itself, "Galaico-Portuguese", whose southernmost branch broke off and moved south only to begin evlonving into the current Portuguese language that has spread to Brazil, Africa, and Asia.

Galician, however, has a long history of Castilianization. It is one of the official languages of the Spanish state, and the constitution affords the region special status. Some consider it a dialect of Galaico-Portuguese, which is completely plausible seeing as the largest differences lie in pronunciation and orthography. As of yet, there is no standard dialect of Galician.

PRONUNCIATION
The pronunciation of the Galician language. Note that the spelling used here conforms to the most widely accepted orthographic conventions, but is contradictory to some tendancies toward the Portuguese system.

Galician consonants:

Letra/Letras ~ Letter/Letters	A Pronuncia ~ Pronunciation	O Exemplo ~ Example
b	as English "b"	ben well, good
c	as "k" before a/o/u or consonant	creo I think
c	as thing before e or i (due to Spanish influence)	certo true, certain
ch	as check	chegar to arrive
d	as English "d"	actividade activity
f	same	futuro future
g	as game before a/o/u/consonant	gato cat
gu	"gw" before a/o/u	lingua language, tongue
gu	"g" before e/i	guia guide
güe/güi	as "gweh"/"gwee"	bilingüe bilingual
h	silent as in hour	hora hour
l	as English	leite milk
ll	million	muller woman, wife
m/n	as English	mar sea
ñ	dominion (just as Spanish ñ)	viño wine
nh	similar to English sing when “g” is only lightly pronounced	unha feminine singular indef. article
p	as in spite	república republic
qu	as "k" before e or i	que that, which
r	tapped (trilled once) at end of syllable or between vowels	quarto room
rr	trilled	terra earth
s	always as in sick	sen without
t	as in stay	telefonar to telephone
v	as English “b”	vida life
x	as ship	lóxico logical
z	as thing (due to Spanish influence)	zapato shoe

Galician vowels:

*VOWEL*	*Stressed*	*Unstressed*
a	talk	same
e	say or set (not interchangeable)	same
i	see	same
o	so or sock (not interchangeable)	same
u	soon	same

* Accentuation, or the application of stress, is very strict in Galician. It follows two basic rules:

1 ~ Any word ending with a vowel is stressed on the syllable before that vowel (this encompasses most words).
2 ~ Any word ending in a consonant is stressed on that final syllable, unless it is an -s (the plural form of nouns, adjectives, and some verb forms), or an -n (the plural "they" form of the verb, plus a few nouns and adjectives, although some dialects have -m).

If these rules are not followed for stress, the stressed vowel must take a written accent. In Galician, letters only take an acute accent (á, é, í, ó, ú) when stressed irregularly, or, infrequently, to distinguish between two homophonous words.

Exemplos (examples):
A verdade (truth, stressed on the final "a")
Porqué? (why, stressed on the final "e").

BASIC GRAMMAR
The Galician noun has either a masculine or feminine gender.

In the singular, masculine tends to end in an -o or a consonant, feminine in -a, and nouns in -e can be of either gender.

Words in -ção/-são (related to Spanish -ción/-sión, French -tion/-sion, Italian -zione/-sione, Romanian -t¸ie [sometimes -t¸iune]/-sie [sometimes -siune], and Catalan -ció/-sió) are feminine, just as in those languages.

When forming the plural, an -o becomes -os, an -e becomes -es, an -a becomes -as, and words ending in a consonant take -es (unless the final letter is -n, in which case the plural is -ns, or a stressed final syllable ending in -l, in which case the plural deletes the “l” and takes -is (cf. Portuguese for similar developments, although this rule only applies to monosyllabic words in Galician). If we take the word expulsión (expulsion; as Spanish expulsión, French expulsion, Italian espulsione, Romanian expulsare, and Catalan expulsió), for example, the plural is expulsións.

The articles agree with the noun in number and gender:

Indefinite (a/an)

	Masculine	Feminine
Singular	un home (a man)	unha cousa (a thing)
Plural	uns homes (some men)	unhas cousas (some things)

Definite (the)

	Masculine	Feminine
Singular	o libro (the book)	a cousa (the thing)
Plural	os libros (the books)	as cousas (the things)

The articles usually accompany the noun, and it is common to see them where English would reject them: (Vostede) fala o galego? (Do you speak Spanish, (sir)?).

The Galician verb follows the same basic principles as its daughter languages, so don't be surprised if you recognize a verb, verb form, or usage of a verb as being similar to Spanish, French, etc. As in any Romance Language, the present indicative active of the verb often occurs where English would use the present participle (in Galician, for example, falo means "I speak" or "I am speaking").

Galician has three verb terminations ("infinitive endings"): -ar, -er, and -ir. Here are the regular present indicative tense conjugations for each of the infinitive endings, including sample verbs:

	-ar	falar (to speak)	-er	vender (to sell)	-ir	unir (to unite)
eu (I)	-o	falo	-o	vendo	-o	uno
tu (you)*	-as	falas	-es	vendes	-es	unes
ele (he)	-a	fala	-e	vende	-e	une
ela (she)	-a	fala	-e	vende	-e	une
vostede (you)*	-a	fala	-e	vende	-e	une
nós (we)	-amos	falamos	-emos	vendemos	-imos	unimos
vós (ye, thou)*	-áis	faláis	-éis	vendéis	-ís	unís
eles (they)	-an	falan	-en	venden	-en	unen
elas (they; all female)	-an	falan	-en	venden	-en	unen
vostedes (all of you)*	-an	falan	-en	venden	-en	unen

* Tu (also ti) is used for familiar/informal situations when addressing one person. Vós is the plural of tu. In formal situations, speakers use Vostede with the third-person singular (-a/-e) or Vostedes with the third-person plural (-an/-en).

Adjectives agree with the noun, and most always follow them: unha cousa branca (a white thing), as cousas brancas (the white things). An adverb is simply formed by adding -mente to the feminine form of the adjective: rápidamente (quickly, rapidly; from rápido quick, fast, rapid).

BASIC WORDS AND PHRASES
These phrases are not reflective of all Galician dialects:

Bo día! = Goodday!
Olá! = Hello!
Como se encontra? = How are you?, How's it going?
Ben. = Well.
Mal. = Badly.
Máis ou menos. = So-so.
Moito... = Very...
Como se chama? = What's your name?
Cal é o seu nome? = What's your name? (no formality attached)
E tu/ti? = And you? (informal)
E Vostede? = And you? (formal)
Señor = Sir, Mr
Señora = Madam, Mrs
Moito gosto. = Pleased to meet you.
Se fai favor. = Please.
Desculpe. = Excuse me.
(Aquí) ten... = Here is/are...
Ten... = There is...
Ten... = There are...
Si. = Yes.
Non. = No.
Gracias. = Thank you. (from male/female)
Non ten de que. = You're welcome.
Que? = What?
Quen? = Who?
Porqué? = Why?
Que horas son? = What time is it?
Adeus! / Abur! = Goodbye!, See you later!

Joshua Rudder, talktume@hotmail.com.