Hello all!

I’m an American doing Ph.D. research here in Vigo (on the Galician language, BTW), and I was wondering if there are any expats out there - either in Vigo or perhaps in nearby Pontevedra - who would like to meet up for a coffee or a pint. I will be here until end of December/start of January. I hope to hear from you!

Cheers!

Tim

Tim,

There is a daily blog by a British guy, Colin Davis who lives in Pontevedra.  Just enter his name at Google search and you will find him.  He also at times has something to say about Gallego and I’m sure that we would all like to learn of your research into the language or dialect.  I have my own theory which centers around linguistic migration from Portuguese at the western extreme to Italian at the east.  Whichever way you look at it, the one is diluted as it moves toward the stronger found at the other end of the trail.  Perhaps I simplify too much, but…

I hope to be back in northern Galicia for Christmas and meanwhile, I hope that you find what you are looking for.

Cheers,
Richard S

Richard S - 01 September 2008 04:09 AM

Tim,
I have my own theory which centers around linguistic migration from Portuguese at the western extreme to Italian at the east.

There is some logic to the West/East thing, but Catalan seems to be closer to Portuguese and Italian than it is to Spanish or French, missing a step each way as it were, and there are lots of other inconsistencies on the route if you look at minor languages like Sardo, Corsican and the rest. It doesn’t “stop” at Italian either, what with Romanian and a couple of little Latin outcrops in the Balkans and so on. As far as I know Portuguese and Gallego are siblings from the same parent language, which is usually referred to as Gallego-Portuguese, which split in the Middle Ages, but I’d be interested to read a more accurate description if you know one.

Richard S and MartCross,

Thanks to both of you for your replies. MartCross is right - even East of ‘Italian’ (which is a standard dialect that nearly nobody speaks) there are Romance varieties that are nearer to Spanish. An example is Friulian which is spoken in Gorizia near the (potitical) border with Slovenia. It is important to not confuse linguistic borders with political ones, as you no doubt know due to your experience in Spain.

The intuition that there is a sort of “linguistic continuum” is not without its logic, however. It is frequently said that if you were a Catalan speaker and you were to travel from Barcelona to Paris (walking slowly on foot) you would understand people for a good portion of your voyage, whereas it you were to take the beginning and end points, you would have serious communication problems. In other words, if the continuum runs A to Z, A (Catalan) and Z (French) would be totally different languages, but A would have many similarities with B, C, D, etc. By about M, similarities would start to swing in the other direction - towards the Z (French) end of the spectrum. If you have ever studied Catalan, this will come as no surprise, as Catalan shares many similarities with French.

These are just anecdotes, however. For more substantial reading on the topic, I would recommend the following texts, which can be rather technical and/or abstract depending on how well you cope with historical linguistics. For better or worse, there isn’t much light reading on this topic:

The Romance Languages by Rebecca Posner
A History of the Spanish Language by Ralph Penny

This is not an exhaustive list by any stretch, but both books are quite readable, in my opinion. It may be of interest to you that Latin is just one part of a larger beast named Indo-European, which is the linguistic family Latin stems from. Most languages in Europe and Western Asia have Indo-European roots (Basque is an interesting exception). An interesting looking book on the topic is the following. I have not read it yet, but I would like to.

The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World by David W. Anthony

Another book which I hear is good is:

A Natural History of Latin by Tore Janson

It deals more with Latin and its enduring place in modernity, but it is supposed to treat the exportation and spread of Latin, which resulted in today’s Romance varieties.

Cheers,

Tim