Usual language


The Sociolinguistic Map of Galicia reveals that Galician still continues to be the usual language of the majority of the Galician population (68.6%), whereas only 10.8% never use Galician, favouring Spanish instead. Bilingualism is most frequent, and within this bilingual framework, we can observe "a marked bias in favour of Galician". When bearing in mind the historical ups and downs of our language has suffered, the fact that the Galician language holds sway over Spanish clearly illustrates to what extent Galician really is the true language of Galicia.

 

Usual Language

Use Galician
only

Use mainly
Galician

Use maily
Spanish

Use Spanish
only



Notwithstanding, there is a noticeable drop as we go down through the generations and this decline represents a real danger for the survival of Galician in the future. The percentages for Galician-only monolingualism and for the preferential usage of Galician rather than Spanish drop as we move from the grandparents of the people interviewed, to their parents and finally to the generation interviewed itself. As far as the younger generation is concerned, only 46.5% of the 16-25 year-old age-bracket is made up of usual Galician-speaker, as opposed to 84.75% for the +65 age-bracket which uses Galician exlusively or more often than Spanish.

The third volume of the SLMG covering attitudes towards both languages is currently being prepared. In the meantime, however, we shall have to content ourselves with a brief overview of the data provided by the 'pilot' district of Ferrol-As Pontes. This district is an area located in the north of the Province of A Coruña and covers a whole range of variables which means that it could well serve indication of what the situation in other similar areas may be like: this area includes both urban and rural areas; inland and costal areas; farming, fishing and industrial areas. The data obtained regarding the language the parents prefer their children to be taught in reveals that 55% are in favour of Galician being used as the language of the classroom. What remains to be done, then, is to convert these positive attitudes towards the language into coherent linguistic practices. This preview of the forthcoming volume of the SLMP indicates that 80% of the population is in favour of encouraging the increased use of Galician.

 

(How do you feel about the attempts to encourage and extend the use of Galician?...)



Very well


Well


So and so


   Bad   


Very bad


Indiferent



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