Galician, native language of Galicia

Many of you exchange students at the University of Santiago have become involved in these programmes as a way to study and live abroad, to know a different culture, meet new friends and learn new languages. Well, it looks like you've come to the right place: Galicia!

You' ve come from other autonomous communities, from European, Latin American and other countries. Don' t forget Europe is not at all a uniform continent, and most of her countries hide the richness of their diversity. Territories with their own characteristics which make them special and unique.  Having the opportunity to know and live these differences is a privilege.

Many different cultures, customs and languages live together in Spain and the Spanish constitution recognises various historic nationalities (Catalonia, The Basque Country, and Galicia). The official language of Spain is Spanish (Castilian), but some communities have their own long-standing  official languages: Basque in the Basque Country and Navarre; Catalan in Catalonia, Valencia and the Balearic Islands; and Galician in Galicia, where you have come to study.

Galician is Galicia's native language. Galician was born in the 10^th century as a consequence of the evolution of Latin in the Roman province of Gallaecia built over a base of various Celtic and Paraceltic languages. Later it was  influenced by the languages of various peoples who settled in this area (Suevians, Visogoths,and, to a minor extent, Arabs).  After a Golden age in medieval times, the Galician language suffered a process of being substituted by Castilian over many centuries wchich reached its highpoint during the times of the dictatorship of General Franco.  In spite of this, it remains the language used by the majority of the population:  spoken regularly by 88% and understood by 94% of the people living here.

Since 1983, when the Linguistic Normalization Law was passed, a process to recover the Galician language was developed under the responsibility of the public administration and multiple entities and organisations in our land,  whose goal is to promote and increase the use of Galician in public life, in education, in culture, in business, in the media ...