Reintegrationism


Reintegrationism, or Lusism, is a linguistic movement in Galicia that advocates for the recognition of Galician and varieties of the Portuguese language as a single language. Reintegrationists argue that the different dialects of Galician and Portuguese should be classified as part of the Galician-Portuguese language, rather than two languages within a common branch. The largest reintegrationist association is the Galician Language Association.

Background

The reintegrationists also claim that the official orthography of the Galician language, regulated by the Royal Galician Academy, is too Castilianized and artificially separates it from the northern varieties of Portuguese. However, the Spanish influence on Galician dates back to centuries prior to standardization, namely the Dark Centuries, when Galician lost its official recognition and stopped being a written language, thus becoming the spoken language of the lower classes in the region. During the Rexurdimento, many Galician authors initially found that they did not know how to write Galician, since it did not have a standard form yet. The current Galician grammar is thought to have been influenced by the Spanish one since it could have been seen as a crucial step for recognition within the Spanish state.
The Galician Language Association was founded in 1981 under the name "Estudo crítico das normativas ortográficas e morfolóxicas do idioma galego" and officially published its own standard grammar in 1983, which closely resembles the grammar of Old Galician-Portuguese and thus the modern varieties of Portuguese. The main goal of the association is to reinsert Galician, especially in its written form, in a Galician–Portuguese–Brazilian diasystem.

Practicalities

In writing, the most obvious differences from the official norm (NOMIGa) are :
  • Use of instead of the letter to represent the palatal nasal sound. For example: caminho instead of camiño.
  • Use of instead of to represent the velar nasal sound. For example: algumha instead of algunha.
  • Use of the digraph instead of to represent the palatal lateral sound. For example: coelho instead of coello
  • Use of / and / instead of the suffix and. For example: associaçom/associação instead of asociación and associaçons/associações instead of asociacións
  • Preference for the use of suffixes and over and or even. For example: livraria instead of librería ; incrível instead of incrible or incríbel
  • Use of between vowels, when appropriate, instead of the simplified for all cases. For example: associação instead of as'ociación
  • Use of either, or preceding or, according to the etymology of the word, instead of for all cases. For example: hoje instead of hoxe, geral instead of xeral, but exército as in exército
  • Use of instead of at the end of a word. For example: som instead of son'
  • Use of a wider range of accentuation signs instead of the simplified single stroke. For example: português instead of portugués, comentário instead of comentario. Note that the official orthography, being a calque of the Spanish one in that respect, does not cater for any difference between open and closed vowels, since Spanish does not have them.
  • Avoidance of specific lexical choices introduced by Spanish
Galician members of the European Parliament have used spoken Galician when addressing the chamber and have used standard Portuguese orthography to encode their Galician speech. In all cases, these interventions and encodings have been accepted by the Parliament as a valid form of Portuguese, that is, an official language of the European Union.
Furthermore, members of Galician reintegrationist associations have been regularly present at meetings of the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries. In 2008, Galician delegates were invited as speakers to the Portuguese Parliament when discussing the new spelling norms for the Portuguese language.

Controversy

The majority of the Galician population was educated in Spanish only.
In this fashion, it is argued that Galician would be faithful to its history and etymology and subsequently its written norm would be more scientific and precise. Thus, it would allow Galician speakers to have direct access to a world culture and it would also clarify some spelling problems of the isolationist norm.
A number of Portuguese linguists and authors such as Luís Lindley Cintra, Manuel Rodrigues Lapa, Fernando Venâncio, Carlos Reis or Malaca Casteleiro have expressed their agreement with the reintegrationist views.

Genesis of the debate

Authors such as Castelao, among others, stated that Galician should gradually merge with Portuguese, namely in its written form.
However, political issues forced the resignation of Carvalho Calero and, consequently, the 1979 pro-reintegrationist norms were revoked. The new official norms and reforms passed from 1982 onwards would be strongly pro-isolationist.