'DÍA DA PATRIA GALEGA', ROOTS OF THE GALICIAN NATION

The Grandma visits Galiza

Today is Saint James, patron of Galiza. The Grandma wants to pay homage to this wonderful and unforgettable land talking about its history, culture and peoples. If you have the possibility, do not doubt about visiting this magic place full of mystery, legends and places to see and enjoy.

Galiza or Galicia is a Celtic Nation in the south of Europe, a nation that waits for its awakeness and works very hard every day to reach it.

Parabéns Galiza!

Dia Nacional de Galicia or National Day of Galicia is when Galicia celebrates its national holiday. It falls on 25 July.

It is also called Día da Patria Galega, Day of the Galician Fatherland or simply Día de Galicia but the official full denomination is the National Day of Galicia, as established by the Galician government in 1979.

The origins of the celebration can be traced back to 1919, when the Assembly of the Galicianist organization Irmandades da Fala met in the Galician capital, Santiago de Compostela. It was then decided to celebrate the National Day on 25 July the following year. The date was chosen as it is the day dedicated to Saint James, patron saint of both Galicia and the Galician capital city.

It was celebrated openly until the Francoist dictatorship (1939-1977), when any display of non-Spanish nationalism was prohibited. During that time the National Day would still be celebrated as such by the Galician emigrant communities abroad.

More information: Cultura

In Galicia, the Galicianists would gather with the pretext of offering a Mass for Galician poet and literary icon Rosalia de Castro. Curiously enough, the Francoist regime institutionalized the religious celebration of Saint James as the patron saint of Spain.

Nonetheless, from 1968 Galicianists attempted to celebrate the day in Compostela and called for public political demonstrations every 25 July. These demonstrations would invariably result in riots with the Spanish police.

Even during the first years of democracy, after 1977, any demonstration organised by the Asemblea Nacional-Popular Galega and the BN-PG, later transformed into the Galician Nationalist Bloc, would still be forbidden. It is only during the mid-1980s when the National Day started to, gradually, be celebrated with some degree of normality. Although, the events from the late 1960s onwards transformed the National Day celebrations into a date with deep political implications.

The Grandma visits Galiza

At present, Galician political parties organise large demonstrations at the capital city and/or a number of activities to commemorate the day.

The political and institutional activities are normally all based in Santiago de Compostela, and the day is an official public holiday celebrated with solemnity by the Galician government.

Apart from that, a number of festivities take place from the night of the 24th until high hours in the morning of the 26th, celebrated by many.

The ethnonym Galicians (Galegos) derives from the Latin Gallaeci or Callaeci, itself an adaptation of the name of a local Celtic tribe known to the Greeks as Καλλαϊκoί (Kallaikoí), who lived in what is now Galicia and northern Portugal, and who were conquered by the Roman General Decimus Junius Brutus Callaicus in the 2nd century BCE.

The Romans later applied this name to all the people who shared the same culture and language in the northwest, from the Douro River valley in the south to the Cantabrian Sea in the north and west to the Navia River, encompassing tribes as the Celtici, the Artabri, the Lemavi and the Albiones, among others.

The etymology of the name has been studied since the 7th century by authors such as Isidore of Seville, who wrote that Galicians are called so because of their fair skin, as the Gauls, relating the name to the Greek word for milk.

However, modern scholars have derived the name of the ancient Callaeci either from Proto-Indo-European *kal-n-eH2 hill, through a local relational suffix -aik-, so meaning the highlanders; or either from Proto-Celtic *kallī- forest, so meaning the forest (people).

More information: Tartan Gallaecia

The most recent proposal comes from linguist Francesco Benozzo after identifying the root gall- / kall- in a number of Celtic words with the meaning stone or rock, as follows: gall (old Irish), gal (Middle Welsh), gailleichan (Scottish Gaelic), kailhoù (Breton), galagh (Manx) and gall (Gaulish).

Hence, Benozzo explains the name Callaecia and its ethnonym Callaeci as being the stone people or the people of the stone (those who work with stones), in reference to the ancient megaliths and stone formations so common in Galicia and Portugal.

Galician is a Romance language belonging to the Western Ibero-Romance branch; as such, it derives from Latin.

It has official status in Galicia. Galician is also spoken in the neighbouring communities of Asturias and Castile and León, near their borders with Galicia.

Sempre en Galiza by Alfonso Castelao

Medieval or Old Galician, also known by linguists as Galician-Portuguese, developed locally in the Northwest of the Iberian Peninsula from Vulgar Latin, becoming the language spoken and written in the medieval kingdoms of Galicia, from 1230 united with the kingdoms of Leon and Castille under the same sovereign and Portugal.

The Galician-Portuguese language developed a rich literary tradition from the last years of the 12th century. During the 13th century it gradually substituted Latin as the language used in public and private charters, deeds, and legal documents, in Galicia, Portugal, and in the neighbouring regions in Asturias and Leon.

Galician-Portuguese diverged into two linguistic varieties -Galician and Portuguese- from the 15th century on. 

Galician became a regional variety open to the influence of Castilian Spanish, while Portuguese became the international one, as language of the Portuguese Empire. The two varieties are still close together, and in particular northern Portuguese dialects share an important number of similarities with Galician ones.

The official institution regulating the Galician language, backed by the Galician government and universities, the Royal Galician Academy, claims that modern Galician must be considered an independent Romance language belonging to the group of Ibero-Romance languages and having strong ties with Portuguese and its northern dialects.

More information: Euskadi

However, the Associaçom Galega da Língua (Galician Language Association) and Academia Galega da Língua Portuguesa (Galician Academy of the Portuguese Language), belonging to the Reintegrationist movement, support the idea that differences between Galician and Portuguese speech are not enough to justify considering them as separate languages: Galician is simply one variety of Galician-Portuguese, along with Brazilian Portuguese, African Portuguese, the Galician-Portuguese still spoken in Spanish Extremadura, (Fala), and other variations.

Nowadays, despite the positive effects of official recognition of the Galician language, Galicia's socio-linguistic development has experienced the growing influence of Spanish due the media as well as legal imposition of Spanish in learning.

Galicia also boasts a rich oral tradition, in the form of songs, tales, and sayings, which has made a vital contribution to the spread and development of the Galician language. Still flourishing today, this tradition shares much with that of Portugal.

More information: Galician Flag

Volverei, volverei á vida
Cando rompa a luz nos cons
Porque nós arrancamos todo o orgullo do mar,
Non nos afundiremos nunca máis
Que na túa memoria xa non hai volta atrás:
Non nos humillaredes NUNCA MÁIS.

Luar Na Lubre