Galician people
Jason Dibooby
The Galicians (Galician: Galegos) are an ethnic group and nationality, whose historical homeland is Galicia in north-western Spain. Most Galicians are bilingual, speaking both their historic language, Galician, and Castilian Spanish.
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[edit] Geography and demographics
[edit] Political and administrative divisions
The autonomous community (a concept established in the Spanish constitution of 1978) that is known as (a) Comunidade Autónoma Galega in Galician, and as (la) Comunidad Autónoma Gallega in Spanish (in English: Galician Autonomous Community), is composed of the four Spanish provinces of A Coruña, Lugo, Ourense, and Pontevedra.
Other Galician-speaking areas are situated in the Spanish provinces of Asturias in the same name of the Asturian Autonomous Community; León and Zamora in the Autonomous Community of Castile and León; and in the north of Portugal.[2]
[edit] Population, main cities and languages
The official Statistical body of Galicia is the Instituto Galego de Estatística (IGE). According to the IGE, Galicia's total population in 2008 was 2,783,100 (1,138,474 in A Coruña,[3] 355.406 in Lugo,[4] 336.002 in Ourense,[5] and 953.218 in Pontevedra[6]). The most important cities in this region, which serve as the provinces' administrative centres, are Vigo, Pontevedra (in Pontevedra), Santiago de Compostela, A Coruña, Ferrol (in A Coruña), Lugo (in Lugo), and Ourense (in Ourense). The official languages are Galician and Spanish. Knowledge of Spanish is compulsory according to the Spanish constitution and virtually universal. Knowledge of Galician, after declining for many years owing to the pressure of Spanish and official persecution, is again on the rise due to favorable official language policies and popular support. Currently about 82% of Galicia's population can speak Galician[7] and about 61% has it as a mother tongue.[8]
[edit] Population genetics
[edit] mtDna
The most frequent mtDna haplogroups (female lineages) present in the Galician people are H, U, T, J and K.[9]
| N | H | U(xU6) | T | J | K | V | X | L | W | U6 | N | R | I |
| 282 | 47.52% | 13.83% | 9.22% | 8.16% | 6.38% | 4.61% | 2.48% | 2.48% | 1.42% | 1.06% | 1.06% | 1.06% | 0.71% |
[edit] Y-Dna
The most frequent Y-Dna haplogroups (male lineages) present in the Galician people are R1b, I, E1b1b1b (E-M81), J2 and G.[10]
| N | E-M35 | E-M78 | E-M81 | G | I | J1 | J2 | K | R1b |
| 88 | 1.14% | 6.82% | 9.09% | 5.68% | 10.23% | 1.14% | 6.82% | 1.14% | 57.95% |
[edit] Ancient Peoples of Galicia
In pre-historic times Galicia was dominated by a Megalithic Culture, common to other areas of Atlantic Europe. Galician cultural elements can be traced back to the Bronze Age Celtic civilization known as the Castro Culture. Later, it was taken over by the Roman Republic and Empire. It was at this time that Latin, which is the ancestor of modern Galician, replaced the old Gallaecian language. The decline of the Roman Empire was followed by the rule of two Germanic tribes, the Suevic, who settled in considerable numbers, and the Visigoths, in the Middle Ages.
[edit] Emigration
Like other Iberian regions, Galicia's history has been affected by emigration. There was significant Galician emigration in the 19th and early 20th centuries to other parts of Spain, Portugal, and to the American continent. Unlike the Basque and the Catalan regions which were rich, urbanized, and industrialized, Galicia remained relatively poor, agricultural village society, as industry, and apart from ship building, large scale industry had yet to make its appearance. Moreover, its agricultural sector continued to be among the most backward in Spain, and farm productivity was severely hampered by the tiny size of the individual farmsteads known as minifundios. The minifundio was the product of an attempt to distribute land plots in a closed rural system to a growing population by requiring that equal shares be bequeathed to each heir. After just a few generations, the land had been subdivided so much that most of the plots were too small to support a family or to be economically viable. On the positive side, the system ensured that there were relatively few who were completely without means and the rich seas and large fishing industry provided alternative sources for a living.
For these reasons, Galicia was a net exporter of population to the rest of Spain. Between 1900 and 1981, the net outflow of people from Galicia was more than 825,000. In fact, the city with the second greatest number of Galician people is Buenos Aires, Argentina, where immigration from Galicia was so massive that all Spaniards are now known as gallegos (Galicians). During the Franco years, there was a new wave of emigration out of Galicia to other European countries, most notably to France, Switzerland, Germany and the United Kingdom.
[edit] Galician language
Galician is an Iberian Romance language belonging to the Western Ibero-Romance branch of the Indo-European languages. It is spoken in Galicia, an autonomous community with the constitutional status of an "historic nationality" in northwestern Spain. Galician is also spoken in the neighboring autonomous communities of Asturias and Castile and León, near its border with Galicia, and in Portugal.[11]
Galician and Portuguese were, during medieval times, a single language spoken in the Kingdom of Galicia and in Portugal. The language is variously called Galician-Portuguese, Medieval Galician, or Archaic Portuguese. The two modern languages continue to be linked by a dialect continuum in the north of Portugal.
Despite the positive effects of official recognition of the Galician language, Galicia's socio-linguistic development has suffered from the growing influence of Spanish, a world language. The drift toward Spanish is ascribed to the growth of urban centers, the emergence of a Galician middle class, and the worldly influences of education and the media.
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 constitutes a priceless cultural heritage, much of which is shared with its neighbor Portugal.
[edit] Famous people of Galician origin
This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the Library of Congress Country Studies.
[edit] Notes
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Censo electoral de galegos residentes no estranxeiro a 1 de abril de 2008, segundo país de residencia e provincia de inscrición
- ^ Galician in Ethnologue
- ^ [1:0];9912:15&S= A Coruña province 2008 census
- ^ [1:0];9912:27&S= Lugo province census 2008
- ^ [1:0];9912:32&S= Ourense province census 2008
- ^ [1:0];9912:36&S= Pontevedra province census 2008
- ^ Knowledge of Galician language 2003
- ^ Use of Galician language 2003
- ^ Álvarez-Iglesias V, Mosquera-Miguel A, Cerezo M, Quintáns B, Zarrabeitia MT, et al. 2009 New Population and Phylogenetic Features of the Internal Variation within Mitochondrial DNA Macro-Haplogroup R0. PLoS ONE 4(4): e5112. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0005112
- ^ Adams SA, Bosch E, Balaresque PL, Ballereau SJ, Lee AC, Arroyo E, López-Parra AM, Aler M, Gisbert Grifo MS, Brion M, Carracedo A, Lavinha J, Martínez-Jarreta B, Quintana-Murci Ll, Picornell A, Ramon M, Skorecki K, Behar DM, Calafell F, Jobling MA (2008),The Genetic Legacy of Religious Diversity and Intolerance: Paternal Lineages of Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the Iberian Peninsula, The American Journal of Human Genetics 83, doi:10.1016/j.ajhg.2008.11.007
- ^ Ethnologue
[edit] See also
- Galicia (disambiguation)
- Galician nationalism
- Fillos de Galicia
- Nationalities and regions of Spain
- Spanish people
[edit] External links
- Galician Portal
- A collaborative study of the EDNAP group regarding Y-chromosome binary polymorphism analysis
- Galician language portal
- Galician Music, Culture and History
- Galician Government
- Galician History and Language
- Galician History
- Santiago Tourism
- Page about The Way of St James
- Oficial page about The Way of St James
