Talk:Galician language

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Neutrality in the article's name[edit]

The article is well written. It doesn't seem to have any bias of any kind, and both views of Galician as a dialect of Galician-Portuguese (Galaicoportugués) are presented without favoring one over the other. Congratulations. It's rare to see such examples of neutrality in Wikipedia. Still, the title states it is a language. Maybe the title should be changed to something like "Modern Galician-Portuguese", or "Galician speech"? Please give it some thought.

All the best

Atlantic sir (talk) 14:19, 30 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Atlantic sir: In Wikipedia, we use the most commonly used names for articles (see: WP:COMMONNAME). Compare Google Search hits for: Galician language (192,000 results), Modern Galician-Portuguese (10 results), Galician speech (919 results). Common name is very obvious. Vanjagenije (talk) 15:09, 30 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I might be 4 years late but naming it "Modern Galician-Portuguese" is stupid. You could also name the Portuguese language article that way by your logic. No one calls either language that way, even if most linguists consider them two co-dialects. "Modern Galician-Portuguese" could refer to a constructed language based around said medieval language, which is what I'd imagine as a Galician speaker. If you think Galician and Portuguese are co-dialects of a common language, go ahead as long as you're not disrespectful to Galician, but take in mind people don't treat them as such. Also it's worth noting that "Galician-Portuguese" is just the name given to the medieval Galician spoken in the former Kingdom of Galicia by historians. The language was simply known as Galician at the time. Historians call it "Galician-Portuguese" because the Portuguese people started calling it Portuguese after their independence, and each language evolved with their own history. KaIIaikoi (talk) 22:46, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

User:Vanjagenije (talk)

I see. But what if the Google search results are atrociously wrong? I mean, using Google search as the way to regulate what is academically accurate and what is not, is like using the Yahoo forums or the Youtube comments section to write a paper for University. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Atlantic sir (talk • contribs) 09:59, 31 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • @Atlantic sir: The title does not need to be "accurate". It is only important for the title to be in common use. White wine is not white at all, but we still use that obviously "inaccurate" title. Vanjagenije (talk) 22:32, 2 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Mhhh... In the 13th century it was clear that Galician-Portuguese had two dialects, locally evolved from Vulgar Latin: Galician and Portuguese. So it's not whether Galician is a dialect of Portuguese -it is not, it don't derives from Portuguese, rather the other way around-, but what is the exact relation of modern Galician and modern Portuguese. But sociolinguistically Galician is its own kind of animal at least since the 14th century, when we record the fist examples of Galician cited as lyngoagem galego (Galego, Galician language); from that same century Galician and Portuguese literatures evolved and developed with little mutual interaction until today; and from the 16th century Iberian authors generally differentiate Portuguese and Galician, and from that moment you would find that most scholars or visitors cite Galician language as closer to Portuguese than to Spanish, but in its own space. In any case, virtually any person in Galician call it gallego, galego ("Galego") or lingua galega ("Galician language"), in spite of personal opinions on what's the relation of modern Galician and modern Portuguese. Ditto for Academia and universities. We could merge Galician with Portuguese articles and name it Modern Galician-Portuguese (and then also the respective Wikipedias, Wicktionaries, etc.) but that would be sociolinguistically and historically senseless.--Froaringus (talk) 15:05, 2 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]


What you say makes great sense, Froaringus. Sociolonguistically it may be somewhat odd, but linguistically would be the only accurate way, I guess. It would be much appreciated if you could give it some thought, not only for this article, but for others related to linguistic issues.

I get what you mean, but there is no controversy at all when calling that kind of whine "white wine". On the other hand, Galician has been referred to as both a language and a dialect, so it is not a similar case. And there are cultural organizations who have been lately claiming that both Galician and Portuguese are dialects towards each other. Not trying to be a smart aleck, but seriously maybe it will be nice if Wikipedia naming convention rules slightly changed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Atlantic sir (talk • contribs)

Nonsense. There is no true linguistic clear cut between "language" and "dialect" and all major Galician institutions, both academic and political, refer to Galician as a full-fledged language. You can find "Croatian language" and "Valencian language" in the Wikipedia, having those but "Galician dialect" would be ludicrous CadavoBis (talk) 03:54, 25 May 2019 (UTC)CadavoBis[reply]
No one calls Galician or Portuguese "Galician-Portuguese" in modern times though, even less "Modern Galician-Portuguese". In a modern context "Galician-Portuguese" is mainly used to describe the medieval language spoken in the Kingdom of Galicia and the County of Portugal during the middle ages. Other than that it's used by linguists or politicians... KaIIaikoi (talk) 22:51, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Even from a pure linguistic point of view, the difference between dialect and language is quite problematic: there's no clear distinction and "dialect" isn't even a linguistic term (being the term isogloss a better one). In the end it all boils down to socio-politics, where some prefer to use dialect to lessen the perceived importance of the language (or to imply dominance, correctness) and other prefer language to enhance it. If you follow a hispano-romance language tree you'll find that galician-portuguese was the same thing many years ago (and before that they were latin) until they split. 213.143.50.85 (talk) 11:33, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

From a purely linguistic point of view, it's actually pretty simple, as a Portuguese linguist friend once pointed out to me: Galician is more closely related to Northern Portuguese than Central Portuguese (on which Standard Portuguese is based) is to Northern Portuguese, so from a purely linguistic point of view Galician belongs to a clade including both Northern Portuguese and Galician, and as such would have to be subsumed under "Portuguese".
So it doesn't make sense to separate Galician out from Portuguese from the point of view of historical linguistics and dialectology – given that Galician simply descends from the same northern dialects of medieval Portuguese that Northern Portuguese also descends from –, only from the point of view of sociolinguistics. Which is based on modern state boundaries. But from a historical-linguistic point of view, "Galician" cannot be separated from Northern Portuguese; it's part of a coherent Northern Portuguese dialect continuum. "Galician" is essentially just a catch-all name for the northernmost dialects of Portuguese, and a standard language based on them. Alternatively, especially for the medieval period, one might subsume all dialects as far south as the Douro (or even further) as "Galician". --Florian Blaschke (talk) 02:21, 18 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

English pronunciation of 'Galicia' in Spain[edit]

This point is very minor, but international editors ought to bear in mind that a given pronunciation in any English dictionary (even a very commonly given one) may not actually reflect the spoken form of the word. It's very rare that this happens, but it does sometimes. I just haven't heard anybody actually say 'galisha'; maybe 'galishia', but otherwise it's easier in English to pronounce it more or less as in Castilian: 'galithia'/'galisia'. 'Galisha' just doesn't sound like an English word: sounds more like Italian to me. That's all I'm going on. Gherkinmad (talk) 21:03, 1 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Dictionaries can certainly contain errors, but, as reliable sources go, they're on much better footing than "it sounds wrong to me". I have more often heard "galisha" than "galithia" from native English speakers, but my observations don't count as a reliable source either. Nitpicking polish (talk) 01:38, 2 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
No English speaker in Spain says this. No North American in Europe says this. I can tell you the common, international, English, pronunciation of this word, in the region in which it is spoken, without a thought to their country of origin. Please give what I say a little more of a hearing, and tell me how we progress with this issue. Gherkinmad (talk) 17:24, 2 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Gherkinmad: We don't progress unless you show some wp:reliable source for your claims. Vanjagenije (talk) 18:17, 2 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
You are right in that the Galician pronunciation of the word "Galicia" is "Galithia", but in this case we are not discussing the pronunciation of a Galician word, but the pronunciation of the English word for "Galician", so the Galician pronunciation is not relevant. (In fact, the Galician pronunciation of the word "Galician" is "galego", without "sh", "th", or "s", so resorting to the "original pronunciation" to resolve how the word is pronounced in English would be ineffective.) Each language has its own pronunciation of words describing foreign places, which may be different to the ones used in said places (for example, the Galician word for "English" is pronounced /in'gles/, even if /'inglis/ would still be pronounceable in that language).
Additionally, I'd like to split this into two different points: whether or not "Galishan" exists, and whether or not "Galithian" exists, because one does not imply or reject the other, so adding or removing either pronunciation should be considered separately.
PS: Maybe the more common(?) "Galisian" pronunciation should be listed as the first one, leaving "Galishan" as the second one.
—Cousteau (talk) 20:12, 2 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I can't link to, for example, the Oxford Living Dictionaries because those are cut down. I can't link to the OED Corpus because that's behind a subscription wall (when it should of course be freely accessible). I do think of 'Europe' as an entity, and, if you care, I do still consider myself 'European', rather than, say, North American or Australasian. I hope I'm explaining this properly, but this is to me like insisting on an 'English English pronunciation' in an article on Chile, when I know the natural English pronunciation in the article would derive from North American. That's when I'd go to Webster.
I live in the UK, and I am not in Europe as often as I'd like to be. But I've been a student of Spanish, in Europe, for ten years, through the medium of English. Please tell me why there should be an 'optional' North American English pronunciation in the article? To me it's just superfluous to list it; if I were North American, I'd want to know what the 'European' pronunciation was, which, because my native language is still English, would probably mean the pronunciation in the UK.
And this UK pronunciation just happens to coincide with Castilian Spanish.
If you accept my word on the OED Corpus - maybe you don't - I see 'Galishan' is listed as a North American pronunciation. I had previously been unaware of its existence. In my judgment then it's not 'local', nor 'English' in any sense. How Americans, in America, never travelling outside America, pronounce the word 'Galicia', is not relevant to me. In Europe, we say 'Galithia'. Gherkinmad (talk) 22:56, 2 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I was hoping somebody might respond to this. I don't have to prove the absence of the pronunciation 'Galishan' from online dictionaries. I believe somebody has to make the case for listing a non-European pronunciation of a word which I'm perfectly convinced my American counterpart would understand as a regional pronunciation, rather than an international one, and wouldn't miss from an article on Spanish Galicia. If many countries have a common language this is the kind of thing that happens; this is a hindrance to native speakers of English. It's certainly not helpful. I can say that much. But I can't say any more unless somebody gets back to me in some way, either to rebut or enquire or whatever. Do not ignore me. Otherwise I'm going to remove both of your cited pronunciations as redundant parochialisms. Gherkinmad (talk) 18:26, 3 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know what OED says, but Oxford Dictionaries Online shows /ɡəˈlɪsjən/ as the British & World English pronunciation and /ɡəˈlɪʃən/ as the North American English one. To summarize, none of the dictionary resources I have found (oxforddictionaries.com, Merriam-Webster, Collins Dictionary, dictionary.com, WordReference, TheFreeDictionary, and my Larousse English–Spanish dictionary) show /ɡəˈlɪθjən/ as the pronunciation—almost all of them show -ʃən, -ʃɪən. —Cousteau (talk) 23:01, 3 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Given the dictionary results so far, dismissing either or both of /ɡəˈlɪʃən/ and /ɡəˈlɪsjən/ as "parochialisms" is simply at odds with the reliable sources. So there are different pronunciations in two fairly large portions of the Anglosphere; that's English. (I don't much care about the order of which order they're presented in.) Gherkinmad, it's unclear from your comment whether the OED Corpus shows widespread use of /ɡəˈlɪθjən/ in English, though; does it? The absence of the pronunciation from so many other dictionaries seems to weigh against its inclusion. Nitpicking polish (talk) 00:54, 4 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
[Now, this is long-winded, give half an hour:] That's the problem; it doesn't say that in the OED Corpus. There are five pronunciations given in the OED Corpus, one of which is marked specifically as American: /ɡəˈlɪʃən/. The point is that in absolute terms, of course, American English has most speakers. But that doesn't qualify the pronunciation for the article on its own. You Cousteau say trying to go back to the 'original pronunciation' is futile, because after all we're not speaking Galician. No, we're not. I barely speak a word of that language for one. But I'm driving at a little more: North Americans learn Latin American Spanish first, so I know I'm safe using a North American's pronunciation of Santa Cruz, in Bolivia (/ˈsæntə kɹuːz/) in my English, in Latin American countries: precisely because I know it's closer to the original (apart from anything else, there can be political implications to using Castilian pronunciations in those regions). Many Americans (academics, tourists, businesspeople, whoever) are fascinated by 'Europe' (this is their phrase: they can of course distinguish constituent countries), and so, travelling in the Continent, our islands, or Proper, they tend to use a UK-derived pronunciation in international contexts, on exactly the same understanding that our pronunciation will be considered 'more acceptable' in these countries. Apart from anything else, they're well aware people imagine them ill-travelled, so they tend to place still more importance on showing that they understand local pronunciations and cultures. I don't know how to go away and find an article that will prove this: you just have to believe this or I can't continue. Now, Nitpicking polish, do we list all five of these pronunciations in the Corpus? No, as you understand. I know in practice which ones are and aren't used: if you ask I'll list each of them. There's a problem about (not with) the OED. That's that too many people refer to it. Too many people are looking for too many things, all the time, all over the world. But they do look at it. As I say, I've no idea why it's behind a subscription wall, the Britannica certainly isn't (maybe the Americans should buy it from us and make it freely available) but that does mean we can be fairly sure there aren't more than these five pronunciations in the Anglosphere. Now, the one I know is acceptable in the UK is /ɡəˈlɪθiən/ (not fastidiously /ɡəˈlɪθjən/), more or less in line with Castilian: not, or maybe with Galician. The next one which could be said in the UK is /ɡəˈlɪʃ(i)ən/ (though I'd remove the brackets; as I say, I've never heard /ɡəˈlɪʃən/ out of anybody's mouth), but it would sound sloppy, the person would not in any way be interested in the region. The next one I see (apparently) listed is ɡəˈlɪʃn/. Absolutely not. Not in any kind of forum dealing with education. The final (and listed, first, as primary 'British' pronunciation) is /ɡəˈlɪsiən/. Again, simply: no. You would only hear it from a Chilean Spanish teacher. Only two pronunciations are marked regional; one I didn't know about, one I find (at the very least) out of place. You see how tricky it is citing any English pronunciation from any source, let alone the ones that are free online: none of this confirms my chosen pronunciation is widespread. But, in my judgment, in this international context, the UK pronunciation as I give it: /ɡəˈlɪθiən/ is both: not too at variance with the 'local' pronunciation (we're not too far distant from Spain) and could - can - be generally used by internationals in the region, without them sounding naïve, or unworldly - something I know people are concerned about. You did ask about numbers, so I'll try my best. Americans travelling to Europe would wish to learn the 'proper' (the 'local') pronunciation to use in English-language contexts in Europe, so an English pronunciation which paralled Spain Spanish would be the ticket. Australia is far distant, and they're renowned for brisk speech, but it's very much the same. Indians travelling to Europe already know English English, as well as their native languages. Other peoples I don't know enough about to make an informed guess. /Gaˈli.sja/ is a pronunciation used in an entire continent, but it won't appear in any Castilian article not dealing with dialects or international varieties. All I'd want in an English-language forum is a single pronunciation which suited as many people as possible. In an article on Spain, why not /ɡəˈlɪθiən/? It's 'authentic' (which is past a tired phrase) and European. A secondary one should be resorted to only when absolutely necessary. Why listing a North American pronunciation, when I think you both are European (in origin), is the first thing that occurs, seemed outlandish. But you've both explained why you have and I get why that is, I think: it's just difficult (and complicated) to explain (particularly on this forum) why citing sources still might not resolve the issue. Gherkinmad (talk) 10:20, 4 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Cousteau, @Nitpicking polish, Hello again, I was just wondering has this given you any more thoughts? I was meaning to ask, Nitpicking polish, are you yourself North American? Is /ɡəˈlɪʃən/ actually more common than /ɡəˈlɪsiən/? Does one predominate? I should say we definitely do say /fəˈnɪʃən/ in the UK, it's just we're close to modern Spain and if we were travelling there we wouldn't say anything but /ɡəˈlɪθiən/. Gherkinmad (talk) 12:59, 10 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Gherkinmad: They'd reply to your post if you put half the energy you put into writing it into finding a reliable source for the pronunciation you want to have in the article. This is WP:NOTAFORUM, you won't convince anyone by trying to write your way around the issue of sources.
None of the following list the pronunciation with /θ/ for either Galicia or Galician: Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (3rd ed.), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary (18th ed.) and Routledge Dictionary of Pronunciation of Current English. I'd say that's a strong argument not to include it. Mr KEBAB (talk) 15:01, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Gherkinmad: I hadn't meant to take this long to reply, but, in short, Mr KEBAB's comment is the important point. I appreciate the research you've done, but your entire paragraph amounts to original research. The OED Corpus is exactly that: a corpus of text, not an expert opinion. You're going through it and drawing inferences; and meanwhile, the actual reliable sources don't seem to agree with you. (In answer to your last question, I could give you my impression of North American usage—which is that /ɡəˈlɪʃən/ seems much more common than /ɡəˈlɪsiən/—but that has absolutely no value in deciding what should go on a Wikipedia page. It's an impression, not a reliable source.) Nitpicking polish (talk) 15:44, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Mr KEBAB They duly didn't reply to my post and I hope I was quick on the uptake. Gherkinmad (talk) 17:54, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Nitpicking polish No, no, don't mistake me, the corpus is a dictionary like any other, as well as the nearest thing we have to a complete reference. If this link works, it should do as a source. Gherkinmad (talk) 17:54, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Gherkinmad: But see Wiktionary:Beer_parlour#angstrom for problems with using the OED as a source for pronunciations. Galician as transcribed by the OED is less problematic than angstrom (for which they use the non-native /œ/ which no native speaker would use), but still - it may be nothing more than their invention. I'm not saying that it is, but it's not improbable. Mr KEBAB (talk) 22:50, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Mr KEBAB Yes no, I think you've got an American ex-military man placing a bit too much faith in the King's there! There's not a lot to disagree with about /ɔːŋstrœm/. I could imagine it, but it would be a strained middle-class pronunciation in RP, which wouldn't hang together with the rest of the sentence. But do note that this phenomenon occurs, because we ourselves tend to underestimate our foreign-language capabilities. There are native (tending to be RP) speakers who would attempt to use it, genuinely believing that this is the only way to 'do justice' to the word. The common pronunciation is given alongside it.
Galician is a lot simpler: the pronunciation in the link is common UK English. It's not an example of overpronunciation; we simply say /gəˈlɪθiən/ because it's no more effort in our speech. There are five pronunciation given in the not yet 'fully-updated' original 1933 edition, but this narrows to two in the published 1989 edition. Gherkinmad (talk) 17:53, 30 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Gherkinmad: You need to use the replyto template if you want to notify me of your reply.
I could imagine it, but it would be a strained middle-class pronunciation in RP, which wouldn't hang together with the rest of the sentence. Yes, because /œ/ isn't a native vowel, as you know.
Galician is a lot simpler: the pronunciation in the link is common UK English. Hold on a second. They say nothing about it being common in the UK, they just include it. If it were in any way common, why three different pronunciation dictionaries don't even mention it?! At best, it's the same as with angstrom. At worst, they made it up.
We simply say /gəˈlɪθiən/ because it's no more effort in our speech. I'm not saying that it is, I'm saying that it's very likely that it's not an established pronunciation. It's questionable whether we should include it in this article. I wouldn't. Mr KEBAB (talk) 10:03, 1 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Mr KEBAB: I didn’t say the source said ‘UK’, I said I heard a pronunciation very frequently and I had a source that could bear me out. Now, you don’t quite get to say ‘they could have made it up’ on the basis that there was a listed pronuncation you couldn’t explain. I know why those get included in the dictionary, thank you. We don’t take the infallible authority of the OED, we say what we say and the OED follows our lead. At the same time, it’s likely to include the greatest number of variant pronunciations known. By the same token, not all of these will be ubiquitously listed elsewhere. Of course, caute, but my claim is still that this pronunciation is very common, even though it’s not listed in other places. The only place I know it will be listed is in the OED. Gherkinmad (talk) 19:02, 1 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Gherkinmad: So again, we're just supposed to take your words on faith. That's not how it works - see WP:VERIFIABILITY. The burden of proving that the pronunciation with /θ/ is common is on you. As far as I can see, the OED doesn't comment on that.
You're conveniently forgetting about the Wiktionary thread I linked to and the fact that three different pronunciation dictionaries (which are much more descriptive than prescriptive) published in a span of the last 9 years don't mention that variant at all. We have reasons not to trust the OED on this, at least that's my view. If the variant with /θ/ is used at all, you're probably strongly exaggerating how common it is, otherwise it'd be included in more sources. Mr KEBAB (talk) 19:18, 1 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I've just looked through the aforementioned pronunciation dictionaries to check the pronunciation of Ibiza, which is perhaps the most common Spanish loanword with /θ/. There's no surprise - all of them list the variant with /θ/ as the main one. You can't expect 100% consistency in pronunciation of loanwords. Mr KEBAB (talk) 19:38, 1 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Mr KEBAB: You picked this argument with me, thinking I might still have needed schooling, after a month’s silence from the people whose answers I sought. I was already embarrassed. I have no respect for you trying to re-open this debate. You were right to send me the thread link, and I read through it. I’m glad you went with your instincts on ‘angstrom’. But I didn’t ask you to pick up the thread, and I have quite a clear idea why such a pronunciation might get into the dictionary. Not at all inclined to suspend judgment on ‘any fool who thinks he can quote the OED...’ on that basis. Now, this debate closed when two participants left it. But you chose to resume it, for what reason, I can’t fathom. I told you very shortly how much I wanted to discuss with whoever this was who thought it might be clever to take up the mantle. Gherkinmad (talk) 03:47, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Gherkinmad: This is an open forum, and you've just written that because you don't like what I said. Too bad I say. And it's too bad that you don't respect me, because guess what: I don't care. I also don't pretend to be the ultimate authority on anything, which is quite obvious from my posts. But you don't get to try to silence me just because I disagree with you. It's ridiculous. Mr KEBAB (talk) 04:01, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Mr KEBAB: You picked this argument with me, thinking I might still have needed schooling, after a month’s silence from the people whose answers I'd actually sought. I was already feeling embarrassed. You do not need to chase me up to rub that in still further. But having read my post and seen the absence of any response, you felt quite free to wade in a month later specifically to tell me something I'd probably worked out for myself by then. I'm not in the slightest interested why, and I'd ask that we draw this discussion to some kind of close. Gherkinmad (talk) 09:58, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Gherkinmad: I'm done explaining myself when I did nothing wrong. You should've closed the discussion yourself if you didn't want me or other users to reply. I'm not a psychic to know that kind of stuff. Mr KEBAB (talk) 10:33, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Mr KEBAB: What’s the template for that? It’s true, I’m not too conversant with the format. I’ve been a reader for years but not properly an editor. I got a request to take a matter to the talk page, I did, but I didn’t know you could link to the corpus directly before I began it. The edit wouldn’t have looked so aloof if I’d known, and that’s my fault. Gherkinmad (talk) 16:56, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Gherkinmad: I see that after that whole discussion you've ignored the lack of consensus and prioritized your favored pronunciation against the weight of multiple other dictionaries. "Getting consensus" doesn't mean "waiting until no one is looking". Nitpicking polish (talk) 15:37, 19 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Nitpicking polish: That’s alright, I don’t intend to contest the matter further. I profoundly regret the edit summary I first left, but I can’t retract it now: that is exactly what I thought. I might be sorry it turns out I was arguing against the apparent record; both listed pronunciations remain foreign to me. My cowardice does come as news. That is my edit exactly as I would have wanted to first make it, before any of this reached a pitch. If you’ll revert that, I’ll abide by the decision. But don’t do it just to make an example of me. I put the edit there believing (and still believing) it to be a contribution. Gherkinmad (talk) 19:54, 19 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Nitpicking polish: vəˈlɛnʃə, ˈmɜrʃə, and gəˈlɪʃə is good, it’s valid, it’s fine, but in the part of the world where it really matters, it will mark you out as an outsider. You’ve dealt with me like a complete idiot, telling me I might try simply looking the word up from the first. This I am not, nor scared, nor cowardly. I’m not embarrassed to have one source: I’m embarrassed that something I wrote might not be worthy of a reply. If people do not want to engage with me, I will have to take that as some kind of lesson. But these pronunciations do not naturally belong in articles about Spain, not when the pronunciation in the nearest variety of English does correspond more exactly to the Spanish. What I would say about gəˈlɪʃən is predictable: it’s much more common for the fact that there are two of them, and very many dictionaries don’t distinguish this. Don’t take this as evidence: you have to be looking for this, and also to care about it. I will save you some trouble and say I do. Tell me a reason gəˈlɪʃən should be in the article, over gəˈlɪθiən, or ˈmɜrθiən, or vəˈlɛnθiən? These are not learned pronunciations, they are simply well understood in the UK. If you’re dealing with Spain it will not do to pass over them. I’m looking for some assurance that my edit won’t be reverted by people desperate to say they don’t care about it anyway. Gherkinmad (talk) 23:07, 29 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Gherkinmad: I hope I haven't been treating you as an idiot, and I think I understand what you've been saying. The point that I haven't seen you prioritizing is the requirement for reliable sources for what goes in the article, and the comparative irrelevance of my, your, or any editor's personal opinion or perception—especially about language, which is notoriously subject to perception bias. If there's a dictionary (not a corpus of text, which has different criteria) that establishes "gəˈlɪθiən", then fine: put it in there among the other pronunciations supported by major dictionaries. As I said earlier, I'm not even fussed about the order in that case: if one of the dictionaries describes it as the primary pronunciation, put it first. I can't make assurances for the actions of any other editors, obviously, but this has been what I've been trying to say from the beginning. Your last edit, however, removed the other pronunciations and their citations, which is a different action, and pretty clearly didn't have consensus on the talk page at the time you did it.
@Nitpicking polish: Thank you, what I did not do was leave an edit summary. But I think the edit and the explanation (clarification) I gave were clear enough. Why are you so mistrustful of the empirical? This is as clear-cut to me as I would wish it. As soon as I can list UK pronunciations for Idaho towns for who has to know why, you are free to keep ‘gəˈlɪʃən’ in place. But I would laugh rather than invoke my tenuous right to. It may be well-known to you that the British travel frequently to Spain, and have done now for at least three decades. There is precious little room for ambiguity in their pronunciation of Spanish place-names. Barcelona will remain Barselona from prior acquaintance with that city. But Murcia, Valencia and Galicia have all been ‘-θiə’ for quite long enough now in UK speech, and quite earnestly I can’t think of an American who would seriously make a point of speaking differently with reference to the peninsular. Let no-one say this is irrelevant to the article.
You really think I give no thought for sources. Indeed I said as much, before I knew who I was talking to, or how they’d respond. ‘I don’t know, on the whole, I might try...’ What is this? I’m here to tell a Belgian and North American they’re missing a trick. ‘Gəˈlɪʃən’ may be, is in fact, a North American pronunciation, as far as all my empirical is able to tell me. I’m asking you to be aware of this, and not to take me for a damn fool, at least you didn’t. The silence was a better lesson than strenuous capitalisation, and I was not in the mood for witless post facto third party responses. But I have a bit more to back me up than (only!) the OED, thanks a lot. ‘Gəˈlɪʃən’ is absolutely not staying in the article as a testament to the importance of sourced content. I would feel no qualms at all about removing the pronunciation for my own sound reasons. Gherkinmad (talk) 00:55, 10 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Gherkinmad: Your "own sound reasons" are original research, and by that guideline simply don't belong on Wikipedia. It doesn't even matter if you're right, if it can't be documented from reliable sources. Wikipedia is not the repository of all that is right and true. I'm not taking you for a "damn fool". I'm trying to talk to you as someone who wants to follow the guidelines of the site you're editing. Nitpicking polish (talk) 15:53, 29 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Nitpicking polish: A wearying explanation is a wearying explanation. What I don’t understand is you know I’m not conjuring it out of the air. It may be one source, does that have to be a problem? Must it be? That’s going to be the case too often in practice for it to be a barrier to revision of a page. I said to Mr KEBAB that ‘the only place I know it will be listed is in the OED.’ The word ‘merely’ doesn’t seem to me to apply in such a statement. I’m sorry it shouldn’t be in five dictionaries, but not truthfully surprised, and it doesn’t make me reflect that I might be mistaken. It’s accounted for. I’m not in the cut and thrust, but I’ve been editing for long enough. I can’t ‘go and be right somewhere else’ when the revision I want to make pertains to this site and the people who consult it. Gherkinmad (talk) 03:21, 30 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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Pronunciation of local name[edit]

If the page on IPA for Galician is to be believed, Galician /o/ (along with /u/ and /ɔ/) is reduced to [ʊ] in word-final position, meaning that the pronunciation should be either [ɡaˈleɣʊ], or indeed /ɡaˈlego/. saɪm duʃan Talk|Contribs 09:20, 20 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That might be true for some dialects, but not for standard pronunciation CadavoBis (talk) 03:49, 25 May 2019 (UTC)CadavoBis[reply]

Merger of "classification" and "ortography"[edit]

Hi all fellow Wikipedians,

I was reviewing the article and I just noticed there are two sections ("Classification" and "Ortography") talking about the same topics: relationship with Portuguese, reintegrationism, ortography and political overtones. I propose to merger them and change "Ortography" to a subsection of "relationship with Portuguese", making the article more tidy and the flow of information more organic. Please let me know about your view about this idea.

CadavoBis (talk) 03:42, 25 May 2019 (UTC)CadavoBis[reply]

Also, this paragraph doesn't belong in the introduction:

"The language is officially regulated in Galicia by the Royal Galician Academy. Other organisations without institutional support, such as the Galician Association of Language and the Galician Academy of the Portuguese Language, include Galician as part of the Portuguese language, as the Galician-Portuguese variant."

The regulating body is already in the infobox, and the page of other similar languages (Catalan, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German) does not include the regulating body in the first section of the article. This information should be moved to one of the subtopics.

CadavoBis (talk) 03:47, 25 May 2019 (UTC)CadavoBis[reply]

Erroneous use of tilde in Grammar section[edit]

A tilde is ~. An acute accent is ´, which is what is described in:

"The "tilde" (´) is a small line written over some vowels to show in some cases which syllable carries the accent, "paspallás" (quail), "móbil" (mobile) "cárcere" (jail, gaol).

The tilde has some other functions. Sometimes the tilde is written to show that there is not a diphthong among two vowels which happen to be alongside one another within the same word "aínda" (yet). If the tilde ..." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.144.51.216 (talk • contribs)

Removal of claim with dubious linguistic content.[edit]

I've removed the sentences, just added:

Although currently referred to as Galician-Portuguese, until the 14th Century it was Galician, as the Portuguese language only comes into existence in that period. The Portuguese language developed from Galician.

This sentence doesn't really make sense from a linguistic perspective. "Galician-Portuguese" is the term used for the common ancestor or modern Galician and modern Portuguese, this is just a name. You can meaningfully claim that "Galician-Portuguese" was called, at the time, "Galician". e.g.

Although currently referred to as Galician-Portuguese, until the 14th Century it was referred to simply as Galician.

You can also meaningfully claim that Galician-Portuguese is more similar to modern Galician than it is to modern Portuguese. e.g.

Although currently referred to as Galician-Portuguese, Portuguese has undergone more change since the 14th century than Galician, making Galician-Portuguese more similar to modern Galician than modern Portuguese.

There are yet more meaningful claims that can be made about these relationships, however the sentence, as it has been removed, currently isn't making a claim about the features of the languages. It seems to be a unsubstantiated quibble about terminology. And regardless of what was intended, it is much more akin to nationalist claims that "Our language is the legitimate one! That language they speak next door is a bastard tongue!" than anything with linguistic content.

If we are going to reintroduce some form of this claim, it should be specific and, very importantly, properly cited. I have no citations in mind for the example sentences I have provided, they may even be factually false. AquitaneHungerForce (talk) 20:35, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There is a very common idea among Spanish Philologists, according to which all modern Iberian Romance languages originated in the northernmost area of Spain and then travelled south, as if they were falling on the map. Needless to say, that idea is preposterous. --Jotamar (talk) 00:16, 10 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
First, I absolutely agree with removing that sentences; I just want to point a pair of facts:
  • The first international mention to Galician-Portuguese, as a language of culture, is recorded in 1290, in the Regles de trobar of the Catalan Jofre de Froixà, where it is simply called gallego: «si tu vols far un cantar en frances, no·s tayn que y mescles proençal ne cicilia, ne gallego, ne altre lengatge que sia strayn a aquell» (cf. Pär Larson, La lingua delle «cantigas». Grammatica del galego-portoghese).
  • In the region of Coimbra, in northern central Portugal, there is a Mozarabic (i.e. non-Portuguese) substrate in toponymy, cf. TOPONÍMIA MOÇÁRABE NO ANTIGO CONDADO CONIMBRICENSE. Coimbra was "reconquested" in 878 and repopulated with Galicians, according to chronicles; we knew the name of one of his early bishops post conquest: Nausti, who was buried back in Galicia, in Trobe near Santiago de Compostela, where we have his tombstone and epitaph (cf. here). During the 9th and 10th centuries southern Galicia and northern Portugal were heavily settled with people that came from central and northern Galicia: cf. Paulo Martinez Lema, Ad Populandum: toponímia e repovoamento no sul da Galiza alto-medieval. Froaringus (talk) 09:30, 14 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Jotamar: Like in the animated map at Iberian Romance languages § Origins and development? Why should that be "preposterous"? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 02:13, 18 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Florian Blaschke: First, there is no real solid evidence about where the modern Iberian Romances were born. For example, the theory about Castilian/Spanish being born around the city of Burgos or in some other center-of-north peninsular area is based on a number of old documents written in latín romanceado, i.e. a form of medieval Latin with some obvious influences from Romance, however those documents, from about the 10th century, only exist for northern Spain (Central Spain was under Arab/Muslim rule), so what could they possibly prove? Notice that the first documents written in Castilian proper, rather than Latin, are from central-southern Spain (Toledo), from about the 12th century. Second, the main idea about the dialects of Northern Spain advancing south and entirely replacing the local forms of Romance is that the winning side (i.e. the northern Christian kingdoms) imposes its language and culture on the conquered territories, however this conception, that has been repeated uncritically for more than one century, ignores the findings of modern Sociolinguistics, which shows that when mutually intelligible linguistic varieties meet each other, complex processes of Koineization take place, and the result is hardly ever just one variety replacing the other. --Jotamar (talk) 22:28, 18 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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