Galician is a language of the Western Ibero-Romance branch, spoken in Galicia, an autonomous community located in northwestern Spain, as well as in small bordering zones in the neighbouring autonomous communities of Asturias and Castile and León and in Northern Portugal.
Galician and Portuguese were, in medieval times, a single language which linguists call Galician-Portuguese, Medieval Galician, or Old Portuguese, spoken in the territories initi...
more
Galician is a language of the Western Ibero-Romance branch, spoken in Galicia, an autonomous community located in northwestern Spain, as well as in small bordering zones in the neighbouring autonomous communities of Asturias and Castile and León and in Northern Portugal.
Galician and Portuguese were, in medieval times, a single language which linguists call Galician-Portuguese, Medieval Galician, or Old Portuguese, spoken in the territories initially ruled by the medieval Kingdom of Galicia.
Historically, the Galician-Portuguese language originated in Galicia and Northern Portugal in lands belonging to the ancient Kingdom of Galicia (comprising the Roman Gallaecia) and branched out since the 14th century after the Portuguese expansion brought it southwards. There are linguists who consider Modern Galician and Modern Portuguese as dialects or varieties of the same language, but this is a matter of debate. For instance, in past editions of the Encyclopædia Britannica, Galician was...
less
