About Galician

Galician is a Romance language spoken in the autonomous community of Galicia in northwestern Spain. It shares common origins with Portuguese, both descending from Medieval Galician-Portuguese, which was a prestigious literary language in the Middle Ages. Today approximately one million people speak Galician.

Galician uses the Latin alphabet and has co-official status alongside Spanish in Galicia. The language experienced centuries of decline under Castilian dominance but has seen a revival since the late 20th century through education and media promotion. An interesting fact is that Galician-Portuguese troubadour poetry from the 12th and 13th centuries represents one of the earliest literary traditions in any Romance language.