Galician and law
Galician, the vernacular of Galicia, is together with Spanish the official
language of the Galician Community. Legal recognition of this status was
granted only recently and was parallel to the re-establishment of democracy in the Spanish state as a whole.
The Law for Linguistic Standardisation passed unanimously in the Spanish
Parliament on 15 June 1983 develops the statutory mandate and covers the
rights of the citizens to use the Galician language, with special application
to the fields of administration, education and the media.
After the promulgation of this Law, further regulations were passed to complete
the legal framework and to ensure the full recovery of the use of the Galician
language in local administration, the judiciary, the armed forces, etc.
As a result of the creation of this legal framework, any communication in
the local language with the various administrative bodies acting in Galicia
is valid for all purposes, all place names are given in Galician only, the
autonomous and local administration is under the obligation to write its
official documents in Galician, the Galician language was introduced into
education from the primary level and the promotion of Galician is guaranteed
wherever there are nuclei of emigrants and in the areas bordering the Autonomous Community.
Over the past years significant advances have been made in the standardisation of Galician although problems have arisen owing to the inevitable difficulties involved in the application of the concept of two official languages.
The law on Language Normalization states that all public bodies are responsible for ensuring the normal usage of the Galician language. |
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Present legal framework states that: Galician is Galicia's own language.
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