Galicia, gallego and the wider world.

I was talking with some friends the other day when one of them told me that he had seen some footage on the TV news of the recent snow in the United Kingdom. ¡Impresionante! He was equally impressed by the VERY low temperatures. And then he went on to tell me that, of course, it is much harder to aguantar (put up with, withstand) the cold here in Galicia as it is much more humid. Hay mucha humedad.

This is also, by the way, what my sister says when she tries to convince me that winters in the Cádiz region of Andalucía are very hard!Mind you, this year their region has had more than just humedad; they’ve had a prodigious amount of rain.

Getting back to the humedad here in Vigo, a Peruvian in our little group had a minor explosion at that point. “¡Humedad!” he spluttered, “¡Tú no sabes lo que es la humedad!” He proceeded to tell us about the humidity in Peru. However, another gallego in our party was not convinced. Galicia’s humedad bears no comparison. In fact, the rivers of Galicia are also superior to anything Peru can offer: the Amazon, a mere stream!

It was all very good-natured, of course, so I gave in to the temptation to ask him about Galicia being the centre of the universe. Of course it is, he told me and went on to inform me that Vigo is, naturally, the centre of Galicia and his house is the centre of Vigo. So there we are; I have finally got one of them to admit it: Galicia es el centro del universo.

Further proof, of course, is in the newspapers. One of the local papers has an occasional column called Gallegos en la Cima. La cima means the top, the peak. So you get the idea: “Galicians at the top”, or “Galicians on top of the world”. The latest I saw featured Eva Díaz Rodríguez, a young lady from O(u)rense who has been working for a couple of years as a lectora in the Sapienza University in Rome, teaching gallego, one of about 30 involved in such activities in universities around the world.

Eva and her fellow ex-patriate gallego teachers admit to fearing that they are teaching to foreigners a language that is losing speakers in its own country. (I am reminded of people I know in Manchester who have learnt Welsh purely out of interest, not because they really need it in order to visit Wales or for employment purposes.)

That concern about the reduction in the number of gallego speakers is at the moment echoed by many teachers here who are threatening to strike because of the decision to promote plurilingüismo instead of bilinguismo in schools. Many fear that lots of children will fall between two stools, learning neither English nor Gallego to a halfway decent level. Maybe they will all have to be sent out of the country to learn to speak it!

However, Eva does boost the tourist industry by sending her students off to visit Galicia where she says they all end up comprando literatura en gallego. Hmmm, I hope they are directed to the good stuff because I have a sneaky suspicion that some things are published because they are written in gallego rather than because they are good literature.

And finally, I have read in today’s Faro de Vigo that there is a move to make doormen for discos and clubs pass a test before they can be given the job. They will have to undergo a psychological assessment and be able to demonstrate their knowledge and proficiency in the local languages, castellano and gallego. No plurilingüismo in that area then, at least not yet!