Galician

Galician (galego) is a Romance language spoken chiefly in Galicia in northwestern Spain, where it is co-official with Spanish, and also in neighboring areas and emigrant communities. Galician and Portuguese developed from the medieval Galician-Portuguese linguistic continuum, the language of a major lyric tradition including the cantigas, but their later political and cultural histories produced distinct modern standards. The official orthographic and morphological norms were jointly approved by the Royal Galician Academy and the Galician Language Institute in 1982 and later revised. Galician is used in administration, education, media, and literature, while everyday use varies substantially by age and locality. It remains widely understood and spoken, but declining intergenerational transmission, especially in urban settings and among younger people, is a central concern of current language policy.