Portuguese-Galician

The Portuguese-Galician (in Portuguese and Galician is known as Galaico-PortuguÃÂÃÂªs) was a Iberian Romance language, spoken in the Middle Ages, in the western area of the Iberian Peninsula. It came via Vulgar Latin. The language was spoken, at first, from the Cantabric Sea to Douro River. But it extended south with the Portuguese Reconquista.

The Portuguese-Galician had a especial cultural role in the Christian kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula and the literature it produced is a proof of that. You can compare it to the role of Occitan in the Mediterranean coast.

The three Portuguese-Galician medieval lyrics compositions remaining are:

Cancioneiro de Ajuda
Cancioneiro de Vaticana
Cancioneiro Colocci-Brancutti (or Biblioteca Nacional)

Some known poets were: Bernardo de Bonaval, Arias Nunes, Pedro da Ponte, Pero Amigo. At first and until 1350, Portuguese-Galician was the only known and standart written native language in the Christian Peninsula. The Castilian king Alfonso X, compose his Cantigas in Portuguese-Galician, his favourite language for poetry. The Portuguese king, Diniz also fell in love with his language, he wrote his Cantigas and declared Portuguese has a Official language in 1290. Until then Classical Latin was the official language of Portugal. Then, the spoken language had not a name, was simply known as LÃÂÃÂngua Vulgar (Vulgar language or Vulgar Latin). The term Portuguese-Galician is from today's point of view, the language was not named Galego and Portuguese is not derived from Galego, what is sometimes said in Spain. Today's Galicia is the smaller northern portion of old Galicia that did not became independent with the rest, in spite of efforts from the early Portuguese kings. The most important (at the time) Galician cities became independent with Portugal (Braga and Oporto), with the exception of Santiago de Compostela. Galego (as a language) only came to exist in the 19th century and turned co-official, in Spain, in late 20th century.

This language had it's maximum expression in the final years of the 12th century until the 14th century in Spain. But it continued to expansion via Portugal's discoveries. Since 1400, the Portuguese-Galician lost its unity when Castilian authorities prohibited the use of the language and the Galician version of the language became influenced by Spanish, what is still happening today. The language was preserved because those who speak it were rural people or never went to school, where Spanish was taught. The language only became officially recognized in Spain in late 20th Century, but it was heavily repressed till then.

The linguistic division (or not) of both languages is discussed until today; there are those (mostly Galician and Portuguese philologists and some Galician nationalists) who demand the reunification of the language.

The Galician version of the language is known to be in danger of extinction, while the Portuguese continues to grow in use, and today is the sixth most spoken language in the entire world.

Portuguese-Galician is also known as (part of) Old Portuguese.