Reintegrationism

Reintegrationism (Galician and reintegracionismo; rejnteɣɾaθjoˈnizmʊ, -asjo-, ʁɛĩtɨɣɾɐsjuˈniʒmu) is the linguistic and cultural movement in Galicia which advocates for the unity of Galician and Portuguese as a single language. In other words, the movement postulates that Galician and Portuguese languages not only shared a common origin and literary tradition, but that they are in fact variants of the same language even today. According to this, Galicia should re-integrate into the Community of Portuguese Language Countries. The opposite view holds that Portuguese and Galician should be viewed as distinct languages, which is called Isolationism. There are two main views in Galicia about the Galician language: The isolationist considers Galician and Portuguese to be two distinct languages, although they are closely related. Isolationists favour differentiated rules of writing and spelling between Galician and Portuguese. In this fashion, Galician spelling follows the model of Spanish orthography and its own traditional conventions, which converge with it in some aspects. This view is held by the majority of public and Government organizations. Its standard norm, the "NOMIGa", is elaborated by the Real Academia Galega (Royal Galician Academy) and the Instituto da Língua Galega (Institute for Galician Language). Among other criteria, isolationism argues that since the majority of the Galician population was educated in Spanish only (as official use of Galician was forbidden for centuries, especially in Francoist Spain), it is easier to create a Galician written norm which is closer to Spanish, therefore more "familiar", regardless of other considerations. It is also alleged that since the Spanish language had such a vast influence in modern Galician its contribution should not be simply disregarded. This influence is noticeable in some aspects of Galician phonetics and colloquial speech. The reintegrationist view considers Galician to be a variant of a shared Galician-Portuguese linguistic diasystem, as evidenced by the common origin, grammar, syntax, vocabulary, morphology and overall high level of mutual intelligibility.