Dear Craig,

This speech sounds both interesting and important. Is it available on the web? If not, what's the best way to get hold of a copy?

Sharif 

-----Original Message-----
From: Galician Studies e-mail discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Craig Patterson
Sent: 06 December 2004 18:02
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [GALICIAN-STUDIES] Operative multilingualism - a way forward for the future?

I have finally got around to reading Víctor Freixanes' Induction Speech for the Real Academia Galega, given in late February 2004.

It is called 'Desafíos para un novo século: entre a trabe de ouro e a paxariña de Armenteira', and addresses as the title suggests many of the issues that have been discussed recently in this forum. It is extremely well written and incisive, nothing less than we would expect from a writer and thinker who has always sought to look ahead and examine the deeper issues affecting Galician culture, particularly where the media and the information age is concerned.

There was one point that Freixanes made that I found particularly interesting, and so I bring it to your attention to see what you may think and perhaps prompt some constructive discussion.

Freixanes argues towards the end of the speech (and I paraphrase) that the Galician citizen of this new century/millennium has easily at his or her disposal two vehicles of communication of enormous wealth: Castilian (a language he cites as also being 'Galician' for historical reasons and circumstance), which links Galicians to more than 300 million people, and Galician itself, 'irmán do portugués', which with a minimum effort can open up the Galician speaker to Lusofone speech communities which have the same potential as Castilian ones. Freixanes continues:

'Entendelo así, e avanzar con prudencia nesta dirección, coa sociedade detrás, informada, sen complexos, é un argumento de enorme utilidade e significación. Fronte ao monolinguismo idealista, fronto ao bilingüismo, insuficiente: multilingüismo operativo'. As well as for cultural creation and social relationships, Freixanes posits this new approach in terms of the great benefit it might bring to Galician commerce and the economy.

What do you think about this idea? Is it a practical way forward out of the current miasma, or does it fail to take into account the complex realities of inevitable diglossia and issues of cultural prestige (or lack of it) for one of the languages (inevitably Galician, for the foreseeable future...)? Is it a new, brilliant and insightful way to market the use of Galician, particularly by new generations of Galicians, or does it leave too much to chance and sociolinguistic whim?

Craig Patterson

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The GALICIAN-STUDIES discussion list is administered by the
Gonzalez-Millan Group for Galician Studies (GMGGS),
the English-language section of the Asociacion Internacional
de Estudios Galegos (AIEG). For more information
about these groups, please contact the list owners.

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