English and Galician in the Middle Ages - Publicaciones ...

Revista Estudios Ingleses 17 (2004)
which the Roman Empire was fragmented triggered off the
existence of several dialectal varieties that later turned into
related languages. In this case more than in the preceding
one geographic proximity had a predominant role.
In England as well as in Galicia the fi rst diglossic communities
developed between English and Latin. The second step
encompassed a shared diglossia with English and Latin or
French. This “double overlapping diglossia” (Fasold, 1990:
44) began to disappear when English began to be used in
formal style replacing Latin and French. This explanation can
also be applied to Galician. History shows a similar process
of “double overlapping diglossia”: Latin was fi rst used for written
records, later Castilian. It was not until the last quarter of
the 20 th century that Galician began to be introduced in offi cial
circles.
Authors generally admit the existence of diglossia in Galicia,
but they debate on its characteristics and peculiarities. Rojo
(1981: 148) calls it “confl ictive diglossia” because the codifi ed
uses of both languages are not assumed by the community.
Álvarez Cáccamo (1983) criticises this defi nition by explaining
how redundant the term ‘confl ictive’ is. Diglossia is confl ictive
by nature, unless the two languages involved are perfectly
distinguished and functionally or socially divergent. Since this
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