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

Revista Estudios Ingleses 17 (2004)
event changed the evolution of the vernaculars. Yet, they
would not follow the same path. Certain extra-linguistic factors
(social, linguistic resentment, low collective self-esteem,
vernacular literature, middle groups) would determine the differences
between them.
As for the behaviour of the different social strata, the nobility
and the Church would behave exactly in the same way in
both territories: French, Castilian and Latin were the codes
employed by them. The same would happen with those at the
lower extremes of the scale who were vernacular monolinguals.
The difference between England and Galicia lies in the
emergence of an English intermediate group that contributed
to the expansion of the mother tongue. The lack of this group
in Galicia implied social submission and language subordination
to Castilian speakers.
Hence, the situation that can be termed as language confl ict
lasted for around three centuries in England but for almost
seven centuries in Galicia. The sociolinguistic phenomena
of diglossia and bilingualism are present in both cases but
the different development in each community (as has already
been mentioned in section *2) would promote the beginning
of a normalisation process in English from the end of the 15 th
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