Galician is experiencing its worst moment: its use is losing strength among the younger generations. This is reflected in a report published by the Consello da Cultura Galega (CCG) that shows a significant loss of knowledge of Galician among those under 20 years of age. Galicia is the only community with a co-official language in which children and adolescents have lower levels of proficiency than adults.
The study, titled Competences and uses of co-official languages in Spain. Or Galician in comparative perspectiveshows that almost 93% of the population of Galicia understands Galician well. However, This figure drops worryingly among young peoplewho have lesser skills compared to the older ones. This contrasts with communities such as Catalonia or the Basque Country, where children and adolescents revitalize the use of their languages.
Fewer competent young people in Galicia
The report, prepared by the Galician Culture Observatory with data from the National Institute of Statistics (INE), compares the use of co-official languages in Galicia, Catalonia, Navarra, the Valencian Community, the Balearic Islands and the Basque Country. The Galician community It is the only one with a higher percentage of competent population in their language: 93% understand it well; 84% read it well; 83% speak it well and 73% write it well.
The study emphasizes that this situation of apparent “absolute advantage” must be “considered with caution” due to the nuances. And in the rest of the communities analyzed, the educational level “has a more intense impact on all linguistic skills”with a “uniform” progression in all aspects, especially in speech. However, in Galicia there is an exception.
The percentage of the population that considers they speak well Galician is lower at the highest educational level (84.2%) compared to the lowest (86.7%). The data show a clear difference in the linguistic skills of Galicians who are still at the age of compulsory training compared to schoolchildren from other communities.
In the autonomies subject to analysis, minors of school age ““they usually register the highest competencies”. But the study contrasts that in Galicia “the school population presents a negative differential” and is “the only community where this trend is observed.” “This pattern suggests a lower effectiveness of educational policies in reinforcing Galician, as opposed to the more positive impact on other communities,” he concludes.
An intergenerational loss
The study shows that there is an intergenerational loss in the ability to understand, speak, read or write in Galician. “Youth have lower skills than older generations, the opposite of what is observed in the rest of the communities with a co-official language, where the younger generations improve their levels of mastery of their own language,” he explains.
There is less implementation of the Galician language in areas such as work or school. The data show how the educational level “influences the use of languages differently” and Galicia stands out as a clear exception: “with the greatest use of Galician at the lowest educational levels.”
Regarding use, Galicia once again has a trend contrary to the rest of the communities analyzed. In general, Use increases among younger people. However, in the Galician community the opposite happens: young people are the ones who use it the least in their daily lives. Furthermore, its use decreases among people raised in this language as they move away from the family nucleus.
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