Work & Activities

Since 2008 he has been directing the courses on Galician language and culture for foreign people and Spanish people outside Galicia, organized by the Galician Academy, the Institute of Galician language of the USC and the Department of Linguistic Policy of the Xunta de Galicia.

He was a visitor Professor at the University of California in Santa Bárbara, gave postgraduate seminars at the Universities of Lisbon and Évora and was invited to give lectures about the situation of the modern Galician language at the University Centre of New York and European universities like Lisbon, Braga, Évora, Heidelberg, Trier and Berlin. He also participated with reports about problems of Galician language in conferences in Galician and abroad (Trier, Miranda do Douro, Cáceres, Ávila, Cagliari/Casteddu, Salamanca, Kiel, Paris, Oxford, etc)

He is a member of the Galician Academy (he entered the Academy on 25th September 1999), vice-president of the institution (2010) and director of the Seminar on Sociolinguistics (2011).

He is a member of the Patronage of Sotelo Blanco Foundation. Anthropology Museum (1995) and the Patronage of the Museo do Pobo Galego (1998) as well as honourable member of the Consello d’a Fabla Aragonesa (1999). He was a member of the plenary meeting of the Consello da Cultura Galega (1999-2007), representing the Institute of Galician Language of the USC.

He was one of the founders of Escola Aberta (1978) for the promotion and spreading of Galician language and culture, and the Association of Galician Translators (1984). He also participated in the creation of Redes Escarlata (2001) and ProLingua (2009), the platform in favour of the defence and promotion of Galician language. Since 1990 he has been secretary of the editorial staff of A Trabe de Ouro. Publicación galega de pensamento and member of the scientific committee of several linguistic publications (Cadernos de lingua, Estudos de Lingüística Galega, Un mundo, muchas miradas - Mundu bat, begirada anitz…) and advisor of the editorial staff of Luenga e Fablas.

He has been a researcher of the Institute of Galician Language since 1974 and takes part in the team that is writing the Atlas Lingüístico Galego. He coordinated the following volumes: I Morfoloxía verbal (1990, Critic Prize in 1991), IV Léxico. Tempo atmosférico e cronolóxico (2003) and VI Terra. Plantas e árbores (in press). He participated in the collection of the material of the Galician domain of the Atlas Linguarum Europae and the Atlas Lingüístico de España y Portugal.

He collaborated in the writing of Bases prá unificación das normas lingüísticas do galego (1977), the starting point of the Normas ortográficas e morfolóxicas do idioma galego (1982) of the ILG and the RAG. As a member of the ILG, he participated in the amplified edition of this book (15th ed., December 1996) and in the proposal of the agreement of 2001 that the ILG and the Galician Philology departments of A Coruña, Santiago and Vigo presented to the plenary meeting of the Galician Academy. He was on the commission of the ‘Mesa prá Defensa del Galego de Asturias y de la Cultura da Comarca’ that wrote Normas ortográficas e morfolóxicas del galego de Asturias (1990).

He coordinated and organized the conferences on Galician and other minority Romance languages (Sardinian, Occitan and Asturian) and wrote articles about Galician language in different magazines (Verba, Revista de Filología Románica, Lexikon der Romanistischen Linguistik, Revista Portuguesa de Filologia, Britonia. Revista de Estudios da Terra Navia-Eo, Estudios bercianos, Grial, A Trabe de Ouro…).

He is a joint author of the entry “Galego” in Gran Enciclopedia Gallega (1980) and Enciclopedia Galega Universal (2003).

Regarding varieties of oral Galician language, he published Dialectoloxía da lingua galega (Antón Losada Diéguez Research Prize, 1990) and the audiobook A Nosa Fala. Bloques e áreas lingüísticas do galego (1996), in joint publication with Carme Hermida, which can be consulted in the web in www.consellodacultura.org/arquivos/asg/anosafala.php He directs the ‘Archivo del Gallego Oral’ http://ilg.usc.es/ago/, which is an oral text bank to make a thematic atlas of Galician language.

He also analysed the position of Galician language in the map of Romance languages and the standardization problems: “Posición do galego entre as linguas románicas” (1988), “A 'questione della lingua ga1ega'” (1991), “La place de la langue galicíenne dans les clasifications traditionnelles de la Romania et dans les classifications standardalogiques récentes” (1993), “A posición do galego, lingua románica reemerxente” (1996), “A proposta de acordo normativo do 2001. Notas e documentos sobre a questione della lingua galega” (2001) and “A creación do Instituto da Lingua Galega en 1971 e o desencontro normativo coa Academia” (2008).

He wrote about the construction of the literary Galician language in “A elaboración do galego moderno. Contribución da traducción galega de I promessi sposi de Manzoni a este proceso” (1998), Ramón Cabanillas, Manuel Antonio e o mar de Arousa. Dúas singraduras na construcción dun idioma para unha patria (speech for the admission in the Galician Academy in 1999), “Cabanillas e a arela dunha lingua nacional (2001), “A lingua medieval e a súa importancia na elaboración do galego moderno” (2001), “Moita costa, pouco mar: o léxico mariñeiro e a construcción do estándar galego” (2003), “O mar e a poesía galega. Singraduras na construcción da patria da lingua” (2003) and “A elaboración do galego literario moderno e a contribución d’O atraso económico de Galicia a este proceso” (2011).

He analysed the role of political and union organizations and the official institutions in the modern process of social revival of Galician language in these articles: “Estado actual da normalización da lingua galega na Universidade” (1988), “Nacionalismo e dignificación da lingua galega no período 1972 1980” (1990), "Contribución das organizacións políticas á normalización da lingua galega (1963 1989)" and “A contribución ao proceso de normalización lingüística de partidos políticos, sindicatos, institucións e asociacións que desenvolven o seu labor na cidade da Coruña. I. A reivindicación da lingua galega nas décadas de 1960 e 1970” (2005).

Since the late 80’s he has participated in conferences and congresses carried out in Galicia, Oviedo, Eo-Navia, El Bierzo and Salamanca, and analysed the problems of the situation of the border Galician language. About this subject, he published Lingua e cultura galega de Asturias (1994) and a great deal of articles as for example “A situación do galego nas comarcas occidentais de Asturias, León e Zamora” (2003) in the report O proceso de normalización do idioma galego 1980-2000 published by the Consello da Cultura Galega. He also wrote “As falas de Xálima e a súa relación coa lingua galega” (2000) about the Galician language spoken in Cáceres.

Regarding the situation of the minority Romance languages, he published the following articles: “As linguas románicas minorizadas e o seu futuro na era da globalización” (2003), “Minorización lingüística na Unión Europea: a situación do galego” (2003), “Plurilingüismo y contacto de lenguas en la Romania europea” (2007), “Nacemento e recoñecemento de novas linguas románicas. Plurilingüismo e contacto na Romania europea” (2010) and the monograph Estudios de sociolingüística románica. Linguas e variedades minorizadas (1999) in joint publication with Antón Santamarina. He took interest in Aragonese (“El aragonés, lengua románica (re)emergente”, 1999), Sardinian (“Lingua, cultura e política en Sardeña. A sociedade e a lingua sarda nas Lettere dal carcere de Antonio Gramsci”, 1999) and the social and linguistic situation of the Italian Republic (“A situación das minorías étnico-lingüísticas da República Italiana”, 2001; “Italia: marco legal e situación lingüística”, 2003).

He has lately been taking an active part in the movement for the revival and socialization of the Galician and Portuguese maritime and fluvial heritage, mainly with “Mascato” Ethnographic Group from Cambados and “Dorna” Cultural Association from Illa da Arousa.

He cofounded Ardentía. Revista Galega de Cultura Marítima e Fluvial (2004-) and is the president of the organizing commission of the Seventh Meeting of Galician Traditional Boats (Cambados, July 2005), vice-president of the Galician Federation for Marine and Fluvial Culture (2005-2007) and organizer (with Luís Rei and Pepe Barro) of the exhibition about Galicia, the sea and the marine heritage of the Fête Maritime Internationale (Brest 11-17th July 2008).

He formed part of the technical team of the exhibition ‘Patrimonio do vento e do sal: embarcacións tradicionais de Galicia’ (2007), organized by the Galician Sport Foundation and the Galician Federation for Marine and Fluvial Culture. He also gave lectures in conferences and congresses about the sea and the Galicia marine culture and published a great deal of books about the sea in Galician literature, the marine lexicon and heritage: “O mar na obra literaria de Ramón Cabanillas” (2000), “O mar na literatura galega: ondas, ventos, illas, ribeiras e vagallóns” (2001), “Noso é o remo e o adival. Mar e léxico do mar en Avilés de Taramancos” (2003), “Andisías e rutías: mar de mar e mar de vento na Arousa e na Costa da Morte” (2004),“A memoria daquel Cambados mariñeiro, fidalgo e soñador” (2005), “Cardumes, barrías e manchas de peixe en galego e portugués” (2005), “Fálame de barcos. Apontamentos para un catálogo (I)” (2005; in collaboration with Emilio X. Ínsua and Luís Rei), “No mar todo se move: áreas léxicas na nomenclatura da fauna marítima da Gallaecia” (2007), “O patrimonio léxico da xente dos mares de Galicia” (2007), “Galicia e o seu patrimonio marítimo-fluvial na Festa Marítima Internacional Brest 08” (2008), “Non fondeaban cadáveres, fondeaban semente. A elexía de Heriberto Bens ‘Ós líderes mariñeiros que fuxiron na dorna e morreron no Atlántico, lonxe do terror’” (2008) and “Cheira a resina, fiúncho e marusía. A paisaxe do mar da Arousa na poesía de Ramón Cabanillas” (2009).