In the town of Hermisende that squats right on the borders of Zamora (Leonese speaking), Galicia (Galician speaking) and and Portugal (Portuguese speaking), a very strange dialect called Porteño is spoken. It is referred to as either Portuguese or Galician. It also has substantial Leonese influences. The best analysis seems to be that this is a Galician dialect with heavy Portuguese influences and substantial Leonese influences. However, in the comments below the video, a commenter says, “This is not Galician. If it soudns like anything, it sounds more like Portuguese from the 1800’s.”
There are a number of villages in the municipality and they all speak this dialect. Any village’s lect is similar to whichever monolingual village is closest. If the village is closest to a Galician-speaking village, the speech is more Galician. If it is closest to a Leonese-speaking village, the talk is more Leonese. And if it is closer to a Portuguese-speaking village, the speech is more Portuguese.
The Galicians are trying to claim this town as a Galician-speaking town as per current Galician politics. Political Galicianism is trying to claim as many areas outside of Galicia as possible as part of the Galician-speaking world. They have claimed much of the Bierzo region in Leon, although Berciano is probably not a Galician dialect, and it may be more Leonese. Berciano is a Leonese-Galician transitional dialect, but in most places it looks more Leonese than Galician. Even in the supposedly Galician-speaking part of the zone such as the city of Cacabelos, Berciano speakers say that when they go to Galicia, they are not understood.
They are also claiming Eonavian on the borders of the Asturian and Galician speaking areas, although the all but the elderly Eonavian speakers say they cannot really understand Galician. This is because they do not have much exposure to the language and also their Eonavian is heavily Castillianized. This seems to have originally been a dialect of Galician transitional to Asturian (note that older speakers can understand Galician), but it now changing into an independent language.
They do claim the Fala spoken in Caceres, Spain, and in fact, this is a Galician dialect with Leonese and Old Castillian influences.
The Galicianists are also trying to claim Senabrian Leonese. Senabrian is a Western Leonese dialect with heavy Galician influence, however, it is not intelligible with Galician.
And now it appears that the Galicianists are trying to claim Porteño. Hermisende is interesting because the southern part of the municipality speaks Eastern Porteño and the northern part speaks Central Porteño. Rather odd to have two dialects spoken in the same place.
The announcer at the beginning is speaking “TV Galician.” Many Spaniards say they are able to understand this speech well. However, this is sort of a fake Galician that is heavily Castillianized. I can actually understand quite a bit of the first announcer myself with some Spanish background. Then we move on the Porteño speakers. We meet a few of them, and they all speak a very different fala than the announcer speaks. In fact, I did not really understand what they were saying. At the end, we move on to a professor of Galician who seems to speak a harder Galician. I found him a lot harder to understand than the first announcer.
If you speak Spanish or Portuguese, check out this video and tell me how much you can understand of each:
TV Galician announcer at the start.
Porteño speakers.
Harder Galician speaking professor at the end.
