Can two languages coexist within the same community of speakers?

Resumo

This article analyzes the historic evolution of the linguistic situation in Galicia within the framework of a competition model between Galician and Spanish. The model, despite being a mathematical simplification of a complex socio-linguistic situation, calibrates its evolution with remarkable precision from the end of the 19th century onward. Indeed, in a generalization of the outcome, it shows that establishing a stable bilingual situation is possible and, contrary to prior theoretical predictions, that it does not imply the segregation within one territory of the two coexisting monolingual communities. We propose that the key determinant of the stability of bilingualism is a factor that defines the interlinguistic distance between the competing languages and which here is calculated for the binomial Galician-Spanish. Given the model’s positive results in describing a real situation such as the coexistence of Galician and Spanish in Galicia, the stability of the involved equations was exhaustively studied. The results led to enlightening conclusions on the possible outcomes of competition between the two languages, highlighting the fact that, based on a certain likeness between them, their coexistence becomes stable. In reference to the practical case that inspired this work, our study of stability allows the Galician-Spanish system to be situated within a wider context and, at the same time, suggests improved strategies for the safeguarding of both languages.