Henrique Monteagudo
idiomatic conscience difficult of exaggerating, because gave to the Galician language historic deepness and cloud it of cultural prestige. Nevertheless, the image of the language became deeply, at least in the eyes of the erudites and the cultest sectors: the humble popular language became suddenly praised aristocratic language. In the other hand, the discovering of the medieval literature reproached the notion, until then a little clouded, of a common origin of the Galego and the Portuguese, different to the Spanish. An essential identity of the Galego and the Portuguese will be useful as a powerful argument to the people in favor of the promotion of the Galego, basically for two reasons. First, the diverse historic fortune of the Portuguese (official fully developed language) and of the Galego, highlighted that the deep depression of this one was not due to any intrinsic lack of the language (today, this argument would sounded absurd or even ridiculous but then it was paid attention) but the historic circumstances; therefore, a decadence was reversible, provided the circumstantial factors provoked were modified. Second, the origin identity of the Galego and the Portuguese allowed project a common destiny so that the Galego would pass from being a provincial dialect to be an international movement language. Therefore, a Galician-Portuguese fraternity and the joint of the Galego in the Portuguese communication field became form a part of the core of the pro-Galician project. Manuel Murguía, the historian and ideologist who formulated in a sensible theory of the Galician identity in the 19th century keys,
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was also the main prompter of the language change into the main sign of that identity. His positions regarding this are developed in different places (in the first volume of his dawning Historia de Galicia, 1866) but in the Parliament, in the grand opening of the Tui floral games expressed them with an eloquent isolated strength: ¡O noso idioma! O que falaron os nosos pais e imos esquencendo, o que falan os aldeáns e nos achamos a punto de non entender; aquel en que cantaron reis e trobadores; o que, fillo maior da patria galega, nola conservou e conserva como un don da providencia; o que aínda ten nos nosos labres as dozuras eternas e acentos que van ao corazón; o que agora oídes coma se fose un himno relixioso. O fermoso, o nobre idioma que do outro lado [do Miño] é lingua oficial que serve a máis de vinte millóns de homes e ten unha literatura representada polos nomes gloriosos de Camoens e Vieira, de Garret e de Herculano; o galego, enfin, que é o que nos dá dereito á enteira posesión da terra en que fomos nados, que nos di que pois somos un pobo distinto, debemos selo; que nos promete o porvir que procuramos, e nos dá a certeza de que ha de ser fecundo en bens para todos. Nel, coma en vaso sagrado en que se axuntan todos os perfumes, áchanse os principais elementos da nosa nacionalidade, de novo negada e aínda máis, escarnecida. [....] Lingua distinta di o aforismo político- acusa distinta nacionalidade. Digámolo nós tamén, se nos cómpre, con maior firmeza aínda, e poñamos de nós o que faga falla para que sexa para sempre esta lingua en consonancia co noso espírito. (Discurso nos Xogos Florais de Tui, 1891).