The Secretary General of Linguistic Policy, Valentín García, and the president of the Royal Galician Academy (RAG), Víctor F. Freixanes, presented this morning the sixth edition of the Toponimízate program. We talk to you about the names of your land, which, within the framework of the Toponymy of Galicia and GeoArpad projects, initiated by the Xunta de Galicia and coordinated by the RAG, this autumn the dozen town councils of the four province of Galicia arrived. with a double purpose: to bring the public closer to the origin and meaning of the toponyms of their municipality and to find new collaborators on the Galicia Nominada platform, which allows citizens to contribute to the collection of toponyms and microtoponyms with risk of becoming lost.
Precisely about the Galicia Nominated application, the representative of the Department of Culture, Education, Vocational Training and Universities wants to highlight the support of the Xunta de Galicia, “because it is a project that crosses Galician borders, because the different Autonomous communities are in contact with us to be able to reproduce and involve their population as we do. In addition, Valentín García analyzed the numbers of this platform where, since its creation at the end of 2019, about 3,200 collaborators put together almost 70,000 microtoponyms, “which highlights the involvement of Galicians in the recovery of toponymy, a cause of pride for knots and a motivation to continue working in this field with projects like this .
For his part, the president of RAG emphasized that this program “seeks to involve all the agents of society, from the neighborhood to the educational centers, so that we can all recover our heritage and leave it as a legacy for those who follow us.”
The presentation event, which took place at the Luis Seoane Foundation in A Coruña, also included the technical coordinator of Galicia Nominated, the philologist of the Royal Galician Academy Vicente Feijóo, who will be in charge of the training actions. With new talks scheduled for this fall, Toponimízate now has 82 town halls to visit throughout its six editions.
Schedule and content of talks
The 12 municipalities that will achieve Toponimízate 2023 have a common characteristic: in none of them the work of the Toponymy of Galicia project has been completed, so an important part of the microtoponymy of their territory has not been collected. In addition, two of the 10 municipalities, Becerreá and Maceda, have not yet included any microtoponym in the Nominated Galicia application, which increases the urgency of conducting the harvest.
During the talks, Vicente Feijóo will focus on the toponymic richness that exists throughout the Galician territory and explain the meaning of the names of the parishes and villages of each municipality, where he will have collaboration with senior academic Gonzalo Navaza. Regarding the operation of Nominated Galicia, the public will learn how to use it to join the names of congostras, chousas or peñas as well as to record legends or other oral traditions linked to places.
The district of Friol, in Lugo, is the stage chosen for the opening of the campaign this week at 12:30 noon at the Centro Sociocultural. Then, Toponimízate 2023 will run between October and December in Becerreá, Vila de Cruces, Tui, Trasmiras, Padrón, Amoeiro, A Pobra do Brollón, Dumbría, Maceda, Ponte Caldelas and Narón.
The complete agenda of the times and places of the conferences can be consulted in the Culture agenda and the Galician Language Portal.
