The Valley of Xálima and its Language

The valley of Xamila is a natural region in the north-east of Extremadura in the enclave of the Sierra de Gata. It has three areas, Valverdi du Fresnu, As Ellas and Sa Martin de Trevellu with a population of over 5000 inhabitants. It still conserves a Romance language classified under the subgroup Galician-Portuguese. It is know by different names, the Xalima language, the Three Places language, Our language, Xalimegan, Valegan and Galician-Extremaduran. It is thought that its origin lies in the Middle Ages in the re populationnn of the reconquered lands of the Muslims by the Kingdom of Leon by Galicians (or Galician-Portuguese) More than 90% of the inhabitants in the Xaliman Valley normally speak in their language ,it being the minority language spoken by the biggest percentage of people in Europe. Certain peculiarities of speech are found in each place, calling themselves Valverdeuri in Valverdi, Mañegu in Sa Martin and Largerteivu in As Ellas. The total number of speakers could reach 10,000 taking into account the emigrants that still use it. The linguistic base of Xalimengu is Galacian - Portuguese as presented in many features of Exrtemeñan (a variant being Asturian-Leonese) Unfortunately the institutional support it has is practically nil,even though it is a truly linguistic treasure and a high percentage of people still maintain it as their own language.