Fala language

In the Middle Ages, mixed varieties of Portuguese and Leonese could be found along the border between Leon and Portugal, represented in texts such as the Foro de Castelo Rodrigo (13th century). Although there is no documentation on the colonization and repopulation of this area in the 13th century, there are several hypotheses of Galician citizens moving to protect the frontier against Muslims as a punishment imposed by the Leonese king, or the delivery of the territories to various military orders by Kings Alfonso IX and Fernando II.

In general, philologists in favor of the Galician theory support the hypothesis that the valley is an isolated region and, therefore, the Galician colonists maintain their way of speaking in a "pure" form because of the lack of external influences.

Then again, the valley is contiguous to the Portuguese border, making of it, a good candidate to be classified into the lands exchanged by Leon and Portugal, by the Treaty of Alcanices. During the reconquista, the bond have gained a snaky shape. The treaty was done to make it more straight forward, which broadly was achieved by delivering the Ribacoa to Portugal (Guarda, the ancient border post is now 40 Km Westwards of the new one), and receiving the lands Eastwards of the Erges-Tagus-Sever rivers, 180 Km of frontier delimitated by water-courses. The agreement among monarchs, didn't force the populations to a re-settlement, so a few have exchanged of country, not by their one will, but due to the treaty have entered into force.

A sample of the main toponymal forms used in the Fala de Xálima, shows the following feature:

• Valverde is a common place-denomination across Iberia and Italy, and found with some extra charateres in France. However the gentilic form Valverdeiro, looks like Portuguese of the kind "Brasileiro", a professional designation adopted to designated those from Brasil.
• Eljas is broadly an evolution of the name of the "rio Erges", the switch of the R by the L, is a common feature between Portuguese language and Spanish language, where the next G was transfored in I, which is acceptable in Spain. Then Elies, better understood as Elias, and because the Portuguese language transforms widely the LI sound in the LH, Elhas is the final configuration, where Ellas is the Spanish version of it.

A sign in Spanish and Fala in San Martín de Trevejo

On August 3, 1992, the association Fala i Cultura was founded, among its goals being the compilation of a common grammar (based on the Galician one) and the commemoration of u día da nosa fala (the day of our language) celebrated once a year from 1992 in Eljas, 1993 in Valverde and 1994 in San Martín.

It was not until 1998 that the first literary work in Fala was published: Seis sainetes valverdeiros, written by Isabel López Lajas and published in 1998 by Edicións Positivas (Santiago de Compostela). It was on this date that the Gabinete de Iniciativas Transfronterizas (Office of Cross-Border Initiatives) started to take interest in Fala and to promote its study, publishing in 1999 scientific works and celebrating in May a "Congress on A Fala".

On June 14, 2000, Fala was recognized by the Ministry of Culture of the Junta de Extremadura as Bien de Interés Cultural.[4] Nowadays, although the inhabitants of Jalama Valley can speak Spanish, most of them are bilingual because at home and in other activities outside school, they continue using the local language.