Galicia hands tourists free language guides

MADRID (Reuters) - Tourists heading for Galicia's green hills and beaches will be given phrasebooks to teach them some basics in Galician, one of many local languages spoken in Spain.

The handout by the regional government in the northwestern Spanish region will tell foreigners and fellow Spaniards how to ask for directions, order meals and chat to locals in Galician.

"As well as its own landscape and gastronomy, monuments and traditions, (Galicia) has its own language, Galician ... its main symbol of identity," said Marisol Lopez, who is in charge of linguistics at the local government.

The region, home to the last part of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route, is spending 20,000 euros (13,592 pounds) to print 25,000 books translating phrases into English, Spanish, German, French as well as Basque and Catalan.

Spain's regional languages, which are quite different from mainstream Castillian Spanish, were stamped out by dictator Francisco Franco but have flourished since he died in 1975.

This week, Spanish tourism association Mesa del Turismo said some regions were taking their language promotion too far, forcing tourists to struggle with signs in Galician, Basque and Catalan and not printing versions in Spanish as they should.