[Resumen extraído de la fuente original]

Portugal has proudly presented herself to the world as the oldest monolingual country in Europe, where only one language had been spoken since immemorial times. This assertion consisted of an important means of national identity (Ferreira, 2002, p. 65), enhanced by the Portuguese dictatorship in the 20th century, which comes to explain international amazement when the acknowledgement of Mirandese as the second official language took place with the law no. 7/99, just at the very end of the first millennium. In fact, the language that takes its name from the region where it is spoken – Miranda do Douro –, dates back to the 6th century, even before the birth of Portuguese nationality, and stems directly from Latin via Asturian-Leonose branch of languages, bearing resemblances with the currently surviving languages, as well as with Portuguese, until it was finally “discovered” by José Leite de Vasconcellos in 1882. Mirandese has been given a new lease of life by means of the translation into Mirandese of canonical and liturgical literature, the production of prose, poetry and theatre in Mirandese, as well as the compilation of traditional oral literature. It is then our aim to provide a thorough historical perspective of Mirandese and elicit its identity, along with an overview of Mirandese literature (translated or not) and a reflection on the importance of the law no. 7/99 for the assertion of the language. Keywords: minority languages; language policy; Mirandese; law no. 7/99; spelling convention.