"Spain surrounds us here behind that mountain up to Chaves. We interact a lot with the Spanish. And when the Spanish war happened, there were many Spaniards living here. We speak Galician from Galicia, not real Spanish. For example, I'll tell you: 'Tenho uma tchavi'. Do you know what that is? It's a key. A key, for a door", explained to Lusa Agostinho Esteves, 79, a resident in the parish furthest from the town of Monção (over 20 kilometres and 30 minutes away), in the district of Viana do Castelo.

Alda Barreiros, who with her friend Maria Alves wrote the book "Os de Lá de Riba" (Those from Up There), published by the local authority of Monção, explains that those who left the village "speak standard Portuguese" but, when they return to the mountains, they use Ribamourês, with pride, to "value" what is unique and because it is "what older people know how to speak".

"In everyday life, those who left speak standard Portuguese. When we return, we speak this language and we make a point of it. It used to be associated with a lack of culture, with backwardness, but today, even with the book, that shame has been lost. We have come to like ourselves more, the way we speak. We make a point of showing it and that makes other people also value what we have. First we have to value it ourselves and that is what we tried to do with this book", describes the teacher, who grew up and still has family in the parish.

With an area of around 1,400 hectares and a population of 802 inhabitants (2021 Census), Riba de Mouro is a deserted village, with many ups and downs, narrow streets, smiles and laughter, still with women dressed in black from head to toe and lives linked to agriculture and animal husbandry.

In Cavenca, a place with about "40 people, if that", Maria Fernanda Afonso, 61, crosses paths with the Lusa report when she goes to take grass to the pen where the cow and the calf that was born eight days ago are and will be sold in about five or six months.

Peeking at the newborn made Maria Alves sigh with the "smell of milk" and it was the cue for a conversation that was difficult to follow about "leite tenreiro" or "côscaro" (the first milk from a cow that has just given birth), which "doesn't boil or can't be drunk", but is mixed with "farinha milha" to make -- they say -- delicious doughnuts.

At 54, Emília Esteves works "in agriculture and housework", has her husband and son living abroad, takes care of "two cows, two goats and chickens, ducks, a vegetable garden and a cornfield", but also surfs the internet and the social network Facebook, since "about three years ago", even though the parish does not have network coverage, even for mobile phone connections.

She says she speaks "a mixture" of Galician and that, wherever she goes, she speaks "always like this", although some words or expressions are "not understood" by people from outside.

"Sometimes, when it's raining, we say 'Agora vai vir um albeselhinho'. That's when it's raining and then there's a bit of sun. A clearing. We also say 'Dar um tiro c'unha atcha'. It means doing something in an instant, doing it quickly", she explains.

Alda Barreiros clarifies that it is about "remedying a situation or finding an alternative when the occasion demands it", the equivalent of "If you don't have a dog, you hunt with a cat".

The teacher says that Ribamourês "has its origins in Galician-Portuguese and many similarities in terms of vocabulary, syntax, morphology and phonetics".

Maria Alves, an accountant, recalls that, when the young people of Riba de Mouro went to study in Monção they were "made fun of" and were "ashamed to use certain expressions" that they used with their family.

Now, since the ancestral orality of the village has begun to be put into writing, in the book but also on the Lá de Riba page on Facebook, "more and more people are using words or expressions" from the dialect.

"Friends or colleagues have been learning and are even using them now", explains Maria.

The book "Os de Lá de Riba -- Os saberes e o linguajar de um povo" (Those from Up There -- The Knowledge and Language of a People), had a second edition of 500 copies in November 2023 and includes a "dynamic" QR code, since it can be used to update the glossary.

"This started as a joke, not as a project, about 10 years ago. We decided to collect information about some of the characteristics of the parish which, because it is isolated, still maintains some ancestral customs, and to record the language in writing, so that it is not lost", describes Alda Barreiros.

The publication talks about the "Demingo afternoon dances" or the "preparations for the wedding", when everything was "simpler: you set the day, you went to eat and that was it".

It also brings together the home remedies that cured almost everything. Like the one for Erguer o Ventre (Lifting the Belly): "When a child was unwell but you didn't know what was wrong, you would take them to a woman, who had to be the mother of twins, she would say a prayer and they would get better", exemplifies Maria Alves.

"Lubar [taking] the child to the mill" was another experience, used so that "the child would be educated and not misbehave".

In the book's glossary, expressions from Ribamourês are translated over 14 pages. It explains, for example, that "Xoxegar a nádiga" is to be quiet, that "Ter os pês cm'on rijôn" is to have warm feet, that a "comitchojo" is a person with a bad temper or ill will and "Beiçôn" is obliged.

The profits from the sale of the book go entirely to the Lá de Riba Social and Cultural Association and the edition is by the local authority of Monção, which recently included the dialect in the tourist campaign launched about the parish.

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