The Principality of Asturias is an Autonomous Community located in the northwest of Spain. In linguistic terms, it is a bilingual community of an irregular nature (Andrés, 2002; Huguet, Lapresta & González Riaño, 2010; Lefin et al, 2004). Castilian language (Spanish from the Iberian Peninsula), the official language of the State coexists with Bable (also known as Asturian or the Asturian language), which is a traditional language of the region that does not have official status; although it is recognized and protected by the Statute of Autonomy of Asturias. While the former has a high social status and absolute legal and political recognition; the latter, due to a broad set of historical processes (Metzeltin, 2004), is set aside in a situation of low socio-political consideration. Included in the year 2001 by UNESCO in its Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger of Disappearing, the teaching of the Asturian language in the schools of the region since 1984 has been - and is in the present- fundamental for advancing in the social normalization of the language and, even more, for the generational conservation of it (González Riaño, 2000). In this sense, the research on the Asturian language in the educational field emerges as a matter of absolute pedagogical, sociolinguistic and political-cultural interest.

The bulk of the studies conducted on the teaching of Asturian have focused on didactic or educational planning aspects (Fernández Fernández, 2018, González Riaño, 1988, 2000) or on questions related to attitudes and results of teaching and school presence of the Asturian language (González Riaño & Fernández Costales, 2014; González Riaño & Huguet, 2002, González Riaño & San Fabián, 1996; Hevia, 2013). Some historical research about the cultural policy of Asturianist tendency, such as those carried out by Brugos (1995) or the American Zimmerman (2012), mention some aspects referring to the teaching of the Asturian language, although without deepening too much in them. Finally, the research of the German Bern Bauske (1998) about the standardization of the Asturian language devotes one of its chapters to the process of incorporation of the language into the classrooms, although, we believe, from a fundamentally descriptive and formalist perspective. We miss a study about the phenomena and socio-political agents that have mediated the historical process of schooling of the Asturian language that, from a pedagogical, social and political perspective, is capable to provide a comprehensive view of the issue.

The present research aims to study the historical process of schooling of the Asturian language, fundamentally through the voices (both oral and written) of those who were its protagonists; paying special attention to the socio-political parameters that marked the evolution of it. The research proposes an approach to the first decade of this school subject: since 1974, the birth date of the modern movement for the recovery and reivindication of the Asturian language, with the emergence of the cultural collective “Conceyu Bable”, until the year 1984, time in which the language officially entered six schools as a school subject, through an experimental teaching program. With this research we intend to shed light on an educational phenomenon that has not been well-researched, and which is also framed within a part of our most forgotten political, cultural and social past. We believe, that it should serve to take perspective both on the successes achieved so far in the process of recovery and social normalization of the Asturian language, and on the many objectives that still need to be achieved to fully guarantee the linguistic rights of the Asturian-speaking community.

Our research follows a historiographic methodology of a qualitative nature, fundamentally based on the techniques of documentary analysis and in-depth interviews. The analysis has been done, mainly, from what Almarcha (1969; in Perelló, 2011) classifies as literary documents: magazines, pamphlets, reports, minutes, official requests, books, etc. The documents have been selected for chronological reasons (published between 1974 and 1984 or have had influence over those years), for their relationship with the historical facts that are studied and/or for collecting testimonies from the people or groups that staged the events that the current research intends to analyse. In this sense, the Conceyu Bable section of the Asturias Semanal magazine and the Fueyes Informatives publication, an internal bulletin of the collective, have been of great value for the study of the Conceyu Bable group. On the other hand, the magazine Lletres Asturianes, the communication organ of the Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (ALLA) [Asturian Language Academy], has been used for the analysis of the educational tasks developed by the Institution. Similarly, the state and regional legislation related to the schooling of regional languages in general and of Asturian in particular, referring to the period under study, has been consulted and analysed. Likewise, the newspaper archive has been a fundamental reference to know the development of the process, taking into consideration in a prominent way the asturian newspapers El Comercio, La Voz de Asturias and La Nueva España, as well as the regional news weekly Asturias Semanal. Regarding the interviews, the sources were selected according to the specialty criterion, as it is defined by Gorden (1969; in Valles, 2000). According to this, four one-hour-duration interviews were conducted with four people (3 men and 1 woman) who actively participated in the movement of the Asturian language and/or developed teaching activities of the Asturian language during the first years of its schooling. For the analysis of the information obtained, an emerging categorization was used based on the main ideas verbalized in the interviews and the documents studied, although the interview scripts already established a starting point for their construction, according to the model proposed by Weiss (1994; in Valles, 2000). Subsequently, and according to the defined categories, the information obtained from the two techniques used was identified, localized and contrasted. Finally, the theorical interpretation of the information obtained was carried out and the chronological account of it was elaborated.

The appearance in 1974 of Conceyu Bable supposed the creation of the first popular movement of Asturian language vindication. The collective established the language schooling as its main objective, deploying an action that combined the theorical dissertation with civic action. Conceyu Bable conformed a discourse in which the demand for teaching the language was based on a set of pedagogical, sociolinguistic and democratic considerations. In addition, the group drew up its first program proposal for Asturian language teaching. In turn, the group organized the first Asturian language courses and developed the "Bable a les escueles" campaign ["Bable to the schools"] that collected 35,000 signatures in support of the regional language schooling and convened in June 1976, with the same reason, with 7,000 attendees in the first mass demonstration held in the region during the Transition. With these actions, Conceyu Bable introduced the linguistic debate in Asturias. In 1981 the Statute of Autonomy of Asturias approved, that in the area of linguistics, it will not recognize the Asturian Language officially; although it is protected and installed in education. At the same time, Academia de la Llingua Asturiana is founded as an organism for study, tutelage and promotion of the autochthonous language, which initiates teacher training for Asturian language teaching and publishes the first didactic materials. Once the first regional government was formed in 1983, the Academy began complex and prolonged negotiations with the executive for the implementation of Asturian language education, in order to comply with the statutory mandate. In 1984 the Government of Asturias and the Ministry of Education and Science of Spain approved an agreement for the experimental and voluntary teaching of the Asturian language in elementary education. The teaching of the Asturian language began officially in November 1984, with the start of the pilot project in six schools.

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