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What language is easiest for Spanish Speakers to understand?
" I correctly tell him that my ethnic heritage is Spanish "
Why don't you presice that your "ethnic" heritage is also Welch, English French (you said that if I remember weel) and native indian (as your mother is mexican their is a good chance that you have at least some of it).
And even if you think that "spanish" is a good description of your ethnicity, do you realise that Spain, is not and has never been an homogenous "ethny". I you think in terms of genetics why don't you precise that you, even if you may "look like an average spanish" (I don't knwo what it means really), are wearing some "celtic genes", "iberian genes", "wisigotic genes", "moorish genes", "basque genes", "jewish genes", etc since all those populations have been making the people called "spaniards", which was united not by its "etnic origin" but by a political construction dominated by the Castillian culture and language called "Spain", and entity which integrated all those different "ethnic backgrounds", in different "nations" defined by their language (Catalonia, Galicia, Basque country, Castilla, ect.)
Saying that you ethny is "spanish" is a complete misunderstanding of what a spanish is.
" Very few "Romans" from Rome actually colonized Spain "
So, you recognise that spanish people are not an united "ethny" and are not "etnically latin" as you claimed in the past ?
Fab, I don't mean to criticize your English, so don't take this the wrong way, but you continue to use the word "ethny" when you mean to say "ethnicity". That's just a friendly correction.
<<Why don't you presice that your "ethnic" heritage is also Welch, English French (you said that if I remember weel) and native indian (as your mother is mexican their is a good chance that you have at least some of it). >>
I do. When I am at the doctor's office, I say my mother is mainly of southern European extraction, with a 10% native american admixture, and my father is northern European, of Welsh/English ancestry. This is what makes up the bulk of my genes. If the doctor wishes for even more detail concerning my genetic ancestry for the purpose of medicine, I tell him that I have a small French-Cherokee admixture on my father's side. But over 90% of my genes come from Spanish, and Welsh/English. Outside of the doctors office, I ethnically identify mainly with Spanish, as I look almost 100% like my mother's side, (typical Spanish or Italian look) which is Spanish, along with the fact that I am not part of my father's family at all, so I tend to exclude them from my identity. Not to mention that I have a Spanish surname. We've been through this before. And Spaniards are for the most part, a homegenous ethnic group, comprised of mainly Iberian stock, and Celtiberian in the north, along with a few small contributions from other peoples, which have all formed the modern day Spanish ethnic group, whose people share certain genes which make them prone to certain medical conditions, etc. They are scientifically an ethnic or genetic group, just like the English.
<<as your mother is mexican their is a good chance that you have at least some of it). >>
Yep, my great-grandmother, three generations before me, was a mestiza. That makes me at least a tad bit partly native. Everyone else in my family tree is Spanish on my mother's side. So there's not enough native ancestry to manifest itself in my physical appearance.
<<So, you recognise that spanish people are not an united "ethny" and are not "etnically latin" as you claimed in the past ? >>
"Latin" in this case, is often used synonymously with "mediterranean" in terms of ethnicity, even by professional sources. Whether this is an improper use of the word or not, it is still used this way many times. For the most part, Spaniards are a mediterranean, also known to some as "Latin" population. "Latin" when used in such a context, has nothing to do with the city of Rome. I never tried to say that Spaniards are all pure direct descendants of the people of the city of Rome, Italy. I said that they are related to Italians in that they're a mediterranean population. Most of the time, you can't tell an Italian apart from a Spaniard.
From the encyclopedia:
"The Spanish people or Spaniards are the ethnic group or nation native to Spain, in the Iberian Peninsula of southwestern Europe."
" The preponderance of European Paleolithic Haplogroups in Spanish men indicates that they may be descended primarily from the earliest paleolithic peoples thought to have colonised Iberia and the rest of Western Europe. There are thought to have been three separated pockets of human habitation in Europe during the last major glaciation (the end of the Paleolithic and the Pleistocene), on the Iberian peninsula, in the Balkans and in the Caucasus. The Y chromosome haplogroups from these populations are thought to correspond to R1b (Iberian or Basque), I (Balkans) and R1a (Caucasus). These three haplogroups occur all over Europe, but their frequencies are not spread uniformly, R1b occuring most often in Iberia and Western Europe, as is evident in Haplogroup maps1. Haplogroup R1b is particularly dominant in the Basque region which straddles France and Spain as well as in adjacent regions of Northern Spain.
More recent Neolithic and historic peoples have also contributed to the Spanish genetic pool, from Neolithic agriculturalists to Celts, Greeks, Phoenicians, Romans, Visigoths, Arabs and Berbers, but their contributions seem to be limited compared to the dominant Paleolithic component, as can be seen not only in Haplogroup maps, but also in global studies that take into account more genetic loci:"
"Related ethnic groups
• Latins
• French
• Italians
• Portuguese
• Romanians
• Hispanics (of Spanish or partial Spanish ancestry)"
If you refer to every little last ancestral genetic strain from the contributions of all kinds of people dating back thousands of years, then you will never arrive at any homogenous group. Even the Scandanavians would be considered a mixed people, or a hyrbrid people. The fact is, there is a Spanish ethnic group. Populations are genetically distinct from each other, which is why only some groups have a certain disease, or a tendency for a certain physical trait, or addictions, or immunity towards certain diseases etc. Don't blow it out of proportion by trying to be so absolutely precise. I think what matters mainly in categorizing people based on ancestry is their looks. If they don't have enough of it, it won't manifest itself in their phenotype. I usually say my ancestry is predominantly Spanish, and Welsh/English, as these ethnic groups make up the bulk of my ancestry. Who knows? I might have an African ancestor somewhere back in my family history from two hundred years ago! But should I really walk around saying I'm part black, when the African component in my genes is so minute? The hypothetical black ancestor of mine would not be enough to influence my phenotype, so why should I even include it, if it were the case. For all intensive purposes, I am Spanish w/ English/Welsh mix, and I identify as a Mexican-American. That's all there is too it. You don't have to analyze everything to death.
We are all of the human race, and citizens of the planet earth.
««The answer is that I am all three, depending on how you categorize me. When I am at a doctor's appointments, and the physician is trying to ascertain my genetic heritage (as some diseases are more common in certain populations), I correctly tell him that my ethnic heritage is Spanish. My culture is "Chicano" (Mexican-American). And my nationality is American. So yes, I am all three.»»
What you are is a big confusion.
Imagine you can say your genetic Heritage are the Spanish and the Mexicans but a Spaniard a Portuguese a French say what …..?
Repeating myself:
««««Probably during the 2nd century they moved to Oium [ Ukraine], they seemed to have mixed with the population of the Zarubintsy culture forming the Sântana de Mureş culture/ Chernyakhov Culture that was extended to Dacia [Romania].
The former Zarubintsy culture is thought to be a mixture of people of Celtic La Tène culture, Scythians and Sarmatians.»»»
Explaining: The Chernyakhov Culture was the result of the Goths mixing with the people of the Zarubintsy culture.
««Just as when a child is conceived, he receives 50% of his mother's genetic material, and 50% of his father's genetic material, so that he has a genetic strain from both of their families.»»
Very good! What was the genetic material of the Visigoths before they entered the Roman Empire? Remember they mixed with Celts, Scythians, Sarmatians, of the Zarubintsy culture. As you said, one gets 50% of genetic material from each parent.
««They also brought their wives and children with them, and as polygamy amongst most of the population was frowned upon in Germanic cultures, I doubt they mixed much with people in the eastern empire in the few decades before their final settlement in Hispania.»»
A few decades?
They entered the Roman empire in 376, only after 418 they created the Visigoth kingdom of Toulouse and later spread to Hispania.
««When they entered Hispania, they were still described as being tall, with big builds, and with high frequencies of blond hair and blue eyes, etc.»»
So were the Alans and they were Iranian.
««What???? The people of the Visigoth kingdom, which were the people who were subject to the Visigoth king, were not all Visigoths. The vast majority of them were Hispano-Romans, under the rule of a foreign people. They never took the name of Visigoths. It was the Visigoths who took the name of Spaniards, as they were absorbed by the much larger Hispano-Roman population, and took on their culture, religion, and language.»»
What a collection of nonsense! How did the Visigoth take the name of Spaniards if Spain was only a kingdom after Ferdinand of Aragón and Isabella of Castile United both Kingdoms?
Most people were pagans as Martinho de Dume wrote, they worshiped stones, rivers, trees.
They were an independent Kingdom with their own rules and their own subjects. Goth Land, Visigotia, or Kingdom of the Goths was the name of the kingdom.
««And you said that Catholicism was a religion of Roman origin???»»
I said it was not.
««The Christian church, centred in Rome in the west, became a political construct as well as a religious organization as an instrument of the state.»»
Did it make them the owners?
««The people of Hispania, although Roman citizens, were still Spaniards (Hispania is Latin for Spain, as the kingdom of Portugal had not been founded yet, just as there was no Andalucia, Catalonia, or Aragon).»»
Again you talk nonsense. The Kingdom of Spain was not founded too. The Kingdom of Spain was created after Ferdinand of Aragón and Isabella of Castile United their Kingdoms.
The Hispanicus , or translated: Hispanicos. Hispanicos, in Portuguese and Spanish, Hispanicus in Latin. Hispania is called Hispania. You are saying Latin American Hispanicos can be called Spaniards.
««That is why they were called "HISPANO-Romans".»»
They were called Hispano-romans because they were from a Roman PROVINCE called Hispania.
««A Roman did not have to be from "Rome". "Roman" was a political term, where peoples from all sorts of diverse backgrounds were considered Romans, because they were Roman citizens. Very few "Romans" from Rome actually colonized Spain, but the Spanish or Hispano-Roman population, of mainly Iberian extraction were considered Romans, because they adopted Roman civilization and were Roman citizens.»»
Now, you are contradicting yourself. And Visigoth was not a political term too? The Hispano Romans did not become Visigothic citizens? They remained Roman citizens being subjects of the Visigoths and living under their rule? That is new!!
It does not look it was a very Roman civilization. Read what you wrote:
««Their culture was a unique regional variety of the Latin culture, and because their regional dialect was different than that of Italy, their local vernacular Latin began to evolve onto its own path,»»
««Outside of the doctors office, I ethnically identify mainly with Spanish, as I look almost 100% like my mother's side, (typical Spanish or Italian look) which is Spanish, along with the fact that I am not part of my father's family at all, so I tend to exclude them from my identity.»»
Hahah you have selective genes. And you can control them.
««to R1b (Iberian or Basque),»»
This is the most common haplogroup in Europe it gets 90% in other Eu regions too.
It seems it is very common in Europeans.
««I think what matters mainly in categorizing people based on ancestry is their looks.»»
Again you talk nonsense. Spaniards as an entity look like what based on ancestry?
<<Again you talk nonsense. Spaniards as an entity look like what based on ancestry? >>
If I saw a blonde haired, blue eyed, pale skinned Spaniard, I would naturally assume that his ancestors were mainly from northern Spain, and that he has a great deal of Germanic and/or Celtic ancestry. If I saw a Spaniard like Antonio Banderas, I would naturally assume that his ancestors mainly came from the south of Spain, and that his heritage contains little northern European ancestry, and that he is either mainly of Iberian mediterranean extraction, or possibly even of partly Arab descent.
There are differences between populations. There is such things as ethnic groups. There is nothing wrong with that!!!! In all your attempts to be "color blind" and "politically correct", you wish to deny genetic differences between humans. I on the other hand, am soooooo glad that there are differences. Could you imagine if all the vegetation of the earth were one color and one shape? Can you see how boring that would be? What if every fruit and vegetable tasted the same? How would you like that? Would you look at a strawberry and a watermelon, and pretend as if they were the same? That would be ludicrous. If there is no genetic differences between ethnic groups, then explain things such as this. Why do northern European populations carry the gene which allows them to absorb and digest lactose, while southern Europeans usually do not, and Asians and native Americans never do? 90% of northern Europeans produce the lactase enzyme into adulthood, while nearly 85% of southern Europeans do not. Why is that, if all Europeans are the same? Why do some native populations of Mexico carry the gene which creates a blue dot on their skin on their backs by the tailbone? They are called the "pinto people". Not all of the tribes carry that gene. It can still be found in some children of mestizo ancestry, and it has been used as a marker for Indian ancestry in people. It is a trait which has been used to identify people of Indian admixture, and usually more recent Indian admixture. It passes out of the bloodline after a few generations. Why is that? How is that, if everyone is all the same?
<<What you are is a big confusion.>>
No. You are confused.
<<Very good! What was the genetic material of the Visigoths before they entered the Roman Empire? Remember they mixed with Celts, Scythians, Sarmatians, of the Zarubintsy culture. As you said, one gets 50% of genetic material from each parent. >>
When speaking of a population's genes, you don't go back to the ages of the neanderthals. You have a sort of fixed period, where a population's genes' are the starting point, as you can't go back into pre-historical times. Take the Swedes for instance. We know that man did not start off in northern Europe or Scandanvia, but rather reached that location after centuries of migration. Man first appeared in Africa and the middle east. From that central starting point, man spread out over all of the earth. The ancestors of the Swedes started out in Africa or the Middle East. They then migrated in small bands all the way to Scandanavia, probably picking up new populations along the way, and absorbing additional genetic strains from other families or small populations, until they eventually reached the farthest extent of northern Europe, just as all the Indo-European peoples spread out all over Europe and other regions. They then settled in Scandanavia and created an isolated genetic pool. They settled down permanently, and began developing a civilization. They grew in numbers, and bred amongst themselves, continually reinforcing the dominant genes within their tribe, so that, after several centuries or even thousands of years, the people of Scandanavia looked remarkably different from their Indo-European cousins in Iran, Greece, and even India. These Scandanavian people had a totally different physical appearance from the offspring of their common ancestors in far away places like Crete. They had markedly different genes, which made them prone to a certain medical disorder, or allowed them to absorb nutrients from cow's milk, while their Indo-European cousins could not. So, when studying these populations, should we count the Swedes as being a mixture of all the peoples from the middle east or Africa, dating back tens of thousands of years, or should we consider the starting point to be somewhere around the time when they stopped mixing with other populations and developed an isolated gene pool thousands of years ago, thus forming the Swedes that we know today? For all practical purposes, most people would probably start counting the birth of the Swedes as an ethnic group around the time of the latter. The same applies to modern ethnic groups. Take the Spanish for instance. The people of the Iberian peninsula could be considered an ethnic group, as they usually are. They are an ethnic group comprised of a mixture of Germanic, Iberian, and Celtic peoples, with very small components coming from the eastern mediterranean (Phonecians, Greeks), the Italian peninsula, and the Arabs. This mixture was then isolated within the political boundaries or geographical boundaries of the Iberian peninsula, so that most men and women married other Spanish (as in from modern day Spain) men and women. This local population was for the most part isolated from other populations, and whatever genes it carried, were continually, after each successive generation, were reinforced, and allowed to evolve apart from other gene pools. That is why you will hear people commonly say that they are "half Italian and half Irish", or, mestizo, "half Spanish and half native", or "mulatto", or "Eurasian" people of Hong Kong. No one sits there and insists that it would be more accurate to say that they are a mix of all the peoples dating back to the first human migrations in pre-historical times. People use the times when populations settled and became isolated and developed distinct gene pools as the starting point.
<<A few decades?
They entered the Roman empire in 376, only after 418 they created the Visigoth kingdom of Toulouse and later spread to Hispania.>>
Yep, a few decades. It was approximately four decades from the time between when they entered the Roman Empire, and their settlement in southern Gaul. They soon established a kingdom centered in Spain thereafter. That's not at all a long time compared to the thousands of years when they as a Germanic people were isolated, and developed their own distinct gene pool. Within that short time frame, there wouldn't have been enough admixture to profoundly alter their genetic inheritance and phenotype. They were still a Germanic looking people. If that's what they looked like, then that's good enough for me. Analyzing it anymore than that is just being ridiculously technical. The Visigoths were a Germanic people, who looked Germanic, spoke a Germanic language, and were of a Germanic civilizations, practiced Germanic customs, etc. They were a Germanic people, end of story.
<<So were the Alans and they were Iranian. >>
It doesn't mean they looked like modern day inhabitants of Iran. We all came from modern day Africa and the middle east. Does that mean that a modern day inhabitant of Japan looks like a person from the modern day nation state of Sudan?
<<What a collection of nonsense! How did the Visigoth take the name of Spaniards if Spain was only a kingdom after Ferdinand of Aragón and Isabella of Castile United both Kingdoms?
Most people were pagans as Martinho de Dume wrote, they worshiped stones, rivers, trees.>>
Just because the modern day political nation-state of Spain had not been formed yet, does not mean that the idea of Spain did not exist, or that there were not Spaniards. Italy was not unified as one politcal state until the late 1800s, but there has always been a geographical region known as Italy. Italy was fractured into all sorts of city states before Rome unified the peninsula, but it was always known as Italy, and as all the peoples lived there, they were collectively referred to as Italians. Greece, until the time of Alexander, was never unified, but was divided into dozens of city-states. Yet, the people all knew that they were Greek. They were all collectively known as Greeks, both to themselves, and to outsiders. The same with the Spaniards. The province in Iberia was known as Hispania, which is the exact same thing as Spain. It's just in a different frickin language!!!! If we used the English word for "Hispania", it would be "Spain". "Gaul" is an English word. In Latin, it was called "Gallia". If we call it "Gaul", does it mean that it is longer the same as the Roman province of "Gallia", just because the name is slightly different in Latin? Are "Italia" and "Italy" two different countries?? No, they are both the same exact country, only with slightly different names in English and Italian. The different tribes and political entities within Spain were all collectively known as Spaniards, just as the citizens of seperate city-states in ancient Greece were known as Greeks. According to your logic, we should say that "Greece" and "Greeks" never existed until 1821, because the political state of modern Greece was not yet formed until that date. But we all know that there was a Greece, and there were Greeks, all the way back to thousands of years ago.
In the case of Portugal, it is like Aragon or Leon, or Castille. These were all political kingdoms founded within the greater Spain, in the late middle ages. Prior to that, what is now Portugal, was just part of the greater Hispania. The ancient Portuguese were called Spaniards right along with the ancestors of the Castillians and Leonese.
And answer me this. If Spain did not exist prior to the unification under Aragon and Castille, then why did they call their kingdom "Spain"? Surely there must have been a reason. Why didn't they just call it Castille, or Aragon, or Castille-Aragon? Because they knew they were unifying a fractured Spain. Spain already existed, it was only internally divided. By unitying the various fractured political states within Spain, they were creating a unified Spain, when the whole region of Spain would be united as one kingdom. The same thing happened with Italy. Prior to its unification, you had all sorts of political states, like Venice, the Papal states, Naples, Lombardy, Genoa, etc. But they were all part of the greater geogrpahical area of "Italy". All of these states were collectively referred to as Italy, and the peoples were known as Italians. The same thing with Germany. Germany was not united as the modern political state of Germany until the latter part of the 1800s. Yet, Napoleon went on his famous "German campaign". The "German states" united against him. The "German peoples" felt a sense of patriotism. There was always a collective identity for all of these people.
<<Now, you are contradicting yourself. And Visigoth was not a political term too? The Hispano Romans did not become Visigothic citizens? They remained Roman citizens being subjects of the Visigoths and living under their rule? That is new!!>>
The native Romans lived according to their own laws, while the Germanic peoples were held to their own laws, based on tribal customs. The people lived amongst each other, but seperately. Eventually, they mixed into one people, but it was the Germans who were Romanized, not the other way around. The Spaniards, or Iberians, whatever you wish to call them, never came to be called Visigoths. The Visigoths were assimilated by a much larger Spanish, or "native" population. It was the Visigoths who came to be called Spaniards, not the other way around. The Spanish kings after the first couple of centuries following the Visigoths conquest were no longer known as Visigoth kings, but as "Spanish kings". Was King Carlos the king of the Visigoths, or the king of Spain? Is Spain called "Visigothia" today? No.
<<It does not look it was a very Roman civilization.>>
Oh, okay. So, the Portuguese and Spaniards are not a Latin people then? They're not of a Latin culture? They don't speak a Latin language? They are not of historically Roman Catholic background? They must be of Visigothic - Germanic culture. Spain and Portugal must be a lot like Holland and Denmark then. I'm sorry, I was under the impression that Spanish and Portuguese were Romance languages. But now I know that Iberians became Visigoths, and Spanish and Portuguese must be Germanic languages then.
<<Hahah you have selective genes. And you can control them.>>
No, I admit my true ancestry. I just tend to identify mainly with what I look like. I have a very small amount of cherokee and native Meso-American ancestry, although I don't have one trace of that in my physical appearance. But, should I walk around saying that I'm an Indian?
I am ending this conversation. I want to talk about languages.
>>>I am ending this conversation. I want to talk about languages.
Yes, sure. We could tell. The whole time.
I'm picking up the original question. Spanish speakers, in my opinion, would understand other romance languages (aurally) in the following order and percentages:
First Galician, understandable at 90-95%. Then Portuguese (if Spoken in a deliberate manner, i.e. pronouncing all syllables as if they were stressed, especially weak "e" sounds) at, I would say, 85-90%. Then Catalan, at 75%. Then Italian, at about 60-70%, then French, at about 40-50%. Finally, Romanian, probably at 15%. Then English (with about 40% Romance vocabulary, taking into account the peculiarities of English pronounciation, and assuming, of course, no prior knowledge) at about 5-10%.
That is in general. But there is a multiplicity of other factors that would influence the level of comprehension of specific individuals, like i) how rich their vocabulary is in their own language ii) how knowledgeable of Latin they may be, iii) How good they are at other languages iv) how good their powers of deduction are to fill in possible gaps iv) if they speak, a second language, (we are talking of Spanish speakers) such as Galician or Catalan (a bonus when it comes to understanding Portuguese or French in the same order).
And also, in the case of face-to-face conversations, it depends on how cooperative the interloqutor is, when it comes to, as I suggested above, speaking slowly and rephrasing that which has not been understood through the use of synonyms and/or alternative expressions and/or explanations.
As a Galician, I can hold a conversation with a Portuguese person with little effort. Also, I have never learnt Catalan or Italian, but I understand those two languages quite well.
As for Italians and French people, there is another variable: although they may speak the standard varieties of both their national languages, the level to which they may be acquainted with their local dialects (when these ressemble Spanish more closely. Sicilian and Occitan come to mind in particular) may enhance their capability to respond and interact with someone speaking to them in Spanish.
As to the other issues being debated here, I agree with LA.
Cheers to all.
"Then Portuguese (if Spoken in a deliberate manner, i.e. pronouncing all syllables as if they were stressed, especially weak "e" sounds) at, I would say, 85-90%."
I would say that in the case of Portuguese there is great variability on the understanding of language and it also depends on where that person who speaks Castellano is from (Particularly whether they speak a European Spanish that may have more of a lispy sound or a pronunciation of the "S" almost mirroring an "sh" such as the variety spoken around Madrid or in the Northern regions around Asturias there would probably be a more understanding of European Portuguese particularly the varieties spoken in Lisboa or Oporto. If you are from Andalusia, Galicia, The Catalan regions, the Canary Islands, Caribbean regions of Castellano speaking America, Argentina, Uruguay, or even Chile I think some of the Northern Portuguese dialects closest to Galicia, The Cape Verde variety, Rio Grande do Sul accent in Brasil, The Paulisitano accent in Brasil, and the accent in and around Santa Catarina can be almost completely intelligable to you if you just listen. Harder Portuguese accents for everybody to understand (even for me and I have some relatives from these regions that I have to listen closely to understand them) is the accent around the South of Portugal specifically in the Algarve region (they really pronounce very few words or just completely combine them together. It is almost as if their talking French.) and the most non-understandable accents to my ears in portuguese are the Medeiran accents and the accents in the Azores. My cousins who live both in Portugal and Brasil even they have problems understanding them and to my ears they even sound more French to me. So as you can see it depends on the accent. Everybody feel free to take my argument apart if you want. At least this is my own opinion based upon my experiences recently.
Chuck:
I'm sorry, but you're wrong on several counts. No study shows that ancient Spaniards were Celtic (at least in the commonly accepted definition of Celts as a people that spread westwards from Central Europe...). The case is that many of them coincide that, as far as the Y-chromosome haplotypes are concerned, the largest amount of Spaniards -60% of us on average and as high as 90% in some areas (e.g. the Basque Country)- can trace their ancestry to the earliest homo sapiens sapiens (that is, not homo sapiens neardenthaliensis) that populated Europe. They were hunter gatherers and carried the R1b haplotype.
The R1b haplotype, according to the same studies, is still the most common in Western Europe, including England, to a greater extent Northern Portugal, France and Belgium and to an even greater extent those countries traditionally regarded as Celtic: Scotland, Wales, Cornwall and Ireland (not sure about French Britanny.) The latter find does not imply necessarily that the Celts were the ones who brought the R1b haplotype to these areas. There is still great debate on the issue of whether the Celts were a racially homogeneous population or whether even the countries where Celtic languages are spoken nowadays can be regarded as racially Celtic.
Then again, to compound things even further, there is abundant documentation to attest that Celtic and/or proto-celtic (or closely related Indoeuropean languages) were widespread in northern and western Iberia before the Roman colonisation...
Notwithstanding, you seem to know for certain that the Celts were blond, light-eyed people. Congratulations, you probably know more than most serious researchers... Ehem...
As for your opinion that the dark features of Spaniards (mind you, fair Spaniards are by no means a negligible "minority") are mostly the consequence of the 7-century-long Arab domination -of Southern Iberia-, you are jumping to conclusions... It is a common mistake. To begin with, the vast majority of muslims living in Spain during those centuries were not Arab, but Northern African Berbers. Secondly, most studies coincide their racial contribution to the Spanish gene pool was limited (no more than 10% of the Y-chromosome haplotypes.) I'm a little tired that 10% of our ancestors, seem to have more weight than the remaining 90% to some people.
I have nothing against Arabs, Berbers, Northern Africans and the like, quite on the contrary. The point is that these peoples, due to the current world climate, are being unfairly demonised and the suggestion that someone descends from them is used by some as a blemish that marks Spaniards, among others, as less worthy to form part of the Western world. I'm really sick of reading on the Net so many remarks along those lines from white supremacists, USA nationals who hold a grudge against Spain for having withdrawn our troups from Iraq, "hispanics" who resent Spaniards for asserting their own identity in contrast with theirs, or people in general who still view Spain as an exotic, less-than-developed country populated by a swarthy (i.e. inferior) race of over-emotional gits. All of those have a distorted perception of reallity, mostly on two counts: neither muslims (or any darker peoples, for that matter) are sub-human nor Spaniards descend majoritarily from them.
I sincerely wish I didn't have to hear, each time I'm abroad, remarks such as the following:
"He's quite fair to be Spanish"
"He must be the result of a Spanish woman shagging a Northern European" (BELIEVE YOU ME!)
"I thought Spaniards were darker"
"Sir, if you are Spanish, why are you so white?" (by one of my students)
"So, you are Spanish... You don't look it."
"I thought Spaniards had all dark hair and dark eyes."
"You look white, but your friend Carmen looks half-caste"
"But surely one of your parents, at least, is English" (I have a British accent)
Believe me, I'm quite an average looking, full-blooded Spaniard.
Now, in response to JGreco:
I quote:
"If you are from Andalusia, Galicia, The Catalan regions, the Canary Islands, Caribbean regions of Castellano speaking America, Argentina, Uruguay, or even Chile"
Pardon me? You are probably right as to your other observations, but it really escapes me why you have chosen such eclectic mix of REALLY DIFFERENT people to say that they probably understand Portuguese better. Southern Galician dialects and Northern Portuguese dialects are practically the same language, as for the rest of peoples you mention, what criterion led you to lump them together?
All the best.
-Carlos-
Where should I start. In my University there is a International Students union and I when they have their meetings is asked to participate as part of my practicum for my Inetrnational Studies major. There are students from The Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina, Chile, from A corun~a, Spain, and from Barcelaona, Spain. They get posed certain questions sometimes for discussion and one of them was in fact whether they understood portuguese. They of coarse spoke of The accents I talked about from Brasil. It got me thinking about the difficulty I had with certain portuguese accents myself but that was only because that meeting I observed. When I saw this topic posted I decided to comment on my experience and what I have heard. I assumed that about the Madrid accent because of what I've seen on television. We here have TVE on satellite and I have noticed the way the Madrilen~o's specifically have that interesting "s" pronunciation that is not quite an "sh" sound but also not an "s" sound. Along with the standard gluttoral "J" (I'm used to the "j" pronunciation of most accents in Castellano Americano pronounced like the English "h" sound) sound that they poses in their pronunciation plus their extremely rapid speech sometimes when I watch TVE I have difficulty understanding what they are saying. I usually have to listen to the words around those words that have those particular sound pronunciation to understand what they are saying. I just think that sound is closer to what I hae heard pronunciation wise in Oporto and Lisboa (I've been to those cities).
««The R1b haplotype, according to the same studies, is still the most common in Western Europe, including England, to a greater extent Northern Portugal,»»
What studies are those? because R1b is not only found in Northern Portugal but all over Portugal as well as Spain. You just ripped off about 60% of Portuguese genes.
««There is still great debate on the issue of whether the Celts were a racially homogeneous population or whether even the countries where Celtic languages are spoken nowadays can be regarded as racially Celtic»»
What is defined as Celtic is not a race and it is the origin of the Celtic people that is still being discussed not where they settled. The Romans and the Greeks referred to their presence in the Iberian peninsula and the studies do not rely only in genetics but also in palaeolinguistics, archaeology, ancient history, anthropology, folklore, history of religion, ethnology, mythology and history of art.
I will give you an example, the Celtici were a préRoman tribe in center and south Portugal (Alentejo, Algarve) their tribal name was CELTICI that means Celt. You can not talk about their race, it was their tribal name.
««Then again, to compound things even further, there is abundant documentation to attest that Celtic and/or proto-celtic (or closely related Indoeuropean languages) were widespread in northern and western Iberia before the Roman colonisation»»
Some of it :
http://arkeotavira.com/Mapas/Iberia/Populi.htm
http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/celtic/ekeltoi/volumes/vol6/index.html
JGreco:
The /s/ you are probably talking about is the alveolar /s/ (a fricative voiceless sound) pronounced with the tip of the tongue. Depending on the dialectal variety or even the individual speaker, the front of the tongue might be displaced a bit towards the postalveolar area, the point of articulation of the sound you refer to, appearing in -for example- the Portuguese word "caixa" (postalveolar voiceless fricative/sibilant). I might be wrong, but I don't think that is characteristic of the Madrid dialect... In any case. I'm from Galicia and my I tend to pronounce the /s/ quite close to the postalveolar area too. Anyway, that is just a sound... The main problem Portuguese presents to Spanish speakers is that the phonetic system of Spanish contains fewer sounds than Portuguese, and our ears are not trained to perceive its wider variety of vowels (especially to distinguish between open and closed, stressed and unstressed) and consonants. As for the accents of Porto and Lisbon, again I'm no speciallist, but I would say that they are quite different (or so claim the Portuguese people I know, and, mind you, they can get quite pissed off if you tell them otherwise, especially Lisboans). I also fail to see the connection between their comprehensibility (by a Spanish-speaker) and the pronounciation of the letter "j" as either /x/ or /h/, or how fast they speak... Anyway, you might have a point there. I'm not aware of any research done in that respect.
Gringo:
I did not mean to suggest that R1b was only present in the North of Portugal. I simply meant that it is apparently more abundant in the North than in the rest of the country... I'm basing this claim on a PDF article I once downloaded from the net, namely: António Amorim -Instituto de Patologia e Inmunologia Molecular da Universidade de Porto- PERSPECTIVAS DE APLICAÇÂO HISTÓRICA DOS MARCADORES GENÉTICOS UNI- E BIPARENTAIS. ALGUNS EXEMPLOS NO NORTE DE PORTUGAL E NO CONTEXTO IBÉRICO. According to this article, the percentages of R1b in Northern, Central and Southern Portugal are, in the same order, 62%, 56% and 43%.
As to the Celts, where they came from and where they settled... I only gave the example of the languages spoken in pre-Roman iberia not to make my point too lengthy. Of course, other data from a multiplicity of disciplines would support their presence (or the presence of their culture and language...) OK, their origin is being discussed too (Northern Iberia being amongst the candidates, according to one or two researchers) but still the most widely accepted theory is that, after coming from somewhere around the Caucasus or the Ukraine, they settled more or less permanently in Central Europe. However, was the spread of their culture due to a significant migration or to other factors? I leave this issue for learned scholars to debate. As to the R1b haplotype, it is reckoned to have been present in Europe from as far back as 35.000-40.000 years BC, much earlier than the Celts. From what I have read, it probably has nothing to do with them originally. But then again, I do not think that any single haplotype has been pointed out so far as the most common among them, and doubt that it will ever be.
OK, I was probably wrong in using the term "race." They were not a race, but an ethnic group. I used "race" with a very lax meaning.
SORRY, MODERATOR, FOR HAVING DIVERGED FROM THE PURPOSE OF THIS FORUM. I WON'T DO IT AGAIN.
Olá
Carlos:
««I did not mean to suggest that R1b was only present in the North of Portugal. I simply meant that it is apparently more abundant in the North than in the rest of the country... »»
If what you mean and what you write do not agree I can not guess what you want to say.
Also you have the same pattern in Spain. Some regions where people have more Rb1 some regions others where peple have less.
««ALGUNS EXEMPLOS NO NORTE DE PORTUGAL »»
This means "some examples in northen Portugal". He MADE NO studies in the rest of the country.
The number of samples was not the same and he compares his findings with other studies(made witth different pourposes and by different methods and criteria). When the number of samples is very small or different from region to region the results are different. The criteria and method used has to be just one.
When I look at that kind of studies I always pay good attention to what they want to pove the method used and the number of samples where and by whom they were given(what was their criteria to select or refuse sample doners). One little thing and the results differ because they always use very small samples.
I can also tell you that by some findings Portuguese and Basque people lack a mediterranian haplotype, meaning a lower admixture with Mediterraneans. And what does this mean? They still have to test the entire population or most of it to be really sure.
But what has this to do with Celts or language?
««from somewhere around the Caucasus or the Ukraine»»
Just going around in circles, this is the SAME place legends say Iberians came from the "caucasin-Iberia" and the same place Visigoths and Alans lived before invading Iberia.
woops "Any one" that lived there ended up in the Iberian peninsula.
««I also fail to see the connection between their comprehensibility (by a Spanish-speaker) and the pronounciation of the letter "j" as either /x/ or /h/, or how fast they speak... »»
their comprehensibility ?? You are referring to ?
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