Gringo:
"If what you mean and what you write do not agree I can not guess what you want to say."
I do not quite know how to interpret your condescending tone... Are you trying to be irksome on purpose or are you cantankerous by nature? Do you perhaps have a bone to pick with someone and are taking it out on me (or on any Spaniard, perhaps: de Espanha nem bom vento nem bom cassamento?)
Please, do not make me engage in a sterile battle about whose fault it was, whether mine for the way I expressed myself or yours for your erroneous interpretation. Anyone civilised would have put it down to a misunderstanding, without impolitely attributing the blame to the other person, especially if he has gone to the trouble of trying to clarify it. I have also had some difficulties in interpreting your message above as what you meant ("I CANNOT/CAN'T guess what you want to say") is not the same as what you said ("I CAN NOT guess what you want to say": i.e: it is POSSIBLE FOR ME NOT TO guess..."). I suggest, for the sake of both sanity and courtesy, that we both accept that some misunderstanding is inevitable in human communication when/if we have the pleasure of continuing this discussion.
Here is yet another attempt at clarification on my part: the percentage of 60% I gave for the R1b haplogroup was an average for the whole of Spain. I've seen it put at as high as 70% in some other places.
As for the study I mentioned about Portugal, I confess, guilty as claimed! I have not checked its sources, methods, criteria, sample size, hidden motives (???) etc. I will justify myself by alleging that my "knowledge" on this issue is that of a layman. To illustrate my point with an analogy, my attitude towards the article I cited is pretty much the same as when I'm prescribed certain tablets by my doctor: I take them without checking first what scientific methods were followed to discover the active principle that makes them effective. I daresay most people would identify with this.
Anyway, as in any legal system, if you wish to argue the data in that article were wrong, the burden of the proof is yours... i.e: it is not the accused (myself? Mr. Amorim?) who should defend his innocence, but the accuser (you) who should convincingly prove that the accused is in fact guilty beyond any reasonable doubt (in this case, of the crime of distorsion of the truth...). In other words: if you claim that Mr. Amorim's conclusions are not sustainable owing to any flaws in his scientific method, it would be nice if you could support your claims with data rather than with mere observations in that direction. Otherwise, the case will be overseen by lack of sufficient evidence. To put it more clearly: if you have the scientific knowledge and data that might put me in the right, please, be as kind as to share it. So far, I have no palpable reasons that would make me believe you rather than Mr. Amorim.
I should not feel the need to say this but, anyway, just in case: I have nothing against the Portuguese. Quite on the contrary: I love that country, north, centre and south, and, as a Galician, feel at totally at home there. I find it totally immaterial whether the percentage of carriers of the R1b haplotype in that country is higher or lower than in Spain, or whether population-wise it is at the edge of a neolithic expansion or not.
"But what has this to do with Celts or language?"
Someone else introduced the issue of the Celts, by saying that if it were true that there was an ethnic connection between Northern Iberia and the British Isles through the R1b haplotype, we Spaniards would be all blond and Celtic... I just wanted to argue that the R1b haplotype had nothing to do with the Celts, and that what we know of them is blurred by the mists of the past (including their physical appearance).
"woops "Any one" that lived there ended up in the Iberian peninsula"
And, oops!, anyone who lived in Africa if we go far back enough seems to have ended up all over the world.... And so? What are you getting at?
"their comprehensibility ?? You are referring to ?"
- It was in answer to JGreko's observations. See above.
- "Their" possessive deictic referring back to "the accents of Lisbon and Porto"
Comprehensibility: synonymous of "understandability" (capacity for being understood).
- General Context: Answering the question "what langage is easiest for Spanish speakers to understand?"
- In other words: The understandability of the accents of Lisbon and Porto by Spanish speakers.
I hope that clarified it. Might pop in some day to check your answer, and if you are pleasant, I might even consider answering. If that were the case, I promise to try to do it in a civilised way.
Cheers for now!
"If what you mean and what you write do not agree I can not guess what you want to say."
I do not quite know how to interpret your condescending tone... Are you trying to be irksome on purpose or are you cantankerous by nature? Do you perhaps have a bone to pick with someone and are taking it out on me (or on any Spaniard, perhaps: de Espanha nem bom vento nem bom cassamento?)
Please, do not make me engage in a sterile battle about whose fault it was, whether mine for the way I expressed myself or yours for your erroneous interpretation. Anyone civilised would have put it down to a misunderstanding, without impolitely attributing the blame to the other person, especially if he has gone to the trouble of trying to clarify it. I have also had some difficulties in interpreting your message above as what you meant ("I CANNOT/CAN'T guess what you want to say") is not the same as what you said ("I CAN NOT guess what you want to say": i.e: it is POSSIBLE FOR ME NOT TO guess..."). I suggest, for the sake of both sanity and courtesy, that we both accept that some misunderstanding is inevitable in human communication when/if we have the pleasure of continuing this discussion.
Here is yet another attempt at clarification on my part: the percentage of 60% I gave for the R1b haplogroup was an average for the whole of Spain. I've seen it put at as high as 70% in some other places.
As for the study I mentioned about Portugal, I confess, guilty as claimed! I have not checked its sources, methods, criteria, sample size, hidden motives (???) etc. I will justify myself by alleging that my "knowledge" on this issue is that of a layman. To illustrate my point with an analogy, my attitude towards the article I cited is pretty much the same as when I'm prescribed certain tablets by my doctor: I take them without checking first what scientific methods were followed to discover the active principle that makes them effective. I daresay most people would identify with this.
Anyway, as in any legal system, if you wish to argue the data in that article were wrong, the burden of the proof is yours... i.e: it is not the accused (myself? Mr. Amorim?) who should defend his innocence, but the accuser (you) who should convincingly prove that the accused is in fact guilty beyond any reasonable doubt (in this case, of the crime of distorsion of the truth...). In other words: if you claim that Mr. Amorim's conclusions are not sustainable owing to any flaws in his scientific method, it would be nice if you could support your claims with data rather than with mere observations in that direction. Otherwise, the case will be overseen by lack of sufficient evidence. To put it more clearly: if you have the scientific knowledge and data that might put me in the right, please, be as kind as to share it. So far, I have no palpable reasons that would make me believe you rather than Mr. Amorim.
I should not feel the need to say this but, anyway, just in case: I have nothing against the Portuguese. Quite on the contrary: I love that country, north, centre and south, and, as a Galician, feel at totally at home there. I find it totally immaterial whether the percentage of carriers of the R1b haplotype in that country is higher or lower than in Spain, or whether population-wise it is at the edge of a neolithic expansion or not.
"But what has this to do with Celts or language?"
Someone else introduced the issue of the Celts, by saying that if it were true that there was an ethnic connection between Northern Iberia and the British Isles through the R1b haplotype, we Spaniards would be all blond and Celtic... I just wanted to argue that the R1b haplotype had nothing to do with the Celts, and that what we know of them is blurred by the mists of the past (including their physical appearance).
"woops "Any one" that lived there ended up in the Iberian peninsula"
And, oops!, anyone who lived in Africa if we go far back enough seems to have ended up all over the world.... And so? What are you getting at?
"their comprehensibility ?? You are referring to ?"
- It was in answer to JGreko's observations. See above.
- "Their" possessive deictic referring back to "the accents of Lisbon and Porto"
Comprehensibility: synonymous of "understandability" (capacity for being understood).
- General Context: Answering the question "what langage is easiest for Spanish speakers to understand?"
- In other words: The understandability of the accents of Lisbon and Porto by Spanish speakers.
I hope that clarified it. Might pop in some day to check your answer, and if you are pleasant, I might even consider answering. If that were the case, I promise to try to do it in a civilised way.
Cheers for now!