How did Spanish remain so close to Latin?

LAA   Sun Jul 16, 2006 5:35 pm GMT
<<Esta estudia no toma en consideracion el vocabulario, la gramatica, ni la evolucion fonetica de otras cosas que las vocales tonicas. >>

Donde podemos encontrar un estudio que incluya estas cosas?
fab   Sun Jul 16, 2006 10:57 pm GMT
Por el lexico, tenemos este sitio - Que da cuenta de el grado de similaridad entre las lenguas.

" http://www.orbilat.com/General_Survey/Romance_Languages.html "


Por ejemplo, vemos que si consideramos el Italiano como la lengua latina de referimiento, tenemos los numeros sigiuentes :

Italiano 100%
Frances 89%
Sardo 85%
Espanol 82%
Rumeno 77%



Por el estudio comparativo de la gramatica, no conosco un estudio preciso. Con mi conocimiento de Espanol, Frances y Italiano pienso que hay generalmente una mas grande similaridad entre las estructuras gramaticales del Frances y del Italiano, y mas distancia con el Espanol y portugues.
Amatteo   Mon Jul 17, 2006 12:38 pm GMT
LAA,


"As an Italian I find Spanish more divergent to Italian than French, maybe is is due of the arab influences."

It was me who said that. And i repeat it again, i am italian, born in Bologna in 1982. I don't understand spanish, their phonectic and accent is different. On the contrary, it was much easier to understand catalan which is closer to occitan and french.


LAA, maybe you are making a confusion between spanish and catalan.

Of course, with you point of views, you could say because i am from Bologna i am german (LOL).
Gringo   Fri Jul 21, 2006 11:33 am GMT
Brennus Tue Jul 11, 2006 11:54 pm GMT

««First of all, Spain was conquered by the Romans (262 -113 B.C.) when they were at the height of their social and political power under the republic.»»

The Punic wars ended with the Battle of Zama but the total conquest of Hispania took two hundred years and was called the “fiery war”. In 26-25 BC the Cantabrian War was fought in the mountains of northern Hispania. It ended with a last rebellion of the Cantabrians in 19 BC.

"...Spain by the nature of the country and the character of its people, was better adapted than any other place in the world to making losses good for a renewal of hostilities. This is the reason why Spain, though it was the first mainland province to be entered by the Romans, was the last to be completely subdued, and held out till our own times, when it was finally conquered under the leadership and auspices of Augustus Caesar."
Livy-The History of Rome



««Secondly , the aboriginal cultures that the Romans found in Spain (both Iberian and Celtic) were more primitive than those they found in Gaul. The same was true of Britain. Therefore, it was eaiser for Spaniards to make the transition to Romanization than for Gauls.»»

Where did you get this idea? Little is known about the Iberians but they are not thought to be more primitive than the Gauls. I do not think they were even more primitive than the Romans.

In the words of Strabo:

“The Turdetanians are ranked as the wisest of the Iberians; and they make use of an alphabet, and possess records of their ancient history, poems, and laws written in verse that are six thousand years old, as they assert. And also the other Iberians use an alphabet, though not letters of one and the same character, for their speech is not one and the same, either.” [Strabo, Geography]




“In the first place, the expeditions of Heracles and of the Phoenicians, since they both reached as far as Iberia, suggested to Homer that the people of Iberia were in some way rich, and led a life of ease. “[Strabo, Geography]

“The wealth of Iberia is further evidenced by the following facts: the Carthaginians who, along with Barcas, made a campaign against Iberia found the people in Turdetania, as the historians tell us, using silver feeding-troughs and wine-jars.” [Strabo, Geography]


In the words of Tito Lívio.

“[año 206 a.c.]No eran hombres de oscuro linaje, sino claro e ilustre, Corbis Y Orsua, primos hermanos que ambicionaban el principado de una ciudad que se llamaba Ibis, y decidieron resolverlo por el hierro.” [ Tito Lívio – ab Urbe conditia]


You can see the sophistication of a typical Iberian lady in this reconstructed image of Lady of Elche. By no means were the Iberians more primitive than any other people of their time:


http://www.ffil.uam.es/catalogo/madrid/images/manolo_5.jpg
Nun Es   Fri Jul 21, 2006 12:48 pm GMT
Brennus,


"««Secondly , the aboriginal cultures that the Romans found in Spain (both Iberian and Celtic) were more primitive than those they found in Gaul. The same was true of Britain. Therefore, it was eaiser for Spaniards to make the transition to Romanization than for Gauls.»» "

What you say is completely amazing, how can you write this without realizing it is a pure nonsense.
What do you mean by "Primitive", technologies?

It does not mean these peoples did not have their own society with their own rules, language.

That's silly.


If we follow what you say, why aren't the aborigenas integrated to the actual white australian society.

Why the american indians aren't integrated in the us society.

# Anthropology. A person belonging to a nonindustrial, often tribal society, especially a society characterized by a low level of economic complexity.
# An unsophisticated person.
# One that is at a low or early stage of development.
#

1. One belonging to an early stage in the development of an artistic trend, especially a painter of the pre-Renaissance period.
2. An artist having or affecting a simple, direct, unschooled style, as of painting.
3. A self-taught artist.
4. A work of art created by a primitive artist.


About the Gauls, it was the opposite, the societies were very similar between between inhabitants of Gauls and Romans. Because of buziness, similar religion (composed of different gods: one for wine, one for war...), Mediteranean sea and natural communications: foundation of Nice and Marseille by the greeks.
LAA   Fri Jul 21, 2006 4:50 pm GMT
««Secondly , the aboriginal cultures that the Romans found in Spain (both Iberian and Celtic) were more primitive than those they found in Gaul. The same was true of Britain. Therefore, it was eaiser for Spaniards to make the transition to Romanization than for Gauls.»»

Brennus, as an avid reader of history, I am suprised you made such a comment. I'm afraid to the contrary, the Iberians were more culturally advanced than the Gauls, at least outside Cisalpine Gaul and Provincia.

The Gallic tribes had developed a more refined and less primitive culture than that of the Germans, or the Gauls of Belgica, because of greater contact with Greeks and Romans, but they certainly were by no means a highly advanced culture.

The Gauls were neither savage, nor civilized. For the most part, they didn't live in cities, they lived in small scale, rural settlements, and preferred to live in the country. They were still organized according to clans and primitive tribes, etc. They drank wine, but only because it was imported by means of the Roman traders. Their agricultural methods weren't advanced enough to grow large scale vineyards. True, they had a highly developed social heiarchy, but so did the Plains Indians of North America, who never made it past the stone age.

The Iberians on the other hand, were a Mediterranean civilization. They had been in contact with highly sophisticated peoples from the Eastern Mediterranean for 1,000 years. Iberia's coasts were planted with numerous Greek and Phonecian/Cartheginian colonies, which had been in existence for centuries. The Iberians were a prosperous, city dwelling, and civillzed people. Had they attained the same level of civilization as Rome or Athens? No. But they were an advanced civilization nonetheless.

It is also a mistake (which many people make) to refer to all the inhabitants of Iberia as "Celti-Iberians". This is a fallacy, because the Celtic settlement and cultural influence was mainly limited to the northern regions of the Peninsula, which roughly corresponds today to some places like Galicia, Asturias, and northern Portugal. The people in the north posessed a Celtic-Iberian hybrid culture. Not much is known on the matter, but many hypothesize that the Celts were gradually assimilated within the Iberian population and culture, much like the Visigoths would later do in Roman Hispania. The Celts were surely outnumbered against the native population, and more than likely served as a ruling elite, which adopted Iberian ways, and mixed with the local population.

Southern Iberia could not correctly be referred to for the most part as a "Celti-Iberian" land, because there was very few Celtic settlement of the area, and minimal Celtic influence on local culture and civilization.
Gringo   Fri Jul 21, 2006 6:32 pm GMT
««It is also a mistake (which many people make) to refer to all the inhabitants of Iberia as "Celti-Iberians". This is a fallacy, because the Celtic settlement and cultural influence was mainly limited to the northern regions of the Peninsula, which roughly corresponds today to some places like Galicia, Asturias, and northern Portugal.»»



Look at the map:
http://www.arqueotavira.com/Mapas/Iberia/Populi.htm


“In the country of the Celti, Conistorgis is the best known city; but on the estuaries Asta is the best known, where the Gaditanians of today usually hold their assemblies, and it is situated not much more than one hundred stadia beyond the seaport of the island.”[Strabo –Geography]


Coninstorgis was in the Algarve , in the South end of Portugal. Some authors consider that the whole West was Celt-Iberian, North-west and South-west.



««The people in the north posessed a Celtic-Iberian hybrid culture. Not much is known on the matter, but many hypothesize that the Celts were gradually assimilated within the Iberian population and culture, much like the Visigoths would later do in Roman Hispania.»»


No, the Celts were not assimilated like the Visigoths, what you got were Celt-Iberian tribes, as you said “a Celtic-Iberian hybrid culture”. Otherwise Strabo or Herodotus would not refer to them in their writings as different tribes wouldn’t they? They would have been assimilated.

Assimilated you can consider the Spartans Laconians:

“And, he further says, history tells us that some of the companions of Heracles and of the emigrants from Messene colonised Iberia. As for Cantabria, a part of it was seized and held by the Laconians, according to both Asclepiades and others.”[Strabo-Geography]


««The Iberians on the other hand, were a Mediterranean civilization.»»

That did not avoid the cultural clash:

a) Strabos´s Roman concept of barbaric or civilization:

“One might also class as barbaric in character the ornaments of some of the women, of which Artemidorus has told us. In some places, he says, they wear round their necks iron collars which have curved rods that bend overhead and project far in front of their foreheads…”

“… In other places, he says, the women wear round their heads a "tympanium,"110 rounded to the back of the head, and, as far as the ear-lobes, binding the head tightly, but gradually turned back at the top and sides;...”


The Lady of Elche would be considered BARBARIC, not sophisticated.



“; for instance, it is the custom among the Cantabrians for the husbands to give dowries to their wives, for the daughters to be left as heirs, and the brothers to be married off by their sisters. The custom involves, in fact, a sort of woman-rule — but this is not at all a mark of civilisation.” [Strabo-Geography]




b) The Celtiberians thought the Romans were Crazy …

“The Vettonians, when they visited the camp of the Romans for the first time, upon seeing some of the officers promenading up and down the streets merely for the sake of walking around, supposed they were crazy and proceeded to lead the way for them to the tents, thinking they should either remain quietly seated or else be fighting.” [Strabo-Geography]