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(1) The rise of Spanish | Hats off. Spanish has more native speakers than any language other than Mandarin. Yet its success could not have been foreseen.
http://www.economist.com/news/bo ... rin-yet-its-success
(book review on The Story of Spanish”, a popular history by Jean-Benoît Nadeau and Julie Barlow, The Story of Spanish. St Martin;'s Press, 2013)
Note:
(a) Phoenicians "bequeathed a memorable nickname to posterity: I-shepan-ha, 'land of hyraxes' (more familiar as Hispania)."
(i) Recall Wall Street Journal review the same book a month ago, which said Phoenicians called it "Land of Rabbits."
(ii) "land of hyraxes"
hyrax
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyrax
(herbivorous; live in Africa and the Middle East)
Quote: "Phoenician sailors visiting the coast of Spain circa 1100s BCE, mistaking the European rabbit for the rock hyrax Procavia capensis from their native homeland, gave it the name i-shepan-ham. A theory exists that an adaptation and/or corruption of this name, used by the Romans, became Hispania, leading to English Spain and Spanish España, although this theory is somewhat controversial."
(iii) rabbit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit
(section 1 Habitat and range: "More than half the world's rabbit population resides in North America. They are also native to southwestern Europe, Southeast Asia, Sumatra, some islands of Japan, and in parts of Africa and South America. They are not naturally found in most of Eurasia, where a number of species of hares are present")
I am surprised that rabbits were not found in Middle East or China. Certainly there was no feral rabbits or hares in Taiwan when I grew up there.
(b) Al-Andalus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Andalus
(section 1 Etymology)
(c) "Nor was it ever obvious that Castilian would one day become Spanish. Of the kingdoms that reconquered Spain for Christianity, Castile was one of the least important. Neighbouring Asturias and Navarre were originally much bigger. But Castile’s place astride the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela helped it grow richer and more important, and after its merger with Léon it leapfrogged the others to lead the reconquest."
(i) "Neighbouring Asturias and Navarre were originally much bigger" in terms of geographic area.
(A) "Neighbouring Asturias and Navarre" means the the present situation. See Spain
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spain
(section 4.2 Administrative divisions)
, where either Castile-León or Castile-La Mancha is larger than "neighbouring Asturias and Navarre."
(B) In any time of the history, Castile and Asturias never co-existed. See next.
(ii) Kingdom of Asturias
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Asturias
(718-925 [Wiki was wrong to end with "924"]; founded in 718 by Pelagius [c 685 – 737; reign 718-737, a Visigoth]: was the first Christian political entity established following the collapse of the Visigothic kingdom after Islamic conquest of Hispania)
(iii) Asturias the kingdom derived its name from a Hispano-Celtic inhabitants here called Astures
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astures
(Isidore of Seville gave an etymology as coming from a river Asturia [which could be either of two rivers in modern times)
(iv) The penultimate king of Asturias was Alfonso III
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfonso_III_of_Asturias
(Alfonso the Great; c 848-910; reign 866-910)
the last paragraph: "A year before his death, three of Alfonso's sons rose in rebellion and forced him to abdicate, partitioning the kingdom among them. The eldest son, García, became king of León. The second son, Ordoño, reigned in Galicia, while the third, Fruela, received Asturias with Oviedo as his capital. Alfonso died in Zamora, probably in 910. His former realm would be reunited when first García died childless and León passed to Ordoño. He in turn died when his children were too young to ascend, Fruela became king of a reunited crown. His death the next year initiated a series of internecine struggles that led to unstable succession for over a century."
* Fruela II of Asturias
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruela_II_of_Asturias
(c 875-925; king of Asturias 910-925; king of León 924-925; king of Galicia 924-925)
(v) "after its [Castile's] merger with Léon it leapfrogged the others to lead the reconquest."
Kingdom of León
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Le%C3%B3n
(910-1230; section 2.3 León and Castile)
(vi) Kingdom of León received its name from its capital, city of León
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le%C3%B3n,_Spain
(Its modern name is derived from the city's Latin name Legio[meaning "legion" in English] which itself derives from the Roman legion [recruited and established there])
In other words, neither the city nor the kimdom means "lion."
(vii) Kingdom of Castile
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Castile
(1037-1230; "the first reference to the name 'Castile' (Castilla [in Spanish]) can be found in a document written during AD 800. The name reflects its origin as a march on the eastern frontier of the Kingdom of Asturias, protected by castles, towers or castra")
The merger of Kingdom of Castile and kingdom of León (the former acquired the latter in fact) in 1230 created Crown of Castile (1230–1715), followed by Kingdom of Spain.
(viii) "Castile’s place astride the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela"
Santiago de Compostela
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santiago_de_Compostela
(destination of the Way of St James; section 1 Toponym: Santiago is the local Galician evolution of Vulgar Latin Sanctu Iacobu "Saint James;" Legend has it that the remains of the apostle James were brought to Galicia for burial)
(ix) James, son of Zebedee
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James,_son_of_Zebedee
(Saint James is the Patron Saint of Spain; section 3 Spain)
(d) "Old Basque had no f-sound, which is why Latin ferrum became ferro in Italian and Portuguese but hierro in Spanish."
Take notice "h" is silent in Spanish: namely not pronounced.
(e) "King Alfonso X (1221-84) vigorously promoted scholarly translations into Castilian as well as Latin—a rarity in his time."
(i) That means, he promoted Latin as well.
(ii) Alfonso
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfonso
(f) "Spain expelled them [Jesuits] from the Americas in 1767"
Shona Johnston, Jesuits. Oxford Bibliographies Online, Dec 19, 2012
http://www.oxfordbibliographies. ... 0199730414-0147.xml
("European monarchs, inspired by Enlightenment thinking, promoted political and social reforms that streamlined and centralized imperial power in the hands of royal governments. These reforms clashed with the Jesuits’ dominance of indigenous populations and religious culture in the colonies. Portugal expelled the Jesuits from its territory in 1759. France and Spain followed suit in 1764 and 1767, respectively. In 1773 the pope suppressed the order, drawing to a close two centuries of Jesuit expansion")
(g) "cabello chino ('Chinese hair')"
(i) Go to Images.google.com to search for "cabello China" or "peinados para cabello china"
* cabello (noun masculine): "hair"
* chino (noun masculine; adjective masculine): "Chinese" (Unlike English, Spanish does not capitalize the first letter of nationality.)
* peinado (noun masculine, singular): "hairstyle, hairdo, coiffure"
* para (preposition) "for"
(ii) Comments on the Ecobnomist article:
http://ww3.economist.com/node/21578631/comments
Quote:
"damianbrody[,] in reply to Lucho21 Jun 3rd, 17:19 [:] Cabello chino?, never ever heard that expression. The closest thing I can think of is 'cabello churco'"
"Eduardo Izquierdo[,] in reply to Lucho21 Jun 3rd, 17:27 [:] The aparently contradictory expresion 'cabello chino' to refer to curly hair is widely used in Mexico and has an interesting, if rather infamous origin, it dates back to the era of the caste system during the colonial times. The caste system was not like the Indian caste sytem, but rather a very elaborated system of racial classification/profiling. A 'chino' was sombeody with both mulatto (hence the curly hair) and amerindian ancestry, and the name itself probably originated as 'cochino,' literally 'pig.'"
* cochino (noun masculine): "pig, hog, swine"
* cochino (adjective masculine): "dirty, hoggish"
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发表于 6-6-2013 09:58:22
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