For GallopingCamel, since the “other” posting is a bit depressing and this is a Friday…
By an odd quirk of the US law / bureaucratic ruling, and a close reading of history, it looks like I’m legally Hispanic. Who knew?
Here, all these years, I thought I was a mix of Celtic, German, and Viking (with a tiny bit of French – but they are largely Celts and Germans too, with a bit of Roman cultural overlay).
So how does this all work?
Let’s start with what the USA says it takes to be Hispanic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispanic#Definitions_in_the_United_States
The U.S. Office of Management and Budget currently defines “Hispanic or Latino” as “a person of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin, regardless of race“. The 2010 Census asked if the person was “Spanish/Hispanic/Latino”.
“The terms “Hispanic” or “Latino” refer to persons who trace their origin or descent to Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Spanish speaking Central and South America countries, and other Spanish cultures. Origin can be considered as the heritage, nationality group, lineage, or country of the person or the person’s parents or ancestors before their arrival in the United States. People who identify their origin as Hispanic or Latino may be of any race.”
So my “ancestors” need to have come from the area of Spain today. OK…
The U.S. Department of Transportation defines Hispanic as, “persons of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Dominican, Central or South American, or others Spanish or Portuguese culture or origin, regardless of race.” This definition has been adopted by the Small Business Administration as well as by many federal, state, and municipal agencies for the purposes of awarding government contracts to minority owned businesses. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Conference include representatives of Spanish and Portuguese descent. The Hispanic Society of America is dedicated to the study of the arts and cultures of Spain, Portugal, and Latin America. The Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, proclaimed champions of Hispanic success in higher education, is committed to Hispanic educational success in the U.S., Puerto Rico, Latin America, Spain, and Portugal.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission encourages any individual who believes that he or she is Hispanic to self-identify as Hispanic. The United States Department of Labor – Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs encourages the same self-identification. As a result, any individual who traces his or her origins to part of the Spanish Empire or Portuguese Empire may self-identify as Hispanic, because an employer may not override an individual’s self-identification.
How about where “Spanish” and “Hispanic” as a word comes from?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispania
Hispania was the Roman name for the Iberian Peninsula. Under the Republic, Hispania was divided into two provinces: Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior.
So again, we come back to the Iberian Peninsula. Some definitions of Hispanic include Portuguese in them. The whole of the Iberian Peninsula. Note that “Iberia” and “Hibernia” have a certain similarity…
Further down, among other suggested origins, we have:
…it is of Iberian derivation and that it is to be found in the pre-Roman name for Seville, Hispalis, which strongly hints at an ancient name for the country of *Hispa, an Iberian or Celtic root whose meaning is now lost.
Well… Hard to argue that a Celt can’t be “Hispanic” when the word itself may trace back to Celts in Iberia…
From Diocletian’s Tetrarchy (AD 284) onwards, the south of remaining Tarraconensis was again split off as Carthaginensis, and probably then too the Balearic Islands and all the resulting provinces formed one civil diocese under the vicarius for the Hispaniae (that is, the Celtic provinces). The name, Hispania, was also used in the period of Visigothic rule. The modern name Spain derives from Hispania.
And, in particular, for the Celtic provinces.
Hmmm…
I’d also note that Spanish has a fair number of words left over from the Celtic, prior to Roman domination.
But that migration of Iberian, Hispanic, Celts to Ireland was a bit early wasn’t it? Any indications that Ireland was still thought of as ‘kin’ a bit later?
http://www.irlandeses.org/0707perezt1.htm
Relations between Ireland and the Iberian Peninsula have their roots deep in the mists of myth and history. According to the Irish Leabhar Gabhála (book of invasions), the last wave of settlers to arrive in Ireland came from the Iberian Peninsula. During the middle ages, trade and fishing created strong links between Ireland and the Peninsula. Foreign fishing vessels working in the fishing grounds of Grand Sol docked in Spanish ports for some months every year. For example, in 1571 around eighteen chalupas (fishing boats) from Gijón, Ribadesella and Llanos worked in Irish fishing grounds (Gomez-Centurión 1988).
That’s 5th to 15th Century. 400 to 1499 A.D. This wiki puts the formation of Spain, and the arrival of Kings (so Spanish Kingdoms) as about that same time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spain#Fall_of_Muslim_rule_and_unification
The breakup of Al-Andalus into the competing taifa kingdoms helped the long embattled Iberian Christian kingdoms gain the initiative. The capture of the strategically central city of Toledo in 1085 marked a significant shift in the balance of power in favour of the Christian kingdoms. Following a great Muslim resurgence in the 12th century, the great Moorish strongholds in the south fell to Christian Spain in the 13th century—Córdoba in 1236 and Seville in 1248—leaving only the Muslim enclave of Granada as a tributary state in the south.
In the 13th and 14th centuries, the Marinids Muslim sect based in North Africa invaded and established some enclaves on the southern coast but failed in their attempt to re-establish Muslim rule in Iberia and were soon driven out. The 13th century also witnessed the Crown of Aragon, centred in Spain’s north east, expand its reach across islands in the Mediterranean, to Sicily and even Athens. Around this time the universities of Palencia (1212/1263) and Salamanca (1218/1254) were established. The Black Death of 1348 and 1349 devastated Spain.
In 1469, the crowns of the Christian kingdoms of Castile and Aragon were united by the marriage of Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon. 1478 commenced the completion of the conquest of the Canary Islands and in 1492, the combined forces of Castile and Aragon captured the Emirate of Granada, ending the last remnant of a 781-year presence of Islamic rule in Iberia. The Treaty of Granada guaranteed religious tolerance toward Muslims. The year 1492 also marked the arrival in the New World of Christopher Columbus, during a voyage funded by Isabel.
So, while all that was going on, some Iberians / Hispanics were booking it out over to Ireland. My Ancestors. ( I didn’t see any ‘time limit’ on that “ancestor” reference in the US requirements…)
Back at that “Irish” link:
During the sixteenth century, Irish-Iberian connections took on a religious and political dimension. The first diplomatic contacts and treaties between the Irish nobility and the empire of Charles V date back to 1529. Iberian political involvement in Ireland increased progressively from the 1520s to the 1640s. The myth of the Iberian origin of the inhabitants of Ireland (the ‘Milesian myth’), a sense of solidarity based on Catholicism and the services rendered by the Irish in the armies of Spain, together with a strong campaign of cultural reinvention and projection carried on by the Irish with the Spanish Monarchy, convinced the kings of their duty to protect and defend the Irish.
OK, despite them calling the Milesian history a “myth”, it IS the history of the Irish. Also note that here we have the Irish fighting in the Kings Army and we have the Kings of Spain “defending” the Irish. Looks to me like if you are fighting in the armys of the Spanish Kings and being defended by them, and derived from them, well, that sure looks like it makes it that you are part of the Spanish Empire…
But just a bit later, the English overrun the place. Still, some Irish manage an independent living under the continued protection of the Kings:
Parallel to the profound transformation that the English state wrought in Ireland in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a strong Irish community flourished in the territories of the Spanish Monarchy, mainly Castile, Portugal and the so-called Spanish Netherlands.
These folks are well aware that they’re “kin”.
Although the Spanish political role in Ireland was overshadowed by France’s influence and the stronger English and Scottish authority on the island from the 1650s onwards, the eighteenth century might be considered the golden age of the Irish presence on the Iberian Peninsula. Starting with Daniel O’Daly (1592-1662) as one of the diplomatic cornerstones of the Portuguese Crown during its war of independence from Spain (1640-1668) until the era of Leopoldo O’Donnell (1809-1867), military commander, political leader and prime minister, both Portugal and Spain boasted high-ranking diplomats, military men and politicians of Irish origin at their service.
On the other hand, Irish merchants benefited from the full rights of Spanish citizenship, confirmed by the new Bourbon dynasty in 1701, in order to boost their trade. The most famous son of this trading aristocracy was the writer, poet and theologian José Blanco White (1775-1841) who in his writings refers to Lower Andalusia, the hub of Spanish intercontinental trade where he grew up. On this issue, Manuel Fernández Chaves and Mercedes Gamero present the unknown business and social context of the Irish community in eighteenth-century Seville.
So these two “people” have been sharing and mixing for a very long time, and up to fairly recently…
Here’s a Spanish piper from Galicia, a province of Spain just north of Portugal. Galicia echoing the Gael history.
Susanna Seivana on the Gaita / Pipes
Susana Seivana is a Galician playing the local pipes.
It is worth noting that the language of Galicia is closely related to Portuguese, implying a fair Celtic thread in Portugal too.
Back at the Origins
So that “origin myth”, it has some interesting early statements (that have odd ‘echoes’ in the structure of the language), but then much more recently has what is pretty clearly ‘history’ in it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milesians_%28Irish%29
The Lebor Gabála (Book of Invasions — probably first written in the second half of the 11th century AD) describes the origin of the Gaelic people. They descended from Goídel Glas, a Scythian who was present at the fall of the Tower of Babel, and Scota, a daughter of a pharaoh of Egypt. Two branches of their descendants left Egypt and Scythia at the time of the Exodus of Moses, and after a period of wandering the shores of the Mediterranean (including sustained settlements at Miletus and Zancle) arrived in the Iberian Peninsula, where they settled after several battles.
Miletus is also known as Greek Ionia (now in Turkey) while Zancle is now known as Messina, in Sicily.
We’ve already seen that the Celts look to have originated over in the area of Turkey / Scythia / North Italy (eventually moving up into the Austria area). We also know that the language has some odd ‘Semitic / Hamitic’ echos in it. (Things like starting with the verb. VSO is not a common IndoEuropean structure.) We’ve also seen that Celts were known to have been hanging out in Egypt and fighting as a mercenary army for Pharaoh. I don’t see a whole lot of reason to call that “myth” as there are no ‘facts on the ground’ to deny it, and several that support it. Embellished? Sure! But who doesn’t have a bit of ‘sellers puff’ in their history? ;-)
Yet all that is prior the the arrival in Iberia. It’s a known fact that Celts were in Iberia. It’s also pretty well attested that they came to Ireland from there. (Earlier archeological levels indicate a different genetics and material culture from Celts).
So what’s the story of arriving in Ireland from Iberia?
One of them, Breogán, built a tower at a place called Brigantia (probably in the coast of Galicia, near A Coruña (Corunna), which was then “Brigantia” (today Betanzos) and where a Celtic tribe called “Brigantes” is attested in ancient times — see Tower of Hercules) from the top of which he, or his son Íth, first saw Ireland.
Íth made the first expedition to Ireland, but was killed by the three kings of Ireland, Mac Cuill, Mac Cecht, and Mac Gréine of the Tuatha Dé Danann. In revenge the eight sons of Íth’s brother Míl Espáine (the “Soldier of Hispania”, whose given name was Golam), led an invasion force to defeat the Tuatha Dé and conquer Ireland. The sons of Míl landed in County Kerry and fought their way to Tara. On the way, the wives of the three kings, Ériu, Banba, and Fodla requested that the island be named after them: Ériu is the earlier form of the modern name Éire, and Banba and Fodla were often used as poetic names for Ireland, much as Albion is for Great Britain.
Seems pretty clear to me that the Irish know they came from Iberia. But that’s a myth, right? What do the folks calling it myth say is the origin?
In the historical scheme proposed by T. F. O’Rahilly the descent of the kings of Ireland from the sons of Míl is a fiction intended to provide legitimacy for the Goidels, who invaded Ireland in the 1st or 2nd century BC, giving them the same ancient origin as the indigenous peoples they dominated. However, it has been argued that the story is a much later invention of mediæval Irish historians, inspired by their knowledge of the Seven Books of History Against the Pagans, written by the early 5th century Gallaecian cleric, Paulus Orosius. See also Early history of Ireland.
Goidels is the same as Gaels.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaels
The Gaels or Goidels are speakers of one of the Goidelic Celtic languages: Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Manx. Goidelic speech originated in Ireland and subsequently spread to western and northern Scotland and the Isle of Man.
[…]
The Gaels, during the beginning of the Christian era, believed themselves to be descendants of the Milesians – the sons of Míl Espáine. Much of this is covered in the Lebor Gabála Érenn, which catalogues the Milesian invasion of Ireland from the Iberian Peninsula. While this account is mostly mythical, it may be an embellished version of actual historical events. Recent genetic studies by Brian Sykes of Oxford University suggest that these myths are based on historical facts since the people of northwestern Iberia, especially those from Galicia and Asturias are genetically closely related to the Gaels.
So either it is accurate, or it is embellished and pushed back in time a bit; but the folks (MY folks) still originated in Iberia. Genetics pretty much proves it.
And it is still going on today
The general mixing and acceptance of Spanish and Irish for each other has been going on ‘forever’, as we’re from the same roots. It continues to today. In an earlier posting about the missions, we saw that one of the noted trends was that Spanish in California often intermarried with Irish; having a lot in common in culture and religion. How about even more recently?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Quinn
Quinn was born Antonio Rodolfo Quinn Oaxaca in Chihuahua, Mexico, during the Mexican Revolution. His mother, Manuela “Nellie” Oaxaca, was of Aztec ancestry. His father, Francisco (Frank) Quinn, was also born in Mexico, to an Irish immigrant father from County Cork and a Mexican mother. Frank Quinn rode with Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa, then later moved to Los Angeles and became an assistant cameraman at a movie studio.
So looks to me like it’s pretty cut and dried.
The Irish originated in Hispania. They served Spanish Kings, were protected by Spanish Kings, have a long tradition of being part of Spain, Hispania, and Iberia, and have a long history of “mingling” with folks from there. MY Ancestors came from Iberia (via a short oppression by English) via Ireland. Some got to Ireland early, some much later, at least into the 1700s, but in all cases Iberia and Ireland are ‘mixing’. The “rules” set out state that is all it takes, and I can ‘self identify’.
I am Hispanic.
Who knew?
I’d also suggest that all the other folks in America of Irish decent can also check the “Hispanic” check box on those “preference” forms. After all, history is on your side…
Besides, I really like carnitas burritos and tequila con cerveza “chaser”.. ;-)
Musings from the Chiefio 
Hmmmm, I was born in Arizona, once part of the Spanish Empire. I’m Hispanic too!
Wait. Am I Hispanic too? My ancestors, originally from Scotland, who settled in Southern Callifornia prior to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, can be considered Hispanic?
““The terms “Hispanic” or “Latino” refer to persons who trace their origin or descent to Mexico,…or country of the person or the person’s parents or ancestors before their arrival in the United States. People who identify their origin as Hispanic or Latino may be of any race.” (Actually, the United States came to them, but I digress).
The mind boggles.
OK, so I am Hispanic because my mother was born in Mexico of an Indian and Sephardic Jew, but let me tell you that you could never find a more fiercely loyal American than my mother. She came here at four, was first a show, theater and movie dancer, you have seen her in some of those old movies by Buzby Berkeley and then got a degree and became a college professor in languages. The important facts about her are that she was a real American, thrived on the system and paid one Hell of a lot more in taxes than she ever got out of the establishment.
Let’s see, not just Irish, Scottish, English, German, and a little Viking Raider, but also: Spanish, Portuguese, Carthaginian, Maltese, Italian, Sicilian, Sardinian, Egyptian, Judean, Samarian, Galilean, Syrian, (and a touch or two of Arab here and there) but also Turkish, Greek, Romanian, Ukrainian, Caucasian, Caspian, etc., etc., … hummmmm…. do I get more deductions or qualify for foreign aid? You know I get this terrible craving for Chinese, Mongolian, and Japanese , and I’ve been know to eat Indian Curry dishes too. That has to be genetic. Oh yes! Blood type B+, that’s gotta’ be worth something too. Think I can move into the PAY NO TAXES bracket?
@Judy F:
You get it on two counts:
1) The Scots moved there FROM Ireland. SO you are Irish one step removed, thus Hispanic.
2) Having lived in Mexico then transferred to the USA, your ancestors are Hispanic. So are you.
¡Bienvenidos a mi hermana hispano!
@Pascvaks:
Looks to me like you are clearly some kind of minority! ;-) Also given ANY Hispanic trace, you get to ‘tick the box’… Go for it!
Grandmother came from here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballinamore
Congratulations, John, mi hermano hispano. ¡Bienvenidos!
The NW Spanish Portuguese link is probably from the tribal migration into the crumbling (west) Roman Empire in the fifth century. There were a number of tribes went to Hispania; the Vandals moved on to North Africa (Tunisia), the Visigoths stayed around ruling much of Spain and a fair bit of southern France. It was a fairly loose sort of control with the Basques in NE Spain and the Catalans in the South East, and the Suevii in the NW in Gallicia. It was those in the NW who moved into Portugal as the Moorish control waned, and it would have been these who interacted with Ireland for 1,000 years. There may well have been residual Celtic influence there too. Ireland, Wales, Cornwall, Brittany were all remnant Celtic survivors of the Roman breakup. Gallicia is readily accessible by sea from them all, and vice versa.
The important thing is not how hispanic you are, but how hispanic you feel. Given enough government handouts many will feel very hispanic. I would draw parallels with Australia and our aborigines, where a number of people from Sri Lanka and southern India who look like traditional aboriginals, as well as some from Australia who look very unlike traditional aboriginals, do quite well out of feeling disadvantaged and aboriginal. But I shouldn’t say too much or I will get prosecuted like Andrew Bolt.
So my advice to you is play it safe and not claim California. If their debt gets worse you might get given it.
http://www.pagetutor.com/jokebreak/032.html
@Chuckles:
I guess that just goes to show that you are what you think you are ;-)
@Graeme No.3:
As we’re rapidly heading to quota-ville, pick up your stamp of approval where you can…
@ALL:
An interesting analysis (very technical) of R1b haplogroup Y chromosome also shows very high prominence of the same sub-type in Iberia and Hibernia…
http://www.genebase.com/learning/article/11
Figure 11, about 1/3 of the way down, also kind of confirms the ‘legend’ of Scythian origin. R originates in the middle of Scythian territory, spreads toward central Asia, has a split of R1b1 down into the Levant / Pharaoh land (one presumes picking up the spouse ;-) and then there’s an R1b subclad that is spread out to England, Ireland, Iberia… R1b1b2. The picture is very limited in ‘vision’ in that it has big fat arrows and never a retrace (i.e. r1b1 runs off toward Egypt, but no retrace, then R1b1b2 just pops up in Europe… Also doesn’t show the movement to the Islands, but other graphs in the report do.
Figure 13 is more telling. Map of Europe with details of R distribution today. Pretty clear that Ireland and Iberia have similar R types (outside the corner with the most Roman / Moorish exposure). Almost identical to Portugal and Central Spain.
The Mitochondrial DNA haplogroups most common in Ireland are H 44%, J 11%, and K 12%.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MtDna_haplogroups_by_populations
Consistent with a central east Asian (K) cohort along with some North African / European / Levant major origin. Unfortunately (?) H is one of the most common types all around the Mediterranean / Europe.. but the pattern of genetics is not in conflict with the “myth”… Amusing, that.
I’ve also run into a couple of other confirming pages on the “Iberian refuge” of R1b during the last glacial and some more on Irish moving from Iberia to Ireland, so it’s pretty solid, IMHO. Hispanic, all of us…
Then…..what the heck are you doing up there?, just cross the frontier and migrate southwards!
In any case you´ll immediately become free of many troubles about to come…
Re the origin of the word “Iberian” being unknown – somewhere I learned that it was derived from the word “Hebrew”. If you use the non-American pronunciation of “I” as being “ee” or “eh”, as so many non-English languages do,you’ve got a fine start on making the connection.
It seems like an easier connection than getting from “Arcadian” to “Cajun”.
You can’t tell very easily by looking at the words. You have to say them.
I have also heard somewhere of a connection between Irish and Hebrew/Israel. There are names that match up. It makes me wonder about the “Gift of the Gab” connection, too.
Sorry I can’t say where I learned this stuff.
I was told by a relative that Spanish sailors with the Armada were wrecked on the coast of Ireland and intermarried with my ancestors, hence I have English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish and Spanish ancestry.
I’ve never lived in the US though so it’s a bit academic at the moment if the American government think I’m Hispanic despite me feeling thoroughly British.
Pues…Coño!, que ahora sí que eres Español!
My father was from Ireland but my great-uncle traced the family history back to a Basque region of France. Mother’s side of the family is Welsh but her great-grand-mother was Greek.
So I’m firmly in the “hispanic” tribe.
I have been working on my family history. It is amazing how mobile families were, even when mobile took months of travel. I was a little tongue in cheek with my reply above, because of all my family lines, that particular line is “hispanic” by virtue of an arbitrary international boundary line. My Mom’s dad was French Basque. Her mother’s line was mostly English, with some Spanish ancestry back 20 generations or more. My Dad’s line was mostly German, with a little Scotch and English thrown in. In all the lines, there is the “odd” pairing- French/Spanish, Irish/German, French/Scotch. I would love to have some DNA work done, just to know for sure where my ancestors came from.
@tckev. You and I might be Basque cousins. And I can’t speak that language either…
So if my grandfather immigrated from Netherlands in 1915, could I too be Hispanic? If Netherlands was part of the Habsburg empire when Spain settled Latin America from 1500-1648, it seems to be part of the “Spanish Culture (empire). If part of the empire, then I would be hispanic. After 1648, Netherlands became independent of Spainish empire. But hey, there was a time the Dutch were “hispanic”.
@Adolfo:
I likely will at some point. I’ve got a standing offer to have an extended stay just a ways north of you. I’ve got out my Spanish tapes and I’m reviewing the verbs and conjugations…
@Power Grab:
I’ve done some fair amount of reading on that. Supposedly Welsh is even closer than Irish (but both supposedly came over from Iberia). I’ve thought of doing a posting on it (and touched on some of the linguistic bits in an Irish History / language posting) but there’s just so much of a tangle it ends up very long.
Short form is that English and Germanic languages have a ‘substratum’ in them that is non-IndoEuropean. Something similar shows up in one branch of the Celtic languages ( Irish / Scots) that does not show up in the other (ancient France / Gauls) where the former has things hinting at Hamitic / Semitic substratum while the latter are more nearly straight IndoEuropean structures.
Where it gets muddy is that Iberia was known to have a load of Phoenicians living there (including out on the Atlantic Coast. Some evidence has them all the way up to around Denmark. As the Phoenicians were related to Hebrews, hard to distinguish the two after many thousand years of echo..
The Irish have a “myth” of being derived from a guy that sounds like Noah (though spelled differently) and there are ancient writings of praying to a god named Baal. And a whole lot more.
There is also a long tradition / mythology that the Europeans are partly the “lost tribes” of Israel.
Finally, in looking at the Biblical Stories, there is Esau (very Redhead brother if Israel) and the Edomites. Chase that history down, you find SOME of them hanging out around the Nabatean area and some being killed, some, after a few hundred years, being absorbed back in to Israel. BUT, these RedHeads had some that just seemed to wander off somewhere… Part of why I find it interesting to track the Redhead Gene… It’s a unique and easy to spot marker… Where do we find lots of Redheads? In those Celtic areas ( Switzerland / Austria; Ireland and up into France / Scandinavia).
So there are all sorts of threads, from myth / history told by the folks, to genetics, to The Redhead Gene, to linguistics to… but nothing substantial enough to prove anything. Lots of “color in the pan’ but no nuggets…
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Irish+hebrew+connection
http://www.israelite.info/thebiblestoryfiles/hebrew-celtic-connection.html
http://www.ensignmessage.com/archives/hebrew.html
http://www.rhesusnegative.net/work/the-hebrew-celtic-connection/
You find this same basic story in several places / links. Sometimes it says Welsh instead of Irish, but a thousand years ago the different dialects were not as they are now…
http://www.britam.org/language.html has a Welsh version…
Lots of interesting stuff to try unraveling, yet it ravels as fast as I un-it ;-)
Several of my postings have come out of PARTS of chasing after that bit-o-fairy dust… Looking at Phoenicians, several bits on language structure, some archaeology. Spending some time on Thracians (as they had Redheads, so I wanted to see how closely they tied to Esau vs Indo-European…) Heck, I’ve got a half dozen pages on Chariot Wheels I’m holding open … why? Turns out the number of spokes is an historical marker… so I’m making tables of who had a 4 spoke wheel when and what that might mean…
As of now, I’m mostly thinking that the various Celts ran all over the place so much, and the Phoenicians ran all over so much, AND the “wandering Jew” ran all over so much: “These folks met”. Often. Trying to sort out their individual histories and identities would be like trying to sort Spanish from French from Germans today. Looks simple on the surface, but underneath? Franks were Germanic. France has Celts in Brittany today. Spain has Celts, and had Visigoth (Germanic) aristocracy for a few generations. Germany had a load of Celts down in Bavaria making beer (with some Czech guys) way back when too.
Basically, I’m sure there’s a connection, perhaps even a very strong one. I just don’t think it can be found under all the mixing and movement AND I’m pretty sure it just doesn’t matter any more. Interesting? You bet…. but not a very productive search.
FWIW, I think the Celtic underlayment to English is part of why it is such a poetic language.. and that the ‘vowel shifting’ ( sing, sang, sung ) has echoes of the Hamitic / Semitic vowel shifting. Compare standard IndoEuropean languages and the endings are more standardized (limiting poetic options) and fewer “irregular” forms with vowel shifts…
So the various ‘lost tribe’ theories range from just the Insular Celts being Hebrew derived, to all of Europe; to various derivations using Egyptian roots to Phoenicians… and no way to pick one over another.
FWIW, my favorite is to just cherry pick some fun bits and mix them. In particular, the Hyksos Rulers of Egypt who were foreigners. They happen (depending on who’s broken time line you use) about the same time as the Moses story. Tutmoses means “brother of Moses”… so one theory is that the Hyksos Rulers WERE the Hebrews. Postulate that… Now add in the Irish history / myth. Stir with us knowing that Celts were working in Egypt for Pharaohs as mercenaries…
So we have a “Scythian” Celt come down to Egypt as a high ranking Mercenary. He hooks up with the daughter of a Pharaoh. One that just happens to be Hebrew. Things get rocky. They and a few hundred (thousand?) of their closest family and friends book it out of there (as the ‘myth’ says; stopping in Ionia, then Sicily, then landing in Iberia. Those “phonetician” and Celtic mixed settlement areas identified in the digs. Meanwhile, one of the main tribes following Moses head off to Israel…
Time passes. Some of the two groups that landed in Iberia form colonies with each ethnic / linguistic type dominating, but a large part stay mixed. That gives us the “phonetician” cities in Iberia and the Celtic ones. (One ‘myth’ about Irish is that the two lovers kept part of each family language. Indo-European words but Hamitic / Semitic grammar.. and blending them created the ‘perfect’ language.) Then a large chunk run off to Ireland from that mixed group while the Romans, then the Moors, overrun and homogenize Iberia. This would also explain some of the odd inscriptions in Iberia where it looks like various mixes of Semitic / I.E. language or script are oddly juxtaposed and some of the ‘unknown’ languages – as they worked out the blending.
All very fanciful. Fun. Nice and tidy. Completely made up ;-)
But it does let you account for all the known facts and ‘myths’…
But I stray…
@Adolfo:
¡Es la verdad! Aunque si el camino es largo …
@Tckev:
There’s an amusing side effect of the definitions … as the further back in time you go, the more “connections” you have, it isn’t that many levels of depth before everyone is related to everyone else… so really everyone can claim to be related to any ethnicity… if distantly. But the definition has no depth cutoff… nor distance…
@Mddwave:
Yup! It was, in fact, part of the Spanish Empire and that is explicitly called out. Looks to me no problemo!
Pull yourself a cerveza and fix a plate of nachos while you contemplate your new found roots!
@Judy F.:
Note that the Basque are a language and genetic isolate, but that the folks all around them have so much ‘wandering’ inside Europe that it’s really a bit silly when folks say “My Grandmother was French”. Does that mean the Celts of Brittany? The Romans of southern France? The German Franks? There are a dozen other odd tribes too; not to mention the Normans who were from Scandinavia… Britain is worse. Romans, Celts, Vikings, Normans, “French”, Angels and Saxons from Germany. Some odd Phonetician bits left over, and some underlay of the prior folks that predated all of them. (Genetically more Basque like)
Looking at maps of the various migrations is just amazing. Another “posting in the wings” is looking a where the German part of the line came from. Oddly, Scandinavia… that asks where did THEY come form? Looks like probably Thracians(!). Then you have part of the later Germanics (Goths) basically wander off into West Asia, then come tearing out past /through Roman territory, stop off in Spain as kings and aristocracy. Or the (Germanic) Vandals that wander all over Europe, But then cross to North Africa and end up in Tunisia(!)… only to head back over the pond to Rome(!).
Map of only 400 out of thousands of years here:
Elsewhere we’ve seen the Celts running all over from Anatolia to Egypt to East / Central Europe and even out to Iberia.
Then there are the Greeks. If it connected to the Mediterranean, they went there. Greek Colonies from Spain to the Levant.
Or the Hungarians. Started off out near Genghis Khan’s turf. Ran over 1/2 of Asia, and ended up near Austria. Almost a language isolate, it is related to Finnish and Estonian IIRC.
Or the Slavs. Started out down near Yugoslavia / Serbia. Generally moving north / east. Now Russians are on the Asian Pacific coast (and would have been in California if the Czar hadn’t sold it!)
It really is amazing…
i don’t remember who recommended it, but I got a book this summer called ‘Moses in the Hieroglyphs” by Grant Berkley. Basically, he’s exploring the idea that ancient British Khumric should be used to interpret the Egyptian hierglyphics. When he does that, it brings out a problem with the traditional timeline of Egyptian dynasties. One was duplicated, so there are about 600 or 700 years of history that is out of place. He gives tons of examples of words/glyphs that are so similar that it creeps one out.
The Basque language it is apparently not related with any known language and it has been even related with the Incas´Quechua (qheshwa) and japanese. Presumably they came in a different space-ship.
@Adolfo:
Folks have tried to tie Basque to every other language on the planet. It doesn’t tie. Some folks have tried to assert it is derived from what the Neanderthals spoke (via various assertions about culture, mental structure, naming of animals and domestication, etc.)
The best assertion is that it is related to the languages spoken over Europe prior to the invasion of the Indo-European speakers that largely replaced it. Leaving it isolated.
THE major problem is that the further back in time or distant in evolution you try to force a connection the higher the probability you will find a bogus connection. “Why” is pretty simple. You have to open the acceptance band wider to find anything; and there are only so many sound forms and grammatical forms possible; so eventually “something matches” (even in languages that do not have any connection).
Either via “contact” or via “parallel evolution”, along come some small number of “hits” and suddenly a “connection” is turned into an “evolution”… You just have to always guard against that… (Some linguists have even attacked the whole edifice of “language families” and “proto-language” constructs on that basis).
This is spectacularly displayed in attempts to translate the Phaistos disk or Minoan-A writing. Folks find them to be just about everything imaginable from Hebrew to Basque to whatever. (I think the Phaistos Disk is a monthly calendar of events – 30 symbols on one side, 31 on the other, with repeating symbols for key events) but that’s just a WAG…
@Power Grab:
Try: http://www.archive.org/stream/comparisonofegyp00port/comparisonofegyp00port_djvu.txt
A pdf scan here: http://ia600508.us.archive.org/3/items/comparisonofegyp00port/comparisonofegyp00port.pdf
They have other formats available…
IMHO it’s pretty clear that a lot of the divisions we see today did not exist then. The world was largely Celts, Egyptians (and related language speakers such as Hebrews and Phoenicians), Greeks (that eventually split off some others) and scattered tribes (such as Scythians and Thracians) along with Babylonians.
The Semitic language area extended from up near Babylon (Babylonian is a language isolate) and down until it graded into the Hamitic group (that some folks argue are not all that different) on past Egypt. The I.E. language group is on a more northern arc, from Iran through the Hittites and off to Europe (that was mostly speaking Celtic languages then as the Germanics had not headed north yet) until you run into the original peoples of Europe on the edges (Basque related from the looks of it).
The I.E. band and the Semitic / Hamitic band have been interacting for at least 5000 years. “:They’ve met”…
The ancient forms of both language groups are more similar than the present ones and in fact some folks combine the two into a ‘superfamily’. There are curious similarities. Things like three genders and use of ablaut.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_ablaut
Some folks think the I.E. form was more like the Semitic form in earlier days:
” It has been shown that it seems to be highly likely that Early PIE was of the root-inflexional morphological type, as was Proto-Semitic (see also Proto-Indo-European language)”
Some of the Berber languages (that likely refelect an even older form) have even stronger ablaut similarities.
So is this from “contact” and sharing? Or from “common root and divergence”? That’s the hard bit…
Oh, and there’s a connection between the Welsh name for themselves Khumry / Cymru and other ancient lines. “Welsh” comes from a Germanic root meaning “foreign” and was applied to them by others, not what they called themselves.
It’s a very long and complicated mush. Maybe I ought to make a posting out of it, even if speculative and “mushy”, just to put it in one place…
You may have to revise that a tad Chiefio me son.
The Spanish and the Irish have commonalites in DNA, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_R1b_%28Y-DNA%29 and note R1b1a2 (R-M269) which is ultra high among the Celtic parts of Ireland ( who were progressively pushed west in the Norman/Saxon/Briton invasions between 1150 and 1700)
Also note http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-DNA_haplogroups_by_groups_in_Europe
Basically what you are saying is that Irish = Hispanic and lets get this over with now guys. :)
Then there was Atlantean , made well before genetic studies at modern genome resolutions were possible.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantean_%28documentary_series%29
While the Irish Scots Basques Spanish may be a genetic isolate pinned west into Europe by the Celtic invasion only one Old Europe language has survived, Basque.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_European_culture
EM – I’d just got used to the realisation that I’m genetically Neanderthal and now you go and tell me I’m legally Hispanic. My mum’s mum spoke Welsh and English, and her mum only spoke Welsh, so by the Welsh-Irish link I’m Hispanic. Suddenly from being one of the people who have zero positive discrimination for anything (white, CofE, male, divorced, not unemployed) I’ve suddenly become part of a minority and could claim various goodies if I emigrated to the States. It’s a crazy legal system.
Genetics takes no account of legalities of marriage, and I suspect the genetic lines are a lot more mixed up than was thought prior to DNA testing being so easy. It’s maybe not “6 handshakes” but 6 seductions across the world.
@2Pack:
I’m not seeing what I “might need to revise”…. as I’m saying the same thing. Irish and Spanish have similar genetics as the Irish are FROM Spain… in many waves…
@Simon:
That’s part of what makes the discrimination of quotas and preferences so stupid. Stick a fork in a wall map of Europe and you will find a dozen historic nationalities not realizing they are all blended. Between Rome, the Germans, the Celts, and then the Norman invasions, not to mention Napoleon wandering over the whole place, “nationality” is more a matter of choice and chosen language than genetics.
My Mum is absolutely English… In talking with her, turns out the family heritage included the Norse legends due to the Viking part… and some Celts… and some Saxons from Germany, and… My Dad is Absolutely an Irish / German blend. Then we asked a bit more. The Irish I’ve already covered here. The German was Amish. Who started up near Denmark and ended up in Switzerland then headed over here. Before that, the German line ends up wandering down to Thrace…
Everyone’s a mutt in Europe…
I agree, E.M. Smith, discrimination quotas and preferences are absurd. I am a mutt – just like everyone else – but my last name, Manuel, is a common first name in Mexico.
Quotas and preferences illustrate the absurdity of life under a tyrannical government that has little of no respect for basic human rights defined in the US Declaration of Independence in 1776.
http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/
Propaganda artists, knowing that humans are controlled mostly by emotions rather than logic, manipulated fears and guilt and hid information to get leaders of Allied Nations and their scientific leaders to endorse formation of the United Nations after the Second World War ended, and the gradual end national boundaries and constitutions.
George Orwell warned in 1948 that a tyrannical government was coming in “1984.”
Here’s the rest of the story: https://omanuel.wordpress.com/about/#comment-1127
@OManuel:
“Propaganda artists, knowing that humans are controlled mostly by emotions rather than logic, manipulated fears and guilt”…
So true.
It doesn’t matter if they are called Imam, Dear Leader, President, Premier, Führer, Congressman, Chair, Professor, or Dept. Head. Somewhere along the line they learned to play the ’emotional flute’ and then learned that fear was easier and more effective while attempts at reason run into a wall of stupid.
From that point on, the “politics of fear and greed” have dominated global operations.
I will it were not so, but it is.
Watching the Romney vs Obama ‘news flow’ it is also very clear that the Democrats are much better at that game. Direct flat out bald faced lying doesn’t even slow them down. Romney keeps trying to use truth and reason; and ends up looking outmaneuvered.
So even though, by the same rules as here, Romney is more HIspanic than most others (direct from Mexico just a couple of generations back), he gets painted as the White Evil Bastard and has the Hispanics being played against him. He ought be be starting every other speech with a Spanish intro talking about HIS Hispanic roots and have adds saying to “Vote for the First Hispanic President!” and on and on… True? It’s technically true, even if functionally irrelevant, so it has more truth than “It’s all Bush’s fault” 4 years in…
Somebody needs to sit Romney down and explain to him that being nice and honest will cost him the election. Then again, I suspect he’s a lousy liar and not practiced in it… so maybe not a good idea to try On The Job Training in it ;-)
EM – just a thought. Basically it seems you’re saying that Romney will probably lose the election because he’s a bad liar. This is a strange reflection on the election process and the electorate. I should say sad reflection, since it’s probably true.
Looking back in UK history, Churchill seems to have been a very good liar, and was so convincing that he carried people with him and thus his ability in lying was a large factor in winning WWII. Do we need good liars (Hispanic or not) as our leaders?
@Oliver: Manuel :Origin: Hebrew Meaning: God is with us , from Emmanuel.
@adolfogiurfa: Thanks!
Is the Hebrew meaning: “Awareness that God is with us ?”
I ask after realizing late in life that FRTG (The Force, Reality, Truth, God) is with, and sustains, us all, always.
After responding to the false image of an irrational, angry and punishing God of my youth with anger, arrogance and denial, I discovered a benevolent but unyielding FRTG that is consistent with the Hindu/Buddhist/Scientific/Christian concept of “karma,” “what goes around, comes around,” “cause and effect”, or “As you reap, so shall you sow.”
Having traced 3/4s of my heritage (just my mother’s mother’s side remains untraced), I can almost guarantee that I am not Hispanic – everything BUT. However, my wife’s mother was born and raised in Guadalajara, so she is only second generation American, and pure Hispanic. And as I found out from the ancestry, I have Cherokee on both my mother’s and father’s side, so I guess I am more Native American than Elizabeth Warren.
So I will settle for a pinch of black, a slice of native American, and then anything else that Europe has thrown into the mix. But I MARRIED an Hispanic! So can I join the club? ;-)
@adolfogiurfa: Yellow Lark was also aware of FRTG (The Force, Reality, Truth, God)
Click to access No_Fear.pdf
You aren’t Hispanic. You’re irascable! (& that’s a good thing) .
You DO contribute to “diversity”, but not in the liberal meme.
@omanuel: Watch these:
The government took 10+ years to come up with the definitions that conflate race with ethnicity. It’s a pain for those of us who have to tally this sort of thing as part of our jobs. The humorous thing is that the data are usually self-reported so you can “be” anything you want. Worked for Elizabeth Warren — at least for a while. ;-)
The bagpipe has been played in Galicia for at least 1500 years. They refer to this instrument as “gaita” which is supposed to “derive from the Gothic word gait or gata, meaning “goat”; as the bag of a gaita is made from a whole, case-skinned goat hide,” according to this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galician_gaita
The typical Galician dance to bagpipes is called “muiñeira”. The most popular pipers in Galicia these days are Carlos Nuñez and Susana Seivane.
Here she plays the Muiñeira de Chantada (the most popular muiñeira jig)
And here she plays the Galician national anthem, maybe in preparation for independence sometime in the distant future… (the Suebic Kingdom of Galicia was one of the first to separate from the Roman Empire, and thus one of the oldest kingdoms in Europe)
@PPugliano: But then it happened that the “deaf lion” came….and spoiled the concert.
Personally, I am African-American. I was born in the US, but my ancestors came from Africa. Not sure when… I think maybe only 100,000 or 200,000 years ago. We used to have it written in the front page of the family Bible, but I think one of my cousins may have that now. Besides, a lot of my folk were from the Old South here in the US, which almost certainly means I have some more recent African as well. More recently, I am Native American — which also makes me Asian from the long march. No, not from Mao, from the Siberian march. Or paddle. Whichever. Though I am English also. And Scots/Irish. But I was born in Tennessee — in fact, just a few miles from where Hernando DeSoto marched through not so long ago claiming territory for the Spanish crown. Hey! I guess that I’m Hispanic too!
Actually, about the only group that I haven’t figured out some connection to are Australian Aborigines. Any ideas on that?
EM says (as above): It is worth noting that the language of Galicia is closely related to Portuguese, implying a fair Celtic thread in Portugal too.
The Suevii or Suebi etc. were a tribe(?) from Germany who has a kingdom in western Iberia in the sixth & seventh centuries (years ~410 – 585, until submerged by the Visigoths). It included at one stage all of present day Portugal and a bit of SW Spain, e.g. Seville.
Apparently there was also a celtic influx from Cornwall etc & Brittany into the Kingdom of some size (own Bishop and diocese). Around 490-520AD. As this was the time refugees from Britain were settling in Brittany, it seems more than likely.
There is a roman reference to the Suevii being Celtic even though living in Germany. This may explain their early independence while most Germanic tribes were trying to ally with the Romans.
Add in that Gallicia would seem destined to be the likely refuge for celts from invasions into the centre of Spain, it may explain the links noted.
Given my ancestors were English, Irish, Scottish, Scandinavian, German and Portuguese (and a New Zealander, but being Aussie our family always hushes that one up) and that in less than 200 years, it shows that things get mixed when people are moving around.
Most of the Celtic and German tribes seem to have quickly adopted the local varieties of Latin wherever they migrated in former Roman empire. Galician-Portuguese was once one language developped from late vulgar Latin in the northwest of Hispania. Its early origins are said to be in the Suebic kingdom of Galicia sometime around the year 500-600. It was the vernacular language of that region by the year 800, under the Visigoths. Galician and Portuguese are still mutually intelligible to a great extent (especially in written form). At the end of the wikipedia article you can see a side-by-side comparison of “Our Father who art in heaven” in Galician, Portuguese, Spanish and Latin. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galician_language
EM – I’ve been pretty busy and didn’t see your response to my post on the oil thread. I guess I shouldda used the ole , eh? :)
ooops! Part of my post went missing. <sarc> <\sarc>
OK, t hat didn’t work either. I was being sarcastic on the oil thread. The Oil Dumb people just kind of piss me off. They are OK with DE, but dumb about what technologies are in the future.
@Simon:
Perhaps for another day… I’ll share my thesis on lying. IMHO, in short form, much of “Modern Man” needs, desperately, a good lying too. “The truth? You can’t handle the truth!!”. It took me a very long time to learn that “Honesty is the best policy” was a crock. I still have problems with that… So I’m ALMOST always pathologically honest… and still ‘have issues’ … though I’m getting better at identifying when and to what degree to lie for most benefit to all.
(I once called home on my Fathers birthday. When he asked if that was why I called, stupid me, I said “No, I called about “foo”; but happy birthday.”… Clearly a very Aspe behaviour…)
@PhilJourdan:
Hey, anyone married to a Hispanic Woman has more hispanic on his hands, er, in his life, er, um…
Yes, you can join the club!…
@PPugliano:
Nice links! Don’t know which I like better… women playing violin or women on the Pipes… ;-)
@Richard Ilfeld:
If I’m not “diverse” I don’t know what is ;-) but I AM Hispanic. Hey, I didn’t make the rules, I’m just
exploitingexplaining them!@Adofo:
Can I watch them too? Or is it only Oliver?…
@Gary:
Now that we’ve got universal “health” care, you really CAN be anything you want to be, and on the government dime, too! (Hey, I live close to San Francisco. I’ve HAD Crocodile Dundee moments… )
@Jason Cally:
Oh My! Now you’ve opened a find kettle of fish… Spain, at one time, had an empire that included such places as Florida, New Mexico, Arizona, California. Heck, even Texas. As I’m “born in California” and it WAS part of the Spanish Empire… doesn’t that make me doubly Hispanic? After all, I’m born in a place that has been under several Spanish flags…
As to Aborigines… not sure what to do for that one… Maybe an Asian Denisovian link?
One thing I didn’t go into on the genetic map page (trying to decide if it is really worth it to ‘go there’) is the interesting map of R type Y chromosome percentage among American Blacks…. VERY high for Hispano-Celtic type… Now, I’ve not done the homework on TOTAL Y type in that genetic group, so it might be a high percentage of a 1% of R type… Frankly, I’m “afraid to look”… because one possible outcome is a very high NON-African Y chromosome type and a very high African X chromosome type… which would pretty much say that most blacks today are the sons of slave owners.,.. and, well, I just, oh the irony…
So I’m trying desperately to NOT get the actual total genotypes…
Oh, one side bar: Since pretty much all Indo-European speakers look to have originated near / in Iran and Anatolia: In theory we can all claim we are “non-European” as that is part of Asia… Just saying… Add in that Hungarians and several other white tribes originated on the “Steps of Asia”.. basically, unless you are Basque, you are more likely Asian or African than anything else…
So, just to put too find a point on it: I”m an Asian Hispanic of African extraction. Near as I can tell from the linage. Celts from Asia, landed in HIspania after picking up a Hebrew . Egyptian spouse (courtesy of a large Pharohnic harem having kids, no doubt). That’s what the history says… Hey, I’m not the one who didn’t put any time limit on things… ;-)
But I’m sure I have some Australian Abber Cousins. I’ve had “family” down under since the 1800s so by now somebody must have married somebody somewhere ;-)
@Graeme No.3;
One of the “odd bits” is how often Germans and Celts are living together / near and mixing. I’m working on a “Germanic” posting already, and it’s just a mess. From Bavaria having been Celts to France being named for Fanks, who were Germanic and then mixing with the Gauls (Celts) and to the Visigoths in Spain being blended in with the local Celts. and then the Germanic Angles and Saxons going to Britain and mixing with the Celts and… Well, I think you get the idea.
Essentially ALL of Europe is a batch of Germanic and Celtic stew, with some Slavic bits as cousins on the eastern side… but even they have a load of Celts and Germans along for the ride in various places. (Czechs, for example)…
Frankly, it doesn’t take 200 years. Looks like closer to 50.
@Jim2:
I was a bit, er, “rough”. I’ve left it up, mostly out of sloth… Would have reacted differently if it had a sarcoff;> or had I not been “channeling Mohammed”… please forgive…
@E.M.: You should watch them, we all should watch them. Though if you want to read the complete book, here it is: (chapter 9th)
Click to access fragmentsof.pdf
That GAITA music, above, brings longings and memories of old, of some lost paradise, of a much more equilibrated existence, where we were closer to the source of all life.
Brazilians call this feeling “saudade” (saudahdee), literally translated as “sadness” but which really entails also a meteorological phenomenon when a cold front faces a warm front, while we are in the middle of it, surrounded by a overwhelming nature all around: the amazon jungle. We then feel a “connection”, a lost and at the same time actual and present connection and longing:
The Portuguese words “Lamento de Saudade” cannot really be perfectly translated into English but it means something like “Tearful yearning” or “Sad Longing”.
@Adolfo –
I can’t see but I can imagine; it’s like listening to radio;-)
@Jim2:
I was a bit, er, “rough”. I’ve left it up, mostly out of sloth… Would have reacted differently if it had a sarcoff;> or had I not been “channeling Mohammed”… please forgive…
All is forgiven. My sarc was a little too subt I guess.
Maybe the Koran should be outlawed as it is an incitement to riot or commit hate crimes. pg
@Jim2:
Thanks.
@P.G. Sharrow:
Frankly, I’m having trouble seeing how it can NOT be “hate speech” in many places, sexist in a whole bunch, and ‘advocating criminal acts’ in a great many. I’d think ‘incitement to murder” and “incitement to rape” and even “incitement to hooliganism” would be criminal acts under a few dozen levels of law. ( You are encouraged to conduct war, kill infidels, gather the women, take them home and have sex with them against their will as ‘spoils of war’…)
Near as I can tell, there’s a whole lot of “selective listening skills” being practiced globally…
@Adolfo:
Try “Nostalgic Lament” as a translation… it works for me…
@E.M. Smith Re: “Frankly, I’m having trouble seeing how it can NOT be “hate speech” in many places, sexist in a whole bunch, and ‘advocating criminal acts’ in a great many.”
While I agree with you on the content, I am glad that one of the most important rights we have in this country is freedom of speech. I can certainly see where the Koran is hateful in many ways – but I can also see how others would also deem the Bible that way. Some read the latter and being inspired by it, perform great feats of Humanity. Censorship is always subjective, and that is the inherent problem with it.
@ philjourdan
Yes, the Bible is pretty gory too. I remember scenes from “A Clockwork Orange” where Alex would read the Bible as a source of entertainment, concentrating on the extermination campaigns (ordered by God himself) to fuel his bloodthirsty imagination.
Scholars often debate which text glorifies violence the most, for example here. It’s a tough call.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124494788
@PhilJordan – “I am glad that one of the most important rights we have in this country is freedom of speech”
Something in that statement bothers me. I’ve tried to come to grips with it but I’m probably going to come up far short of the mark. Here goes: as a general statement there’s probably nothing to pick at. But when you try to take it apart or apply it to life on Earth as we know it, it doesn’t jell. I’ve said numerous times that “Life is a beach!”, I’m punning and serious, but short (like “Zero”) on explanation. IOW everything that you can imagine in life can apply to a beach (or vice versa), and in my pun I’m saying it’s very tough too and rhymes with itch the way it’s said in Old New England.
We have Freedom of Speech. OK, everyone does, so what? A man in Kansas can curse Allah (god) and get away with it; a man in Khartoum can’t. They both have Freedom of Speech but one will live and the other will die. Why? There’s something more than Freedom of Speech involved in the issue, isn’t there? Location, culture, politics, religion, laws, sensitivities, common sense, etc.,… there’s more to life and freedoms than ‘rights’, in fact, there’s not really much ‘freedom’ in Freedom of Speech nor much that’s in the ‘rights’ department either when you think of it. It’s like I substitute the word ‘Kill’ for ‘Speech’: I, You, We have Freedom to Kill. No one can say I don’t have this freedom, right? And God sure gave me this freedom did He not? It’s a God given freedom! How about if some law is passed by some city council, or congress and a mayor or president signs it and a stupid judge says “it is a freedom, but one that society imposes restrictions upon for the safety of all, and for good order and discipline, and so on..”?
I guess what I’m saying is nothing’s ’free’ and nothing’s a ’right’, and ’if you don’t use and protect things you claim then someone’s going to take it away because that’s what people do to other people when they don’t like what they’re doing and as long as they don’t have some idiot judge saying, “Wait! STOP EVERYTHING! There’s this piece of paper that I held up to the moon, that I divine tells me that all you nice people are wrong, and so-and-so has the right to kill as many of you as s/he likes on Sundays between 9Am-3PM, as long as the Sun is shining, and the temperature is above 98F.”
Beware of idiots wearing judicial robes, they will steal you blind, put you in jail in a straightjacket, and throw away the keys; but if you have some very rich friends, and have a lot of money hidden away and can hire a Harvard attorney they’ll let you out (if and when the MSM says it’s OK).
Rights and freedoms are creepy little things, and pretty much everything is subjective, so a claim to a right that’s a ’freedom’ is really hard to swallow without throwing $.02 more into the toilet and seeing if anything will float. Know what I mean?
I probably didn‘t explain myself very well; it‘s something I‘m still wrestling with. Just as the statement that “We are a nation of Laws“ always made me gag, it always left me empty and thinking “We‘re so much more“, so too, I have a problem with statements like “one of the most important rights we have in this country is freedom of speech“ it‘s true, but it doesn‘t really say anything I can hold in my hands (or mind;-). Life’s a beach, and a whole lot more!
@Pascvaks – I do not agree everyone has freedom of speech. Indeed, as has been demonstrated numerous times, America is the only country that does. Freedom of speech means allowing speech you abhor. Every other country purporting to have it, ban hate speech in some form or another. In other words, as long as you agree with the controlling censors, you are free to speak. Not so in America. You can tell the controlling censors to go to hell, and they are powerless to stop you.
The freedom means that some things are tougher (your segue way into nothing is free). Libel and Slander are almost impossible to prosecute in this country because of it. So nothing is perfect, and each right comes with consequences. But the right of free speech is the last defense against tyranny. And is the reason it is the first to go when freedoms are lost.
I guess my best example of the lack of free speech comes from the country most similar to the US, Australia. There, they just passed a law and then made it against the law to say it causes prices to rise (a truism that is being subverted to the governing meme). If you can incarcerate a person for stating the truth, you have no freedom.
@Pascvaks: The succesion of facts seems to have reversed recently….the river of time is running upwards, they call it the “new world order” but it´s the old tyranny we all knew from history books, and this is because of such an old drive as “greed”…
My take on “it” is this. We in the US tend to cast others in our mold. Militarily, we try to transform other countries to something that conforms to our beliefs, values, and laws. We get burned doing it much of the time. On a more subtle level, we try to apply our laws, values, and beliefs to other cultures when we reason about them. We do this partly because we believe ourselves to be right. We do it partly on a subconscious level because these beliefs, etc, have shaped our way of looking at the world. When we consider Muslims, we tend to believe they have a right to their religion, because that’s the way were brought up. What we need to do instead is, to the extent possible, look at the world through their beliefs a values. We need to get to the point that we understand their world view. We also need to stop looking at them with an eye biased by our values. They despise our values. They use our values against us. We need to get to the point where we can say their religion isn’t desirable and their tendency to let their religion rule the government is down-right disgusting. It is against the Constitution, and I’m very happy with that. We don’t have to like their approach to religion and life, and if push ever came to shove, attacking those among them who proselytize Islam militantly should not be considered an anathema by us in the US and in the West in general.
Since I work for the government, this would be no small deal. If you want to start “farming” which can be anything from a hothouse to wine to an asparagus patch, you could potentially get a 1.5% cut in interest rates for start-up expenses. I’m guessing I have a wee bit a spanish in me. Just need to dye my strawberry blond hair.
Minorities should be defined statistically….thus blond and red haired people would become what they really are today: minorities. In a few years chances are that english speaking people will be a minority also :-)
@Tim Clark:
No need for the dye… plenty of blond and redhead Spanish…. mostly just have to look in Spain where the admixture of “American Indian” was less… though in fact, even full on German / Irish / British / Italian immigrants to Argentina are now “Hispanic” in the law…
Hmmmm…… If I moved to Argentina, how long do I need to stay there to become “washed” into Hispanic?…. I would have “decent”, just very recent decent ;-)
@Adolfo:
Were it not for India (where most speak English in addition to one of the several hundred local languages) English Speakers would already be a minority…. Chinese dominates in that case.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers
is NATIVE speakers, so the Indians don’t count. That puts English in 3rd behind Spanish and Mandarin. You will note that the United States is listed for both the Spanish and English native speaker counts. Go Spanglish!!! ;-)
It is only the fact that anyone can slaughter English, still be understood, and nobody cares how they speak it; that has let English dominate second language speakers. (France was just too snooty about how you use it, and German is a PITA and THEN the locals want to give you language lessons… I once spent 2 minutes getting involuntary coaching in how to make a proper umlaut sound on a word the guy clearly “got”… and Russian? Don’t even get me started on Russian… strange alphabet, too many cases, not enough past tenses… ) Spanish comes close, in that folks don’t mind if you have a gringo accent and are happy just to “use what works”.
I expect, in the end, Spanglish will rule the world… Chinese will dominate the southeast portion of Asia. Russians will continue to speak Russian (and “encourage” their minorities to do so as well) and the EU will use 200 different languages all at the same time mandated for all things at all times and everyone will be issued a microscope to read packages….
But ask: “Uno coffee please” will end up working everywhere…
The US still has mostly free speech, but there are exceptions.
Here is the US government site explaining the laws against businesses boycotting foreign goods. http://www.bis.doc.gov/complianceandenforcement/antiboycottcompliance.htm These laws apply to any boycott which has not been officially sanctioned by the US government. “The antiboycott laws, however, apply to all boycotts imposed by foreign countries that are unsanctioned by the United States.”
My understanding — based on the US site — is that it is illegal to ask for information about whether products may have been produced or in any way be associated with the boycotted country. It is also illegal to give out information about the same. It is also illegal to not report when someone asks for information.
Note that these laws do not just apply to actual, implemented boycott, but seem to outlaw even talking about where a product comes from when a potential customer asks. Any way I look at it, this looks like outlaw of free speech to me.
@Jason Calley
You are absolutely correct, this is a limitation of free speech – in this case prohibiting the intimidation of businesses into not doing business with Israel Some facts …
1. The Supreme Court has ruled that the Constitutional guarantee of free speech is not a blanket right. The famous example is one who yells “Fire!” in a crowded theater. There are permissible limits.
2. Militant Islamists killed 3,000 people on US soil.
3. Islam teaches intolerance and hate of outsiders.
Given the above facts, I am OK with this law. In fact, I think militant Islamists should be prohibited from entering the US for any reason at all, much less be allowed to speak.
@Jim2:
I’m reminded of something my Texas Uncle said about Texans… but applied to Islamists instead…
How do you tell a militant Islamist?
“You can tell a militant Islamist, but you can’t tell him much!” ;-)
@ EM – A CIA background check along with a DNA sample would probably do the trick.
@E.M. “Un coffee please” would be better
@Adolfo:
No-go on the un-coffee, you will get synthetic instant stuff made from burnt carob or worse ;-)
American Spanglish makes concessions for such potential confusions (and introduces other ones instead ;-)
Generally, gender gets messed up. Typically, one or a few grammatical forms are used and many lost. It’s more like a pidgin made from two languages, than either one done correctly. Oh, and sometimes folks toss in other Romance language features if they know them and are dodgy on the Spanish… so sometimes it’s “Uno café please” . But with a French pronunciation on the café
(For reasons beyond my ken “uno” is far more likely than “una”, but sometimes can be either one…)
Like hearing someone ask for a “Big mocha grande”… then again, what do you expect from a place that has “The La Brea Tar Pits” as an official name… The The Tar Tar pits?
I know, it doesn’t fit the proper forms and sounds “wrong”, but it is what it is… Like “Gonna wanna be comin’ tuhnite” instead of “I want to come over tonight”. Oh, I ought to mention that there are some dialects of California Spanglish with a significant Black influence… depends on who lived next to whom… So “Say, bro, que pasa whit you?” I’m not very good at that form, I just end up sounding like a honky trying to be cool… and failing…
One of my friends has a story of hearing a guy working in a restaurant kitchen ( In Europe somewhere I think) say:
“Ouvrez the Fenster, por favor!”
so it would seem that the process is not unique to California…
At any rate, I think the process of formation is akin to that which made Interlinqua, but in a less formal way:
http://www.interlingua.com/
(You will be able to read and understand Interlinqua as soon as you see it). The ‘weird bits’ get squashed out and the understood things get kept…
@E.M.: That is why old languages as Greek and Latin, have in them a hidden message of human life in the distant past. So it is interesting to translate even the names, like:
Ὁ Πυθαγόρας ὁ Σάμιος Pythagoras of Samos
Πυθιος, Pitios, the name of God Apolo
The word ‘Pythia’ derived from Pytho, which was the original name of Delfos. Greeks derived this from the word (verb) pythein (πύθειν, “to decay”), used about the decomposition of the monstrous serpent Python, after it was killed by Apolo.
πιτανοσ (pitanos, -pee-tahnos-): persuasive
Aγορα (Ágora) The agora (Ancient Greek: Ἀγορά, Agorá) was a central spot in ancient Greek city-states. The literal meaning of the word is “gathering place” or “assembly”. The agora was the center of athletic, artistic, spiritual and political life of the city“He spoke (Agor-) the truth not less than the Pythian (Pyth-Piton: pitonise),”
Pythagoras: He who spoke at the Agora.
Thus its translation would be: “He who spoke like Apolo”
@Adolfo –
“The word ‘Pythia’ derived from Pytho, which was the original name of Delfos. Greeks derived this from the word (verb) pythein (πύθειν, “to decay”), used about the decomposition of the monstrous serpent Python, after it was killed by Apolo.”
Thanks to you guys, tidbits like these make my day. Makes me wonder too if the decomposition of the monsterous Python wasn’t a die-off of a bunch of eels, and maybe something that happened on an infrequent but regular basis back when.
Old texts of the bible, etc., are interesting in the way they’re written, like there’s a lot that was ‘understood’ back then and not spoke, or not spoken and written because people didn’t think that way, they thought the way they talked and wrote and didn’t have as much ‘description’ in the telling. Like, “look rock green strange” not “look at the grey-green rocks that are strewn around here, curious, they do not seem to fit among the other rocks, like they were brought here, or fell from the sky, curious indeed” –probably a bad example, but they wrote in a very abbreviated way, I guess they spoke that way too.
Oh, can’t resist, “Pythagoras” seems to be more like “he who smelled like dead eels at the gathering place”;-)
@Pascvaks: LOL! you just put the cherry on the pie of my research about the origin of one of my last names: PITA (“peetah”), which I cherish the most as it is an old name.
@Pascvaks: Though you may be right as he was more worried about his Square triangle and his Monochord as to take care for anything else….
Or ATM Machine.
@ jim2 “The famous example is one who yells “Fire!” in a crowded theater. There are permissible limits.”
I will have to be careful. If I am ever in a theater which catches on fire, I will stand up and yell “EARTHQUAKE!” :)
The point, of course, is that the rulings against free speech have actually been rulings against fraud. It is perfectly legal to yell “FIRE” in a theater — if it is on fire.
I think we can correctly assume that the law against discussing national origins of products was passed with the intention of limiting damage to Israel’s economy by people choosing not to buy their goods. Of course the law itself is written more generally, but I think it is a bad precedent in several ways. I am reminded of the famous quote from Kennedy, “Those who make non-violent revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable.” Should non-violent actions against any country (people choosing not to buy their goods) be made against the law? Should speech which is neither fraudulent nor an incitement to violence be illegal? Once either of these questions are answered “yes” then we have accepted as proper, limitations on natural rights, limitations which I cannot see to have any rational end or limits.
Anti-semitism is wrong — and I suspect that a proper revulsion with it was the justification used to pass the laws we are discussing. We attempt to cure one ill by opening the door to something even worse. We move to limit “dirty anti-semites” by criminalizing non-violent speech. We move to limit “dirty drug dealers” by authorizing seizure of property without trial. We move to limit “dirty racists” by passing laws preventing companies from hiring or serving whomever they wish. We move to limit “dirty criminals’ by passing laws restricting law abiding gun owners. We move to limit “dirty hijackers” by implementing invasive body searches. And so on. I am constantly reminded of a certain nation in Europe which not so long ago began a disastrous course of demonizing certain groups and found that once started it was difficult to limit.
Personally, I have never had a reason to ask whether some product is from Israel, or from Palestine, or from Montana. The laws on the subject do not affect my actions, not directly. But I still disapprove of such laws. I have a personal commitment to such principles as free speech, right to trial, no cruel or unusual punishment, necessity of warrants before search or seizure, etc. I think that the danger from violating these principles far outweighs the benefits. Once politicians have expanded their power into some previously untapped area of freedom, it seems that they never withdraw, but instead continue to expand what they may do. Certainly, many people disagree with me on that. Perhaps when I become President I will just have them kidnapped without trial or public notice, and held forever under provisions of the NDAA. That’ll teach ’em, the dirty…whatevers!
@ jim1 “In fact, I think militant Islamists should be prohibited from entering the US for any reason at all, much less be allowed to speak.”
I would keep them out of the country as well. I would say the same about militant Zionists, or militant communists, or anyone who would seek to overthrow our nation or its culture. Coming to the US is not a natural right – it is a civil right, and as such we Americans may perfectly well choose who is allowed to come into our collective home. On the other hand, anyone who we do allow to visit has every right to speak his mind. If he outwears his welcome, revoke his visa and send him home.
Jason – that is a powerful statement. If I were American and you stood for public office, I’d vote for you.
I do however like to know where my food comes from. If it’s grown in Europe, and especially in France or Spain (I live near the Spanish border in France) I’ll be fairly certain it hasn’t travelled too far, and that the people who grew it were fairly paid, and that there probably won’t be too nasty pesticides/herbicides used in its growth. If it’s grown by someone local that I know, I’ll pay more for it, too. I don’t buy the “luxury” crops that are grown in Kenya, since I think that is most likely bad for the water-resources in Kenya, but it’s difficult to be certain about such things – certainly the land-grabbing that went on in Kenya got some bad press.
I would also prefer not to buy things from people who intend me/my country/my civilisation harm. In the case of oil, at the moment I have to – better to stop this as soon as we can.
To your list of militants, I’d definitely add militant Greens, who want to poke their nose into everyone’s business and base their criteria on people like Al Gore.
@ Jason Calley.
OK, I wasn’t explicit with the fire in theater example, but it is so common, I don’t have to be explicit. You knew full well to what I was referring.
True we live in an imperfect world, but sometimes it is necessary to risk the slippery slope. We have already gone to far as is aptly illustrated by some of your examples. Unfortunately, it is impossible to set down a list of rules and abide by them without exception. For myself, I will accept the limitation on free speech in order to stop militant Islamists from using it against Israel.
WRT who we let in the country, Israel sets a good example, by analogy, in their airports. They use profiling coupled with probable cause. I think probable cause is reason enough to examine closely any Muslim who wants entry into the country, given recent history with them. I don’t believe I have to list the acts of violence against the US, there are plenty.
I think I have a clearer presentation of why I feel Muslim’s should be treated differently in the US.
If a couple of Muslim’s approach a small business, tell the owner they know he buys products from Israel, and that he shouldn’t be; what will be running through the owner’s mind? Given the violence perpetrated by Muslim’s in the last several years and their outward, violent hate of the US and Israel, I would be thinking, were I that owner, are hese guys are going to burn down my business, plant a bomb in it, put an a suicide vest and set it off at the most crowded hour in my store, or just come in with a gun and start shooting? Muslim’s have done all these things and more, lately. In short, I probably would feel mortally intimidated.
On the other hand, take OWS. Personally, I think they mostly are a dripping slime-ball of a socialist movement composed of people who should take a shower, get a job, and move out of their parents house. But if they get on TV and tell everyone to boycott Bank Of America, I don’t agree with that, but they have a right to say it.
Ooops! Muslim’s should be Muslims.
Hey jim2, thanks for your thoughts. Also, my apologies for accidentally calling you “jim1” above. That would be your father, I think! :) Just joking!
You say, “I wasn’t explicit with the fire in theater example, but it is so common, I don’t have to be explicit. You knew full well to what I was referring.”
Well, yes, exactly, and the fact that it is well known is the only reason why I though it suitable for an earthquake joke. I did put a :) by it!
More seriously though, you say “True we live in an imperfect world, but sometimes it is necessary to risk the slippery slope. (snip) For myself, I will accept the limitation on free speech in order to stop militant Islamists from using it against Israel. ”
I understand — but I disagree. Maybe if I lived in Israel I would feel differently, but I don’t. Here in the US it is difficult for me to see how non-violent, non-fraudulent speech concerning the voluntary purchase of foreign goods is a greater danger to me than are restrictions of free speech. Again, we disagree on that.
You make an interesting point with “If a couple of Muslim’s approach a small business, tell the owner they know he buys products from Israel, and that he shouldn’t be; what will be running through the owner’s mind?” I think the only response that makes sense to me is to use the “reasonable person” standard. We all know stories about crime figures going into a business and making veiled threats to force the owner to pay protection money. These threats may look innocuous on paper, but be spoken in such a manner that a reasonable person would perceive them as a threat. That “reasonable person” is the best touchstone I can think of, and if the words seem threatening, then we must take them as such. We already have laws against extortion; they should be enforced. Remember though that the laws regarding country of origin even apply to the businessman. If you own a business and are politely and non-threateningly asked by a customer whether the goods are from country X, it is illegal for YOU to answer. It is also illegal for YOU to not report it to authorities. Anyway, yes, if Muslims are trying to extort you, then by all means, let’s enforce the laws against extortion.
Anyway, bottom line, like you, I want a world that is safer, more free and more prosperous – but you and I disagree with what laws are appropriate for those goals.
@E.M. – If you think German is a PITA, you should try Finnish! While German has 16 cases of definite articles, Finnish has over 100!
@Jeff Alberts says: 29 September 2012 at 4:52 pm
Or as in my profession – a NIC Card.
i was born in Brazil , of German descent , I’m not at all Hispanic,
and I don’t think that any Brazilian view themselves as Hispanics,
[Reply: The article is largely pointing out the stupidity of the U.S. law / rulings on Hispanic. So, like it or not, YOU would be in a ‘special class’ and given preferential position for things like college admission or a Green Card / Resident Card if you sneak into the country or overstay a visa… (Remember “Amnesty”? Where a couple of times we just handed out a few million citizenships?) I imagine the Swiss / German Amish and Mennonites who emigrated to Argentina (my relatives, FWIW) or even the Italian or the large British emigrant community in Argentina also have some degree of ‘ambiguity’ on being ‘Hispanic’… But that’s the law here. Oh Well. ]
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