[gothic-l] Re: Spanish surnames

Wed May 19 04:20:40 UTC 2004

oscargoth- dirk you know little of the goths.how spanish was invoked as a language ,well lets say we dont know.it was spoken there before the romans arrived.the goths on the other hand were a well adapting germanic tribe and were very loyal to their own language as shown by many gothic kings that ruled in spain prior to the moors invasion. their names were germanic,such as sisabut,sigeric,wallia,theudigiesel and on....history also said the goths drove the moors out..... so, why did these people give up their language and change spanish to its present pronunciation instead of invoking the gothic language and using a liitle spanish in it. in conclusion gothic is nice to speak and i think the germanic peoples of europe should be entitled to more than just a few germanic languages spoken in north europe...

faltin2001 <dirk at smra.co.uk> wrote:--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, Leonardo Frithunanths 
wrote:
> 
> Hails Allum! 
> 
> After an absence of 3 years I've returned to this list, and 
apparently nothing much has changed around here, thank God. :) 
> 
> I would like to make comment on what Oscargoth once wrote.
> 
> Oscar,- I couldn't agree more with you!!!!
> 
> But regarding a possible division where one part would speak 
spanish and another one gothic, well, I'm not very much into 
the 'good old' "Divide and conquer/rule" system, I think that we've 
seen too much of that throughout history. 
> 
> But I'm most definitely positive to that idea of awakening the 
spanish people into the knowledge of their glorious legacy, the 
Visigoths, successors of the romans and defenders of the Iberian 
Peninsula. 

Dirk:
They didn't do a particularly good job defending the Peninsula I 
think. I mean loosing the whole place in one battle? In fact, as you 
know the last Visigothic rulers were highly divided and parts of them 
have most likely called in the Moors. Also, by far most Visigoths 
lived well under the Moors. 

>This glorious, highly intelligent 

Dirk:
I don't think that a people as such can be highly intelligent. Some 
of them will have been intelligent others will have been less so. 

and also from a cultural/religious point of view, interesting people 
who in modern times have most often been blemished by far too many 
people(specially from the church...). 

Dirk:
I think they have mostly been glorified out of all proportion, 
especially by the church in Spain. Afterall the reconquista tried to 
envoke the Catholic Visigothic realm.

For me it seems extremely reasonable to do all this (except for the 
division of Spain) considering the following things: 
In Spain there's today a growing awareness of their celtic heritage, 
very much expressed in e.g newly founded cultural groups and feasts. 
Euskera needs no further introduction considering the great 
importance that it already enjoys in today's Northern Spain. 
Regarding Iberian, well.. very little is known still today about this 
ancient language and apparently those who understand it, even a 
little bit, are all scientists or amateur scientists. 
> Arabic is taught in Spain at several institutions and besides, 
today's spanish urban citizens have a close contact with them and 
their culture considering the vast amount of arabic inmigrants that 
live in Spain today. 
> 
> Latin and the cultures that it spawned has, is and will most 
definitely always be taught at schools, universities and other 
institutions throughout Spain. 
> 
> It therefore leaves us with the Gothic discourse. As people in 
Spain are taught in history about the Romans, La Reconquista and the 
Moors(+ the very, very little that is also taught about the Iberians, 
Basques, Greeks, Phoenicians, Celts/Celtiberians, Alans and the 
Germanic tribes). Spanish is being taught, as well as other languages 
which have nothing much to do with the Peninsula such as English or 
French. Why can't Gothic be taught then? 

Dirk:
I suppose it could be taught, but there will likely be very little 
interest, apart from students of Germanistics. The Goths who arrived 
on the Iberian peninsular around 500AD were already in the process of 
loosing their Germanic language. The Visigoths in Spain spoke at best 
only for about 1 generation Gothic if it all. A 6 century source 
calls them the Roman Goths, likely to show that they were mostly 
Latin speaking.

Considering that they did establish themselves on the Peninsula, 
they ruled and influenced it forever by mixing themselves with the 
rest of the population. 

Dirk:
Their cultural influence is undeniably very significant, but their 
ethnic input is hardly more than a drop in an ocean, outnumbered even 
by the input of other minorities like Jews, Berbers etc. 

They also provided to the heritage by leaving customs, sayings, words 
and other cultural traits. As mentioned, they ruled it and left 
behind them significant edifications such as churches, monuments 
etc... and even at least one town(!) such as Reccopolis. 
> 
> The goths and their descendants were crucial in all means in 
contributing to the outcome of what is known today as Spain. 
> 
> Therefore I call out to everyone out there (especialmente a 
aquellos de esta lista que viven en España), isn't there anything 
that can be done in order to promulge yet again the knowledge(e.g 
their language, history and religion) about AND of the Goths in 
Spain? 
> 
> 'Anything?! There must be! 
> 

Dirk:
No harm in trying; but it would be an artificial reconstruction based 
on some sort of patriotism/nationalism and in disregard of the true 
ethnnic and cultural origins of Spain, which certainly is not 
Visigothic, but to which the Visigoths made a contribution. 

Cheers
Dirk 

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