“City Life Anymore…?”

With the Iberian Peninsula being made up of mainly Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, and Galician, it’s a linguist’s dream. The languages of Hispania have been proven more innovative than their cousins north of the great divide, French and Provencal. Without exception, and including the many smaller “dialects” or micro-languages like Aragonese, Leonese, etc., indicate reduction of the famous Latin case-system to a single case. In the singular, the single case of the Iberian languages is known to be either a result of a merger of Latin accusative and ablative, or the extension of the accusative to the exclusion of all other Latin cases.

Now the dialectal divergences, which are what interests me the most, began to appear with the earliest known documents from the Iberian peninsula. These were only minor divergences. What is more pronounced and obvious is the way in which these languages slowly matured into their own language. This is based mainly on political subdivisions, which if anyone knows about the peninsula today, knows they still exist. With the peninsula being divided, subdivided, unified, divided, and reunified, the language slowly formed into separate entities, then slowly (through re-division) borrowed aspects from each other.

When everything south of the Cantabrian divide fell into the hands of the Moors during the 2nd decade of the 8th century, Romance (or mainly Visigothic Romance) came to a halt. Mozarabic became a replacement language (mainly by the Christians), while the rest of the Peninsula spoke Arabic, obviously.

Just around the North (around current day Cantabria) freedom was more pronounced and so were tongues. And in the late 10th and 11th centuries, 5 dialects began to appear: Galician to the west and heading east, Leonese, Castilian (Spanish), Navarro-Aragonese, and Catalan. And at this time the strongest kingdom was Leon which also had sway over Galicia. All these languages were sandwiched between each other, Castilian in what is now current day Santander between Navarro-Aragonese and Basque-speaking regions, and Navarro-Argonese obviously in Navarra and Aragon. Catalan though has a more interesting story. The kingdom of Catalonia was under French and Provencal influence via the area of Septimania which was a relatively easy passage from Southern France to Northern Spain. Passages and exchanges where frequent and thus the language of Catalonia was influenced by the northern languages of France.

All the languages of the peninsula share common features, even morphologically, in which all agree on a single case form for the masculine as well as the feminine nouns. Phonetically, stressed vowels retain the Vulgar Latin pattern, with opposition between open e and closed o. Castilian in particular is the first language to indicate diphthongization of open e to ie. This phenomena speeded to the east to Aragonese and to the west to Leonese. It did not, however, extend to the extremes of Galicia and Catalonia.

After the Moors were ousted from Spain, Galicia became closely united with the Leonese-Asturian realm. As is popularly known, the Galician’s push south (into current day Portugal) led to the re-conquest of Coimbra in 1064 and Lisbon in 1147. The Portuguese drove southward until roughly the current borders of Portugal were established. This happened around 1250 which is why many say that Portugal was re-conquered 200 years before Spain. Though phonetically the languages of Galicia and Portugal were very similar, politically the two states were separated. This is why Galician has far more points of contact with Portuguese than with standard Castilian. There’s no diphthongization of short e and o, there’s metaphonic influence on final on accented vowels, ai, au become ei, ou, etc. The kingdom of Leon preferred Galician as it’s literary language but hesitates on some of its characteristics like the dipthongzing of short e and o only sporadically at first and then to a greater degree as Castillian influence grows. Being squeezed between an expanding Castilian language in the east and Portuguese to the west, Leonese falters and eventually relinquishes its claim as a separate language. In 2006 UNESCO declared it as a “Seriously Endangered Language” prompting the Autonomous Community of Castile and Leon to mandate its use and knowledge.

The most characteristic change of Castilian as it matured, phonetically, is the transformation of the Latin f- into an h- which eventually became silent. This recent change (14th century at the earliest) may also be attributed to the influence of the Basque language, which also has no f- sound. The Kingdom of Castile became semi-independent and then reunited with Leon. During this unified time, Galician continued to be used as a literary and poetic tongue, but officially the language was Castilian. It was Castilian that the was predominant language in the later stages of the Reconquista and which eventually spread south and mixed with the Mozarabic people and their language giving way to the Castilian dialect of Andalusian, which I still believe is a dialect and not a separate language. And obviously, via the location of Andaluica in Spain, this dialect also spread to the New World of North, Central and South America.

The union of Aragon and Navarra in 1076 eventually led to the fusion of the Navarro-Aragonese kingdom with Catalonia in 1137. This kingdom situated on the east side of Spain rivaled the realm of the western kingdom of Leon, Castile, Galicia and the Asturias. The languages of Aragonese and Catalan were both used in the early days of the eastern kingdom(s), but Catalan gained more favor eventually as it was more literary and commercial. Now with the reconquest of Spain and the marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabel of Castile in 1469, this trend of using Catalan and Aragonese was slowly dismantled as Castilian strengthened in position in the area, as it was the language of the main voices of leading groups of the Reconquista. Catalan did continue to be officially used in the “former” kingdom of Aragon, while Aragonese itself, while very similar to Castilian, sank into rank of dialect.

As for Catalan, it is true that it is the most distinct of the peninsular languages (the Basque language is not a Latin language). It’s also true that it resembles, by and large, Provencal more than standard Castilian. But in all fairness it resembles Castilian and all other languages of the peninsula by following a single case system. Another notable similarity with Castilian is that au becomes o, like in Spanish, instead of remaining au, as in Provencal.

As for most other aspects, Catalan resembles Provencal more. Catalonians and their language tend to get the short end of the straw as many French linguists normally view Catalan as an offshoot of Provencal, and Spanish linguists claim it is a peninsular dialect. The Catalans themselves, of course, proudly insist that it is a separate Romance language. During medieval times, Catalan was extended to the Balearic Islands and the entire Valencian region, which all speak with a regional accent. Catalan is also spoken in the region of Alghero in western Sardinia and in the French region of Roussillon.

Both Portuguese and Spanish received vast quantities of words from the Arabic of the Moors, which eventually were borrowed from Portuguese and Spanish by other languages, especially in the west. But of course, both languages don’t always agree on making use of Arabic loan words. For example, Portuguese uses the Arabic-derived alfaiate for “tailor” while Spanish uses the Latin-derived sastre.

At the beginning of the period that follows the Moorish invasion of 711, the indications point to a substantial unity for the primitive Romance of the Iberian peninsula, with the gradual emergence of the five great dialects; Galician, with its later offshoot Portuguese; Asturo-Leonese; Castilian; Navarro-Aragonese; Catalan. Subsequent historical factors lead to the emergence of three of these (Portuguese, Castilian, Catalan) as full-fledged languages, and the relegation of Asturo-Leonese and Navarro-Aragonese to relative obscurity by 1500. And obviously each of the three main languages developed its own dialects. All three were also firmly established, with Spanish and Portuguese on their way to enormous overseas expansion, making them two of the biggest powers on Earth for a while and setting their languages as two of the world’s leading languages. 51% of South America speaks Portuguese while the other 49% speaks Spanish. Mexico, Central America and much of the Southern U.S. also speaks Spanish. And one must not forget the former colonies in the Caribbean, Africa, Asia, etc.

Catalan, not so fortunate by reason of its political link to Castilian, was destined for a stormy career that would involve no further expansion, but rather a restriction of its area, speaking population, and influence, and relegation to the post of a secondary language overshadowed by the dominant Castilian, which at one time was once its partner and equal. Catalan has now fully recovered from the ban it suffered under Franco’s dictatorship and is now the dominant language of everyday use in Catalonia.

Edit: I wanted to expand a bit on Galician/ Portuguese.

In medieval times, Portuguese and Galician were a single language called Galician-Portuguese. The language originated in current day Galicia and Northern Portugal and it begun to split around the 14th century when the push southward, into current day Portugal, began. As is the battle with Catalans and non-Catalonian linguists, Galician is often considered a dialect of Portuguese were it’s estimated that inteligibility is around 85%. From the 8th Century on, Galicia aquired some amount of autonomy and the Galician-Portuguese language was the one in use as was Latin to an extent (only as a written language). So in short, around 600 a.d., it’s estimated, Vulgar Latin was no longer in use in the Iberian Peninsula and Portuguese-Galician was the “dialect” mainly spoken in the Kingdom of Galicia (modern day Galicia and Portugal).

The next 2 paragraphs I cut & pasted from Wikipedia and they help explain the seperation of the two languages a bit more clearly (my fascination with these languages won’t allow me to learn and understand enough!!).

As a result of political isolation, Galician-Portuguese lost its unity when Portugal and Galicia found themselves under different ruling dynasties. The Galician version of the language followed an independent evolution and became influenced by Spanish, which still happens today. Two of the most important cities at the time, Braga and Porto, lie in Portuguese territory, while Santiago de Compostela was already a separate entity before the independence of Portugal. Galician was preserved in Galicia because those who spoke it were rural or ‘uneducated’, while Spanish was taught as the only “correct” language. Galician was only officially recognized in Spain in the late 20th century, after the Franco regime ended.

The linguistic division (or not) of Galician and Portuguese is still discussed today; there are those, mostly a minority among Galician nationalist groups, who demand their reunification, as well as Portuguese and Galician philologists who believe that both are dialects of the same language. Galician is still spoken by more than three million people in Galicia, while Portuguese continues to grow in use, and today is the sixth most spoken language in the world.

Two Quotes by Henry George:

“It is a universal fact that where the value of land is the highest, civilization exhibits the greatest luxury side by side with the most piteous destitution. To see human beings in the most abject, the most helpless and hopeless condition, you must go, not to the unfenced praries…but to the great cities where the ownership of a little patch of ground is a fortune.”

“I asked a passing teamster, for want of something better to say, what land was worth there. He pointed to some cows grazing so far off that they looked like mice, and said, ‘I don’t know exactly, but there is a man over there who will sell some land for a thousand dollars an acre.’ Like a flash it came over me that there was the reason of advancing poverty with advancing wealth. With the growth of population, land grows in value, and the men who work it must pay more for the privilege.”

Now in my ongoing quest to figure out what makes L.A. tick, I wonder how a city of nearly 4,000,000 (in borders) still has such immense poverty (relative to America) and immense wealth. I was down there again last weekend and while in Corona to check up on some houses, I decided to go to Amoeba Records in Hollywood. Being near the freeway, I jumped on the 91 through Artesia and eventually into South L.A. where instead of transfering to the 110 (and eventually the 101), I got off on Avalon St. I decided to drive through most of South L.A. to see if it had changed. I had been through that area many times when I was younger when I played hockey in Gardena, Paramount and Norwalk. Anyways, going north on Avalon took me through Compton, Willow Brook, Watts, South Gate and Hunington Park. The whole place looks the same. And all the stereotypes you see on t.v. seem to not miss the mark too much. Limo drivers are black, tall, imoposing gates (and they are numerous) are all rust, people cross the street whenever they want with little regard for oncoming traffic, and there are many fried chicken resturants everywhere. Walton Middle School also has to be the most depressing school in America. I eventually reached the 10 and to Hollywood, going through Beverly Hills, UCLA, passing by Bel-Air, etc. I did all that in about 30 minutes, more or less, with traffic. The social gaps are despairing.

Seeing both extremes of the spectrum, which I’ve seen in that city all my life, gets more and more vivid as I get older. The influential political economist Henry George, who I found out about through Mike Davis, has some of the more concrete reasons as to why the city is the way it is. Though Davis himself writes extensively that homeowners associations in the west (near the water) are responsible for pushing non-whites away to the south and east of the city, he also holds equal venom for the LAPD and city council for the utter contempt for the area of L.A.

What Henry George may say today, if alive, about L.A. would be interesting. He had visited New York City (late 1800s) and the paradox of wealth and poverty made him write “Progress and Poverty.” In the work he argues, basically, that a large portion of wealth in a city, created by social and technological advances in a free-market system, which is eventually captured by land owners via economic rent, creates poverty as the wealth is unearned. In essence, work-which we claim to value, is taxed. Sales are taxed. A small percentage is gained from the production of jobs, and it’s not the working class!

The main argument the far right have with Los Angeles is based off of Georgism, i.e. everyone deserves to privately own what they create but everything supplied by nature, especially land, belongs to all of humanity. This notion is understood, I believe, unconciously by many Californians. For example, the saga of the California Water Wars has turned William Mulholland into a not so pure architect of Los Angeles’ “greatness.” The sheer theft in the name of profit (Los Angeles didn’t grow to the monster it is until after this) of water from the Owens Valley has created a trend of thought in which outsiders see L.A. more as a Kleptocracy than anything else. It should also be noted that Mulholland Drive has some of the most scenic views of the L.A. basin, not to mention a birds eye view of the city as a whole- probably the only way it should be seen! The street was also a hotbed for rebeliousness. By the 1950s, the Federation of Hillside and Canyon Homeowners, founded in Bel-Air, was crusading against hotrodding on the famous street. Wow I’ve never meandered this much in a long time…

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