Note the similarity between "rasurar" and "to razor" :-)

Sensis,

The more Leon�s I learn, the more castellano I learn.

quote:

mancar.
(De manco).
1. tr. Lisiar, estropear, herir las manos u otros miembros de alguien, imposibilitando el libre uso de alguno de ellos. U. t. c. prnl.
2. tr. lastimar ( herir).
3. tr. p. us. Hacer manco o defectuoso.
4. intr. ant. Faltar, dejarse de hacer algo por falta de alguien.

Real Academia Espa�ola � Todos los derechos reservados

As for afeitar , I had the opion that the more classical word was barbear , as a matter of fact I belive the word afeitar was first used by women in reference to makeup.

quote:

afeite.
(De afeitar).
1. m. Aderezo, compostura.
2. m. cosm�tico (ǁ producto que se utiliza para la higiene o belleza del cuerpo).

Saludos :cheers:

Me has dejado igual de sorprendido, Shawn...sorry...English here. It looks like your time spent in the "cuna del castellano" has served you well. Lucky duck.

Sensis: I certainly didn't want to open a Basque can of worms with my last post...thanks for understanding that. I appreciate your historical notes. One question, did "unionist ideas" really start with the Visigoths? That seemed a little odd to me.

Even though they spent the better part of three centuries influencing the peninsula, I find it hard to believe after the mismanagement of Iberia and their swift defeat at the hands of the Moors that any subsequent rulers would look to Roderico and the boys for inspiration.

Very good search again, Shawn.
It is true that by researching on dialectal stuff you will get to learn a lot about Spanish.

I just want to add a remmark which might not be clear from my previous posts: All these words I mention as being typical from Le�n (and other areas like Asturias and Galicia): mancar, rapaz, prestar, etc... are said in the dialect of castellano spoken in these areas, and they are still frequent there because most of them come from the old language, but at the same time, these words can also be found in old castillian corpuses, but nowadays they have fallen in disuse. So it is not that you are learning asturllion�s (the language) by learning these words, but the Leonese dialect of castellano; that's why all these words are found in the R.A.E dictionary. If you tried to look up "fueya", "g�eyu", "caleya",... probably you wouldn�t find any because these words are asturlonesas and not castellanas. They have equivalents in castellano: "hoja", "ojo", "calleja",... the same way they have equivalents in other languages. However, as I said before, they are scarcely used today in Le�n, and they are just found in very rural areas of the Northern mountains, El Bierzo, Sanabria (Zamora) and even in some rural areas of Extremadura where local and peculiar "hablas" have still a strong influence of old astur-llion�s: like "Cast�o".

As regards your question about the Visigoths, Euskald�n, although I am not an expert on history, from my readings on the matter -not really many, but enough to have an idea, I think-I have understood that, in general terms, the ideology of the Reconquista was to recover a unified and christian Hispania as it used to be in Visigothic times, against the Muslim so-considered "invaders" which had settled there. The Visigoth leaders are said to have run away to the mountains in Asturias when the arab invasion started (the cowards! ) and the first Asturian monarchs considered themselves the heirs of the Visigoth kings of Toledo, having the Reconquista as their principal aim and looking up to the days when the court was in Toledo. They used Visigothic laws and hierarchical structures, as well as the language. Asturleon�s and Galician are said to be the result of the evolution of the Vulgar Latin-based language of the Visigothic Hispania. Even catal�n and old aragon�s, I think, share many things in common with Galician and Asturleon�s as regards lingusitic structures, whereas Castellano does not (not being, on the other hand "extremely" different). This is taken as a proof by linguists to show that these languages are more related to the original romance spoken in Hispania before the muslim conquest than to castellano. Castellano, as I said before, is a rommance spoken by Basques. I think it was Emilio Alarcos (famous Spanish linguist from Oviedo University) who said: "El castellano es un lat�n vasquizado".

However, the linguistic branches of the languages derived from the Visigothic romance: Oriental (aragon�s, catal�n) and occidental (gallego, asturleon�s), presented quite a different pronunciation as centuries went on and on. There's a linguistic theory that says that when speakers from both areas were in ontact (pilgrimages to Santiago, commerce, ...) they used castellano (or attempted to speak it) to communicate with one another, because of its central position in the peninsula (neighbour, and therefore familiar, to both East and West), and because pronunciation in castellano was much more uniform. Its vowels do not present a great variation in its different dialects, and its rhythm is more uniform than the rhythm, for instance of Galician and Asturleonese. That is to say, the difference between stressed and unstressed syllables in castellano does not imply such a noticeable blurring and shortening of the unstressed ones as it does in the other languages.

It's true euskald�n, that the last years of the Visigoths in Hispania were a real mess, but for the christians, the following years were even worse. Muslim presence and domain of most of the land was terrible for them. It is not so strange that they wanted things to be as much similiar to the previos era as possible.

I think it is not that the unionist sentiments started with the Visigoths, for they already have a unified Hispania inherited from the Romans. It was after the invasion of the muslims, when hispania became a mixture of Christian and arab territories which lacked any unity that unionism as a sentiment started. It's just my subjective perception of it, though.

un saludo :cheers:

Sensis, no doubt you're an erudite. I am completely sure that it is impossible you master History and English without having an extensive knowledge in lots of other subjects.

I would like to add my "two cent contribution": after the fall of the Roman Empire, the Iberian Peninsula was splitted in some different territories, each one controlled by "foreign" people -visigoths, and other barbarians, and bizantines-. After a couple of centuries, the visigoths, who had been from the very beginning the most important of them, got to unify the Peninsula (most of it) under one king and one religion (both of them around the end of the VIth century, and the beginning of the VIIth) . After the invasion in the year 711, some people run to the North, but the invasion was so quick (the muslim invaders controlled most of the Peninsula in less than five years!!), and the invaders were so few, that most people remained where they lived, and did not care about the invasion - that only meant they had to pay taxes to other people. But some people in Asturias did not want to pay taxes to the muslim rulers, so they revolted against them, being the first fight in Covadonga in the year 718. In those times nobody cared about the previous rulers - the visigoths, but when they tried to fight the new rulers of the Peninsula south of Asturias (around the middle of the IXth century), they had to set an aim to fight for, and this was to restore the visigoth political unity of the Peninsula under one God, which in fact had only been true for less than 150 years before 711.

Euskaldun,

The banks of the Pisuerga have fed my soul with the Castilian spirit. I am deeply grateful that some wisemen, including a enigmatic, cXXXXXXo , had recommened I study in such a splendid site. Besides, back on topic, it is only two short hours from Le�n, making it an ideal location for day trips.

<<Las letras hispanas siempre estar�n en deuda con Valladolid. ... De sus plumas siempre parti� hacia el mundo la lengua castellana en su estado m�s puro.>> Valladolid

For Jer's benefit :

<<The hispanic literary tradition will always be in debt to Valladolid...From her quills the Spanish language has been projected toward the rest of the world in its purest state.>>

Salu2,

�A�pa Pucela!

Thanx 4 your compliments Max :b: I studied lingustics but it is true that my knowledge on history is not very complete. I read about the Reconquista long time ago and I don�t remember all the things. It is true that Covadonga wasn�t a big battle but just a rebel insurrent act which marked the beginning of it. Probably Pelayo wasn�t a descendant of the Visigoth Monarchy. Maybe just a former nobleman, but probably not even that. Actually I don�t know much about the matter. I had also read that most people didn�t leave their lands and just had to accept the new rulers and their religion; and that the arab invadres weren�t very many, and didn�t bring many women. Most married local hispanas. Many visigoth nobles, especially in rural areas, changed their religions and accepted to obbey the new rulers in order to keep a kinda relevant post and well-off position. Probably their daughters married arab rulers. So we can�t say that the population was subtituted by arabs. They remained the same and the arab blood may not have been widely spread among the Hispanic people in their domains.
No doubt, I think, religion was the Great excuse for the Reconquista.

Vallaldollid was a very relevant city at the time when Espa�a, and more concretely La Corona de Castilla had maaaaaaany possesions in the New world. The Catholic Monarchs got married there, and its the birth place of some monarchs. There were some attempts to settle the Corte (and therefore the Capital) in the city. It was founded by Count Ans�rez in the times of Alfonso VI in leonese territories, although the boundaries often changed and it has finally gained a very Castillian (even radical ) character. It had a very relevant position when the kingdoms (Castilla and Le�n) got united because of its position in the the middle of both.

The splendour of Valladolid as a city, like in the case of Salamanca is contemporaneous with Renaissance in Europe. No wonder many intellectuals wrote there wonderful writings in castellano.

It is said to be the city where castellano is purest. I don�t know if there's any purest castellano spoken in any area by most of its speakers. I think the "pure" (and I always try to avoid that word as regards languages) standard Spanish is to be found in literature, education, official writings, ... and not in a particular area. Most Vallisoletanos are "le�stas" and that's not very pure

No doubt Valladolid is a great city. Pity its cathedral is unfinished :jeje:
(just joking)

Un saludo :cheers:

quote:

Pity its cathedral is unfinished

Yes, it is a shame; however, it does offer early examples of the renaissance in Spain. There are few examples of this style in Spain, so any student of art history would be well advised to start in Valladolid. Of course, El Escorial is the height of the Spanish renaissance, but the cathedral in Valladolid marks an early transitional phase.

BTW, Valladolid is in ferias this week, so if you want to enjoy yourself while in Spain consider Valladolid.

Sensis,
I believe La Virgen del Camino fiestas start at the end of September. Maybe you could let everyone know about the dates, so after stopping in Valladolid they can enjoy your fiestas.

Salu2 :cheers:

I know fiestas in La Virgen del Camino are the 16th of september, but to tell you the truth I�ve never been to their fiestas since the ones in my village are from 13 to 16th of sept, so I am still partying at home that day (or with a terrible hangover :lo: ).

Sorry for not being able to inform people. I need another leon�s to help me with this thread .

San Froil�n is the 6th of october, and it's a festivity in Le�n and also in La virgen del Camino (romer�a, etc) Quite nice, but normally the weather is already cold by then.

Un salud�n, salaos.

BTW, you are all invited to my village's fiestas. :cheers:

quote:

BTW, you are all invited to my village's fiestas.

No need to worry about language. Nobody speaks astur-llion�s there :jeje:
Maybe just the many Asturian visitors who come every year, but translation service wil be provided.

Un abrazo

Thanks Sensis!

Here is a link with some nice photo of Valladolid, for those who have yet to see this gloriuos city, and for those who dream of returning. La Capital Asombrosa

Cheers and be careful with the resaca
:cheers:

Wonderful stained glass windows in Le�n Cathedral

I�ve just visited Le�n city for the first time, partly as a result of (the on-topic parts of) this thread. The only downside was, it was damn cold.

I kept going back in to the cathedral to look at the windows again, how astonishing they are. And so are the 11th-century vault paintings in the Basilica de San Isidoro. Stephen