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Spanish people
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Spanish people or Spaniards are a nation or ethnic group native to Spain, in the Iberian Peninsula of southwestern Europe. They are often considered an amalgam of different ethnic groups, rather than an ethnic group by itself. They are one of the Mediterranean Caucasian peoples and have somewhat varied origins, due to the long history of migrations in and out of the Iberian Peninsula. Substantial populations descended from Spanish colonists and immigrants also exist in other parts of the world, most notably in Latin America.
earliest modern humans inhabiting Spain are believed to have been Paleolithic peoples that may have arrived in the Iberian Peninsula as early as 35,000-40,000 years ago.
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Spanish people or Spaniards are a nation or ethnic group native to Spain, in the Iberian Peninsula of southwestern Europe. They are often considered an amalgam of different ethnic groups, rather than an ethnic group by itself. They are one of the Mediterranean Caucasian peoples and have somewhat varied origins, due to the long history of migrations in and out of the Iberian Peninsula. Substantial populations descended from Spanish colonists and immigrants also exist in other parts of the world, most notably in Latin America.
Historical background
The earliest modern humans inhabiting Spain are believed to have been Paleolithic peoples that may have arrived in the Iberian Peninsula as early as 35,000-40,000 years ago. In more recent times the Iberians are believed to have arrived or developed in the region between the 4th millennium BC and the 3rd millennium BC, initially settling along the Mediterranean coast.
Celtic tribes arrived in Iberia between the 9th century BC and the 6th century BC. Some of those tribes in north-central Spain, which had cultural contact with the Iberians, are called Celtiberians. In addition, a group known as the Tartessians and later Turdetanians inhabited southwestern Spain and who are believed to have developed a separate civilization of Phoenician influence. The seafaring Phoenicians, Greeks and Carthaginians successively settled along the Mediterranean coast and founded trading colonies there over a period of several centuries. The Second Punic War between the Carthaginians and Romans was fought mainly in what is now Spain and Portugal.
The Roman Republic annexed Iberia during the 2nd century BC and transformed most of the region into a series of Latin-speaking provinces. As a result of Roman colonization, the majority of local languages, with the exception of Basque, stem from the Vulgar Latin that was spoken in Hispania (Roman Iberia), which evolved into the modern languages of the Iberian peninsula, including Castilian, which became the unifying language of Spain, and is now known in most countries as Spanish. Hispania (including Spain, but also Portugal) emerged as an important part of the Roman Empire and produced notable historical figures such as Trajan, Hadrian and Seneca.
The Germanic Vandals and their subordinates the Iranic Alans arrived around 409 AD, but were displaced to North Africa by another Germanic tribe, the Visigoths who conquered the region around 415 AD and became the dominant power in Iberia for three centuries. The Vandals may have given their name to the region, which was originally "Vandalucia" or land of the Vandals (which would be the source of Al-Andalus the Arab name of this Iberian region). Iberian-Roman culture eventually romanized the Visigoths and other tribes. Another Germanic tribe, the Suebi (including the Buri), who arrived at roughly the same time as the Vandals, became established in the old North western Roman province of Gallaecia a kingdom which survived until late 6th century when it too was integrated by the Visigoths.
In 711, the Iberian Peninsula was invaded by Muslim Arab-Berbers, popularly known as the Moors, who conquered nearly all the peninsula except the Kingdom of Asturias in the very northern part and subsequently ruled part of the region as Al-Andalus, but were driven south during their reign, ruling areas from between three to nearly eight centuries, ending with their defeat in 1492. These Muslim invaders were mainly of Berber origin with prominent Arab tribal leaders mixed in and they converted many locals to Islam to the point that at certain points in time Muslims outnumbered Christians. Muslims of Hispanic origin were generally known as Muladis (or Muwalladin in Arabic), "those born of foreign parentage" (though the idea "foreign" in this case meant "foreign" to the Arab and Berbers).
In the 10th century a massive conversion of Christians took place, so that muladies comprised the majority of the population of Islamic Spain by the century's end. Muslim Iberia was known as Al-Andalus. Ultimately, most Muslims and Sephardi Jews were either converted to Catholicism or expelled after the Christian reconquest (Reconquista). Between 1609 and 1614, approximately 300,000 Moriscos—new
Christians converted from Islam who continued to speak, write, and dress like Muslims—were forcibly expelled from Spain.
The union of the Christian Kingdoms of Castille and Aragon and the conquest of Granada led to the formation of the Spanish state as we know it today and thus to the development of Spanish identity in the form of one people. The Canary Islands had an Indigenous population called the Guanches whose origin is still the subject of discussion among historians and linguists.
Emigration
In the 16th century perhaps 240,000 Spaniards entered American ports. They were joined by 450,000 in the next century. Since the conquest of Mexico and Peru these two regions became the principal destinations of Spanish migrants in the 16th century. In the period 1850-1950, 3.5 million Spanish left for the Americas, particularly Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, and Cuba. From 1840 to 1890, as many as 40,000 Canary Islanders emigrated to Venezuela. 94,000 Spaniards chose to go to the Algeria in the last years of the 19th century, and 250,000 Spaniards lived in Morocco at the beginning of the 20th century.
By the end of the Spanish Civil War, some 500,000 Spanish Republican refugees had crossed
the border into France. From 1961 to 1974, at the height of the guest worker programs in Western Europe, about 100,000 Spaniards emigrated each year.
Ethnicities and regions
Spain's regions and nationalities
Spain itself consists of various regional populations including the Castilians, the Catalans, Valencians and Balearics (speakers of Catalan, a distinct Romance language in eastern Spain), the Navarrese, the Basques (people inhabiting the Basque country), Basque language speakers, and the Galicians, who speak Galician. Regional diversity is important to many Spaniards, and some regions also have strong local identities and dialects such as Asturias, Aragon, the Canary Islands, León and Andalusia.
The Roma
Spain is home to around 700,000 Spanish-Roma (Gitanos). Roma are a formerly-nomadic group, which spread across Western Asia, North Africa and Europe, reaching Spain in the 15th century. Gitanos, for a number of historical and cultural reasons are not considered a separate or "foreign" population in Spain, but a distinct ethnicity which overlaps with the wider Spanish ethnicity. Indeed, Gitanos play an important role in particularly Andalusian folklore, music and culture. There are no official statistics on the Gitano population in Spain. Estimates range from 600 000 to 700 000, making Spain, together with Romania and Bulgaria, home to one of the largest Roma communities in Europe. Over 40% of Gitanos live in the region of Andalusia, where they have traditionally enjoyed a higher degree of integration than in the rest of the country. A number of Spanish "gitanos" also live in Southern France, especially in the region of Perpignan.
Ancestry
The ancestry of the peoples in Iberia is largely consistent with geographic position, the Iberian Peninsula being located on the extreme southwest of Europe. There are clear connections with the Mediterranean peoples as well as with those of Atlantic and Western Europe.
The Paleolithic and Neolithic basis of modern Iberian ancestry
A 2007 European-wide study including Spanish Basques and Valencian Spaniards, found Iberian populations to cluster the furthest from other continental groups, implying that Iberia holds the most ancient European ancestry. In this study, the most prominent genetic stratification in Europe was found to run from the north to the south-east, while another important axis of differentiation runs east-west across the continent. It also found, despite the differences, that all Europeans are closely related.
Previous Y-chromosome and mtDNA analysis already pointed to Paleolithic ancestry among populations in the Iberian Peninsula. Although this methodology does not provide strong inferences on genetic population structure, it is useful in tracing parts of the routes of migration in the populating of Europe. Both Y-chromosome haplogroups R1b and Mtdna haplogroup H, reach frequencies above 60% in most of Iberia, R1b peaking at 90% in the Basque region. This shows an ancestral bond between Iberia and the rest of western Europe, and in particular with Atlantic Europe, which share high frequencies of these haplogroups. Y-chromosome and mtDNA analysis seems to support the theory according to which founder populations in northern Iberia colonized the rest of western Europe at the end of the last glaciation.
In fact, according to one article, the main components in the European genomes appear to derive from ancestors whose features were similar to those of modern Basques and Near Easterners, with average values greater than 35% for both these parental populations, regardless of whether or not molecular information is taken into account. The lowest degree of both Basque and Near Eastern admixture is found in Finland, whereas the highest values are, respectively, 70% in Spain and more than 60% in the Balkans.
Autosomal studies using a small number of classical genetic markers, supported by more recent analysis of Microsatellite data, have lent support for a large Neolithic element in the European genome, supporting the demic diffusion model from the ancient Near East. This Neolithic component has also been detected at substantial levels in Spain, but at greatly reduced levels to those detected in other European countries to the north and east. Broad gradients across Europe, largely on South East/North West cline using a small number of classical genetic markers would thus link the populations of Western Europe (including Iberia) by a common "paleolithic" ancestry and those of eastern (and particularly south eastern) Europe by a common "neolithic" ancestry Nevertheless the demic diffusion model remains controversial, to the degree that studies of ancient Mtdna have been interpreted as pointing to the absence of a Neolithic contribution in modern European populations.
A European wide study including Spaniards states: No significant correlation is apparent between North African admixture and geography. Genetic exchanges across the Mediterranean Sea, and especially in its western-most part where the geographic distance between continents is smallest (Spain), seem to have been limited or very limited, establishing the North African contribution at 2.5/3.4%.
Other historical influences
Haplogroup composition of the ancient Iberians was very similar to that found in modern Iberian Peninsula populations, suggesting a long-term genetic continuity since pre-Roman times. Nonetheless, The ancestry of modern Spaniards has also been influenced in a smaller degree by the many peoples which have passed on its territory throughout history. These peoples include Iberians, Celts, Celtiberians, Phoenicians (Punics or Carthaginians), Greeks (Ancient and Byzantine), Romans, Germanic tribes (Vandals, Suebi and Visigoths), Saqalibas (Slavs), Alans, Jews (Sephardim) or Marranos, Berbers and Arabs (Moors) and in Andalucia the Roma people (Gitanos).
There exists a number of studies which focus on the genetic impact of the centuries of Muslim rule in the Iberian peninsula (al-Andalus) on the genetic make up of the Iberian population. Iberia is the region of Europe (along Sicily) with highest presence of the typically North West African Y-chromosome haplotypes E-M81 and Haplotype Va. A thorough Y-chromosome analysis of the Iberian peninsula reveal that haplotype E-M81 surpasses frequencies of 10% in Southern Iberia.As for Mtdna analysis (Mitochondrial DNA), Iberia has much higher frequencies of typically North African Haplogroup U6 than those generally observed in Europe.. North African ancestry in Iberia (Algarve and Alentejo, Portugal) is largely on the maternal side where the mtDNA contribution of NW Africa to Iberia (given that the average frequency of U6 is 10% in NW Africa compared with 1.8% in Iberia) can be estimated at 8% .
A wide ranging study (published 2007) using 6,501 unrelated Y-chromosome samples from 81 populations found that: “Considering both these E-M78 sub-haplogroups (E-V12, E-V22, E-V65) and the E-M81 haplogroup, the contribution of northern African lineages to the entire male gene pool of Iberia is 5.6%. ”
In fact, a European wide study including Spaniards states: No significant correlation is apparent between North African admixture and geography. Genetic exchanges across the Mediterranean Sea, and especially in its western-most part where the geographic distance between continents is smallest (Spain), seem to have been limited or very limited, establishing the North African contribution at 2.5/3.4%.
According to a widely publicited recent study (December 2008) published in the American Journal of Human Genetics, 19.8 percent of modern Spaniards (and Portuguese) have DNA reflecting Sephardic Jewish ancestry (compared to 10.6 percent having DNA reflecting Moorish ancestors with wide geographical variation, ranging from 2.5% in Catalonia to 21.7% in Northwest Castile). The Sephardic result is in contradiction or not replicated in all the body of genetic studies done in Iberia and conflicts with mainstream historiography (denies Neolithic, Roman, Greek, Phoenician, Germanic, Alani, Slavic, Arab and other contributions to modern Iberians) and has been questioned by the authors themselves and by Stephen Oppenheimer who estimates that much earlier migrations, 5000 to 10,000 years ago from the Eastern Mediterranean might also have accounted for the Sephardic estimates: "They are really assuming that they are looking at his migration of Jewish immigrants, but the same lineages could have been introduced in the Neolithic". On the other hand, Chris Tyler-Smith, a collaborator with the team that carried the study, argues that the individual differences in Y-chromosome markers suggest that Iberians and Sephardic Jews must share ancestry more recent than several millennia, even though in also a recent study (October 2008) they attributed those same lineages in Iberia and the Balearic Islands as of Phoenician origin .
In January 2009, a study by Capelli et al. that analysed 717 Spanish individuals found the total contribution of specific North African male haplotypes in Spain as 7.7%, with estimates ranging from 0% in Catalonia to 18.6% in Cantabria.
The Canary Islands
The inhabitants of the Canary Islands, hold a gene pool that is halfway between the Iberians and the ancient native population, the Guanches (a proto-berber population), although with a major Iberian contribution. Guanche genetic markers have also been found, at low frequencies, in peninsular Spain, probably as a result of slavery and/or later immigration from the Canary Islands.
Modern immigration
The population of Spain is becoming increasingly diverse due to recent immigration. Spain now has among the highest per capita immigration rates in the world and the second highest absolute net migration in the World (after the USA). and immigrants now make up about 10% of the population. Since 2000, Spain has absorbed more than 3 million immigrants, with thousands more arriving each year. Immigrant population now tops over 4.5 million. They come mainly from Europe, Latin America, China, the Philippines, North Africa and West Africa.(see Immigration to Spain).
Global Genetic Maps about the Spanish
For two recent autosomal genetic maps of the Spanish see:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/13/science/13visual.html?_r=3&ref=science&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2008/08/genetic-map-of-europe-again.php
For lineage-related-markers genetic maps of the Spanish see:
http://www.scs.uiuc.edu/~mcdonald/WorldHaplogroupsMaps.pdf
Languages
Languages spoken in Spain include Spanish (castellano or español) (74%), Catalan (català, called valencià in the Valencian Community) (17%), Galician (galego) (7%), and Basque (euskara) (2%). Other languages are Asturian (asturianu), Aranese Gascon (aranés), Aragonese (aragonés), and Leonese, each with their own various dialects. Spanish is the official state language, although the other languages are co-official in a number of autonomous communities.
Peninsular Spanish is largely considered to be divided into two main dialects: Castilian Spanish (spoken in the northern half of the country) and Andalusian Spanish (spoken mainly in Andalusia). However, a large part of Spain, including Madrid, Extremadura, Murcia, and Castilla-la Mancha, speak local dialects known as "transitional dialects" between Andalusian and Castilian Spanish. The Canary Islands also have a distinct dialect of Castilian Spanish which is very close to Caribbean Spanish. Linguistically, the Spanish language is a Romance language and is one of the aspects (including laws and general "ways of life") that makes Spaniards to be labelled a Latin people. The strong Arabic influence on the language (nearly 4,000 words are of Arabic origin, many nouns and few verbs) and the independent evolution of the language itself through history, most notably the Basque influence at the formative stage of Castilian Romance, partially explain its difference from other Romance languages. The Basque language left a strong imprint on Spanish both linguistically and phonetically. Other changes in Spanish have come from borrowings from English and French, although English influence is stronger in Latin America than in Spain.
The number of speakers of Spanish as a mother tongue is roughly 35.6 million, while the vast majority of other groups in Spain such as the Galicians, Catalans, and Basques also speak Spanish as a first or second language, which boosts the number of Spanish speakers to the overwhelming majority of Spain's population of 45.9 million. Mexico has the largest Spanish-speaking population in the world with approximately 100 million speakers.
Spanish was exported to the Americas due to over three centuries of Spanish colonial rule starting with the arrival of Christopher Columbus to Santo Domingo in 1492. Spanish is spoken natively by over 400 million people and spans across most countries of the Americas; from the Southwestern United States in North America down to Tierra del Fuego, the most southernly region of South America in Chile and Argentina. A variety of the language, known as Judæo-Spanish or Ladino (or Haketia in Morocco), is still spoken by descendants of Sephardim (Spanish and Portuguese Jews) who fled Spain following a decree of expulsion of Moors and Jews in 1492. Also, a Spanish creole language known as Chabacano is spoken by less than 1 million people in the Philippines, which developed from the mix of Spanish and native Tagalog and Cebuano languages during Spain's rule of the country through Mexico from 1565 to 1898.
In Russia, the Spaniards who moved there during World War II speak a mix of Russian and Spanish, while some speak Catalan. In Montreal, Quebec, Canada, many Spanish-speaking immigrants relocated in the city adapted a mixed language Franspanol, while they're able to speak French and in addition, English. And in Japan, Latin American descendants of Japanese whom immigrated to the country by the Nikkeijin "right to return" laws are more proficient in Spanish than Japanese.
Religion
According to several sources (Spanish official polls and others, www.ine.es), about 76% self-identify as Christian Catholics, about 2% with another religious faith, and about 19% identify as non-believers or atheists.
Other related peoples
The genetic record of the British people is still a matter for debate.[clarification needed] It has been commonly supposed that today only the Welsh and the genetic descendants of the Cornish Britons remain in the same locations as their Dark Age and Medieval ancestors.[citation needed] However, recent research suggests that the majority of persons in all regions of the British Isles are the genetic descendants of settlers from the Iberian peninsula who arrived in the region between 7,500 and 15,000 years ago.
It is thought that ancient Iberia served as a refuge for palaeolithic humans during the last major glaciation when environments further north were too cold and dry for continuous habitation. When the climate warmed into the present interglacial, populations would have rapidly spread north along the west European coast. Genetically, in terms of Y-chromosomes and Mt-DNA, inhabitants of Britain and Ireland are closely related to the Basques,[42][9] reflecting their common origin in this refugial area. Basques, along with Irish, show the highest frequency of the Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup R1b in Western Europe; some 95% of native Basque men have this haplogroup. The rest is mainly I and a minimal presence of E3b. The Y-chromosome and MtDNA relationship between Basques and people of Ireland and Wales is of equal ratios than to neighbouring areas of Spain, where similar ethnically "Spanish" people now live in close proximity to the Basques, although this genetic relationship is also very strong among Basques and other Spaniards. In fact, as Stephen Oppenheimer has stated in The Origins of the British (2006), although Basques have been more isolated than other Iberians, they are a population representative of south western Europe. As to the genetic relationship among Basques, Iberians and Britons, he also states:
By far the majority of male gene types in the British Isles derive from Iberia (modern Spain and Portugal), ranging from a low of 59% in Fakenham, Norfolk to highs of 96% in Llangefni, north Wales and 93% Castlerea, Ireland. On average only 30% of gene types in England derive from north-west Europe. Even without dating the earlier waves of north-west European immigration, this invalidates the Anglo-Saxon wipeout theory... ...75-95% of British and Irish (genetic) matches derive from Iberia...Ireland, coastal Wales, and central and west-coast Scotland are almost entirely made up from Iberian founders, while the rest of the non-English parts of the British Isles have similarly high rates. England has rather lower rates of Iberian types with marked heterogeneity, but no English sample has less than 58% of Iberian samples...
In his 2006 book Blood of the Isles, which is based on genetic research, Bryan Sykes comes to similar conclusions, in which he says:
“ [T]he presence of large numbers of Jasmine’s Oceanic clan ... says to me that there was a very large-scale movement along the Atlantic seaboard north from Iberia, beginning as far back as the early Neolithic and perhaps even before that. The number of exact and close matches between the maternal clans of western and northern Iberia and the western half of the Isles is very impressive, much more so than the much poorer matches with continental Europe.
“ The genetic evidence shows that a large proportion of Irish Celts, on both the male and female side, did arrive from Iberia at or about the same time as farming reached the Isles. (...)
The connection to Spain is also there in the myth of Brutus.... This too may be the faint echo of the same origin myth as the Milesian Irish and the connection to Iberia is almost as strong in the British regions as it is in Ireland. (...)
They [the Picts] are from the same mixture of Iberian and European Mesolithic ancestry that forms the Pictish/Celtic substructure of the Isles.
“ Here again, the strongest signal is a Celtic one, in the form of the clan of Oisin, which dominates the scene all over the Isles. The predominance in every part of the Isles of the Atlantic chromosome (the most frequent in the Oisin clan), with its strong affinities to Iberia, along with other matches and the evidence from the maternal side convinces me that it is from this direction that we must look for the origin of Oisin and the great majority of our Y-chromosomes. The sea routes of the Atlantic fringe conveyed both men and women to the Isles.
Hundreds of millions of Spanish descendants can be found throughout the Hispanic countries of Latin America in the form of criollos (Spaniards born in the Americas), mestizos (mixed Spanish/Amerindian), mulatos (mixed Spanish/African) or triracial (Spanish/African/Amerindian). In the United States, the number of Mexican-Americans represent a significant portion of the Spanish descended population, as over 70% of the population of Mexico have some Spanish ancestry.
See also
Spanish Identities
Within the broader Spanish identity are long standing regional identities within Spain:
Spanish nationality and regional movements
Languages of Spain
Official languages
Unofficial languages
Ancient Spanish peoples
People with Spanish ancestry
Footnotes
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