Question about the Moors who ruled Iberia.

I agree completely and I wasn't trying to support this 19th century concept, quite the opposite actually. It is indeed a gradual shift from north to south, due to adaptation to the climate without any sharp boundaries, as you say, and this is exactly why there are certain physionomical traits in Spain which are rare in Spain while more common in Morocco - the closer you get to Morocco the more common these traits will be, and vice versa, the further away from Morocco you go the less common they will be.

How many Ibers and Visigoths actually converted to Islam after the Arabic conquest of Iberia?

This is very interesting. I wonder if the Spanish language in Cordoba, was somehow different from the language spoken in the north?

Edited by Sarmat12 - 10-Dec-2007 at 04:38

Originally posted by Sarmat12 This is very interesting. I wonder if the Spanish language in Cordoba, was somehow different from the language spoken in the north?   I mean may be there was more substantial Arabic influence? And also did Muslim in Andalus continued to use Latin script for Spanish or they switched to Arabic script?

Originally posted by Sarmat12 This is very interesting. I wonder if the Spanish language in Cordoba, was somehow different from the language spoken in the north?   I mean may be there was more substantial Arabic influence? And also did Muslim in Andalus continued to use Latin script for Spanish or they switched to Arabic script?

Originally posted by Majkes ...  Spanish language is diffrent in every part of Spain and latin America.  E.g. Andaluses often cut ends of words.

Speaking of the Moors...

Does anyone know what tactics they used in battle? And what types of troops they used?

Regarding Calvo's last statements, one also bear in mind that many, if not most of the Andaluzian population spoke the Ladino, a Romance language, not the Arab.

Originally posted by calvo Physionomy is a result of adaptation to climate: the physical differences among the native people from Northern Europe to Sub-Saharan Africa is a "gradual" shift without any sharp boundaries: the further south, the darker the people. The same applies from Western Europe to East Asia. The 19th century racial concept of distinct races divided by sharp boundaries doesn't hold water.

Originally posted by Reginmund I agree completely and I wasn't trying to support this 19th century concept, quite the opposite actually. It is indeed a gradual shift from north to south, due to adaptation to the climate without any sharp boundaries, as you say, and this is exactly why there are certain physionomical traits in Spain which are rare in Spain while more common in Morocco - the closer you get to Morocco the more common these traits will be, and vice versa, the further away from Morocco you go the less common they will be.

Originally posted by pinguin Yeap. That's the concept of cline. It is a concept very hard to explain, though, to people that wants to divide mankind in three rigid groups.

Originally posted by Reginmund I'd rather say it is a most simple and logical concept which can be explained even to a child, the only reason it is hard to explain to these people you mention is that they simply don't want to understand it. Sometimes man finds the illusions he create more appealing than the real world.

I disagree. Phenotypes/physical types are not distributed evenly throughout the world like the order of the colours of a newly bought box of crayons. There are Sharp boundaries as well as gradual shifts. We also have to determine if the gradual shifts are the results of environmental adaptations or mixtures between different types of peoples. It all completely depends on the regions and the peoples you focus on, and usually it is a combination of many factors. In my opinion it is an over simplification to explain every thing simply by ''gradual shifts due to adaptation to environment/climate''.

For example

Originally posted by calvo Physionomy is a result of adaptation to climate: the physical differences among the native people from Northern Europe to Sub-Saharan Africa is a "gradual" shift without any sharp boundaries: the further south, the darker the people. The same applies from Western Europe to East Asia.

since the west to east of Euroasian continent was mentioned here, I will pick two nations/peoples from the centre point of the continent who are next to each other. Tibetans and Kashmiris. Tibetans are indistinguishable from the Japanese people who are located in the Eastern fringes of the continent, or for that matter the Inuits even more to the east in north America. On the other hand, their neigbours the Kashmiris are close to Europeans. This is a sharp boundary.

In my opinion, human type distribution is very similar to language distribution. (please note that I am not saying thay are parallel to each other). All languages ultimately go back to one languge probably similar to that of the Khoisans' with clicks, just like all modern humans come from one root in Africa. Just as languages branched off to different groups/families, humans branched off to certain different groups and developed certain mutations/characteristics. Then from those branches, humans spread and adapted to their environments within the capacity of the genetic mutations their branch had developed. This is why North east Asians do not have blonde hair and blue eyes like the north Europeans, or why Peruvians are not as dark as Nigerians, or why the south Africans are not as light coloured as Mediterraneans. Gradual shifts certainly happen, but mainly within peoples who stem from the same branch on the big tree of modern humans.
Likewise If you think about languages, The English language in Western Europe does not gradually shift or change to the Japanese language in East Asia. It belongs to a big branch of the human languages called the Indo-European languages. The grammar, vocabularies and sounds change gradually from one language to another within the Indo-European languages, yet when an Indo-European language meets a language from another language family, the gradual change is cut and there is a sharp boundary in grammar, vocabulary and sounds (if we leave out similarities from contacts).








Edited by omshanti - 12-Dec-2007 at 06:04

Originally posted by calvo This is slightly off-topic here, but never mind.

Sorry, you are right, it's off-topic. I'll try to make this post my last one here. Thank you for replying Calvo.

Originally posted by calvo Yes, sharp boundaries do exist in some parts of the world, often due to migrations or geographical isolation. The example of Tibet could be explained by the hostile landscape for human migration. Other examples of sharp boundaries are like that between a colony of white south africans living within miles from a zulu tribe - a result of transcontinental migration.

I think that the example of white south Africans is missing the point a little. First of all it is a racial (if you don't mind me using the word) island with absolutely no continuity around, which simply occured because of a very recent human movement.
I brought up the example of Tibetans and kashmiris because
1: it is located in the centre point of the Eurasian continent (as a response to the statemant that peoples' physical characteristics gradually shift from West Europe to East Asia)
2: it is a sharp boundary/cut between two continuities, meaning that there is a continuity in physical chracteristics/phenottypes from the Kashmiris westward all the way to west Europe, and a continuity east ward all the way to Japan or even the American continent from the Tibetans.
3: There are no records of recent (if any at all) population replacements by foreign peoples from distant lands.

Originally posted by calvo After all, human evolution and migration is a complex issue that is still under extensive study. Groups have isolated while a few thousands years, then intermixed with new comers, then migrated thousands of miles, mixed with others... and isolated again...

Yes it is a complex process that spans almost 200,000 years. Adaptation to enviroment, natural selection, sexual selection, genetic mutations, pure chance as to who with what physical characteristics migrated where, isolations causing the development or disappearance of certain characteristics, genetic bottle-necks, genetic drifts, extinction of certain peoples, success in survival of certain peoples, mixtures of peoples.......etc, all play a part. However there are many clues that can help you determine as to who shares which branch with whom within the tree of the modern humans. In my opinion, The whole process can be thought of like a tree, which is (as I wrote before) very similar to how language groups/families formed.

Originally posted by calvo The point I was trying to make is that 19th century anthropologists attempted to divide mankind into 3 distinct groups with sharp boundaries and no grey areas; and unfortunately this mentality is still in the minds of many (including on this forum), but especially in the U.S.�

If you are talking about the classifications based on craniology, as far as I know there were 4 groups rather than 3, and there were grey areas between the groups. Craniology is still very valid in anthropology today. In my opinion, they are ofcource not completely accurate and certainly do not explain everything, but still they can be used as a rough guideline explaining the major branches on the tree of modern humanity. They were not completely right as nobody can be regarding this complex matter, but they were on to something.

Originally posted by calvo They�believed that "Nordics" were the white race in its pure form and "Black Africans" were the black race in its pure form, and any deviation from it was considered as "impure".

I really doubt that the actual anthropologists were racists who were hung up on colour (which is only a fraction of physical differences between the peoples in the world) like that. Otherwise they would not have classified Indians or Arabs in the same category as North Europeans, or Australian Aboriginis in a different category from sub-Saharan Africans.

Originally posted by calvo Even today�I often meet people who believe that there was a time when ALL Europeans were blond; and the dark hair of southern Europeans came from African genes.....

Well, they are obviously wrong, but that has nothing do with this.

Originally posted by calvo The truth is that there is no such thing as "pure race", only that some populations have stayed more isolated than others over the past few thousand years.

I guess this depends on the definition of ''race'' . I personally do not have any problem with the words ''race'' or ''pure race'', because depending on the context and definition they can be true as long as they are not used in twisted manupilative ways, just as I do not have any problem with the word ''breed'' or ''pure bred'' in dogs and cats.

Originally posted by calvo And the case that if they remained isolated in the past 5000 years would not necessarily imply that they did not mix pre-historically.

Yes, You are right, however the more ancient the time the more local the mixture would likely to be. Also a mixture of different peoples can produce a single ''race'' overtime too.

Edited by omshanti - 12-Dec-2007 at 16:26