The Iberian Peninsula

Well you could just do a little research and reach your own conclusion.

I can give u a hand:

University of Columbia sponsored Encyclopedia Iranica, all sources cited: Alans:

http://www.iranica.com/articles/search/searchpdf.isc?ReqStrP DFPath=/home1/iranica/articles/v1_articles/alans&OptStrL ogFile=/home/iranica/public_html/logs/pdfdownload.html

I would trust the word of world class academia over anything I read here or from a nationalist article written by a man with a PhD in Engineering.

Spanish is a romance with a strong Basque influence that is noticed in things like:

- pure 5 vowel system (no short/long differences, no intermediate sounds)

- lost of F at the start of many words (facer -> hacer, farina -> harina)

- diferent verbs for the the two meanings of "to be": exist and stay (ser and estar)

- etc.

Other romances with strong Basque influence are: Gascon (maybe the most strongly influenced as its spoken by a formerly Basque speaking people exclussively) and Aragonese (now virtually extinct).

Spanish (Castilian) also has Arabic influences in some vocabulary and what some would call Mozarabic influences as well (Mozarabs were Christians living in Muslim Spain, it's thought that Andalusian is a descendant of the Mozarabic romance, which was important in the Middle Ages)

Celtic influence can't be appreciated at all and Germanic influence is limited and less relevant than that of Arab (just some words like guerra=war). Germanic influx is surely more noticeable in French.

You have to consider that in the Middle Ages, in Iberia there were a little bunch of romance tongues being spoken: Galician, Asturian, Leonese, Castilian (modern Spanish), Aragonese, Catalonian (very close to Occitanian), Occitanian too and finally Mozarabic in Al Andalus but influencing the north as well. Apart of those, Basque (pre-IE)was widely spoken in a large area in North Central Spain and SW France, influencing its inmediate neighbours. Accidentally, Castilian became the oficial language of Castile-Leon and later of Spain... while a dialect of Galician became that of Portugal, with the rest remaining unofficial or only oficial in their regions, often autonomous states till late in History.

I would contest and clarify a few points made here.

As far as ethnicity, Spaniards are definitely caucasian, but a poutpourri of subtypes. Meditteranean mixed with Alpine-Nordic.

But when talking about Spain, you really are talking about a multicultural mix, dominated by the residents of the central meseta. My family has medium brown hair, hazel, green, and brown eyes, some pale, light olive skin. We are Aragonese-Catalan.

Most Spaniards are a mix of iberean (mediterranean caucasian) and Celtic  groups. The farther north the more Celtic.

The nobility of Spain prided itself in being of Visigothic origin, and in most cases were. They probably made up between 5-7% of the population.

Based on extensive reading, here would be a good guestimate as any:

Iberian - 45% (indigenous - I agree Basque Like)

Celtic - 30% (-->, celti-iberian)

Romano-Italic - 10-15%

Visigothic 5-8%

Other/Berber/Jewish - 3-5% (kicked out in droves due to racial and religious Bigotry)

Linguistically, I think Spanish is more Italic than Italian is. The latin brought by Rome was Oscan-Umbrian.

Germanic is common in many names. -ez ending are gothic. Guerra derives from Visigothic term for war, as are numerous words involved in war. Overall, a pretty small influence but still noticeable.

Celtic influence is limited to rural/farming terms. Did you know Cerveza is a celtic word for wheat beer?

Basque? Iberian? Small but noticeable. Izquerda is basque.

Arabic made a HUGE impression on Castilian, and makes up to 5-10% of the language. 

If you took away Latin, you prbably would have more Arabic words than anything else.

And CIA world factbook says:

Composite of Mediterranean and Nordic types

I'm not sure what you're talking about. Do you mean why do you find many blondisms there or something? Galicians are the smallest among all Spaniards, what doesn't seem to fit well with the Nordicist Celtic myth. Castilians and Portugese are the most Celtic of all Iberian groups.

If you tell me that Galicians and Irish or Welsh are related, I would have no problem believing you but notice that the relations that can be testified archaeologically between Atlantic Iberia and the British islands belong to Calcolithic and Bronze ages before Celts entered either territory. Taking British peoples as archetype of Celtism is totally confusing... they are Celts (celtizied) only since 300 BCE or even later. Southern Germans would be a better sample, even if they stopped being Celts (got Germanized) soon after the others were assimilated.

Yes, I'd agree that they seem to be more Celts than Iberians in customs but the classics say that they were mixed after some time of struggle. Of course other Celts were mixed as well but not with Iberians properly speaking.

If you're talking about the gaita (blowing pipe or however is called in English) I must tell you that the same instrument is played in the Basque Country (without the bag). It could be a Celtic influx (unsure) but I suspect it being something original from the Atlantic natives. I really can't say more.
I don't mean to deny the Celtic influence and presence in Galicia, starting by the very name of the country, but we have to consider Celts for what they were: a misterious IE people that sprung from somewhere in West-Central Europe and expanded in two main waves:
1) Urnfields (c. 1300 BCE, with Italics and Illyrians most probably)
2) La T�ne (c. 400-50 BCE, an exclussively Celtic culture)

The Celts of Iberia came with the first wave (expanding later in a local proccess), while the Celts of Britain arrived mainly with the second wave, adopted Druidism there and exported it back to the continent. Both proccesses implied a lot of mixture with subjugated or allied natives, so the Celtic genetic apportation was obviously small except maybe in some regions.

Yes, that's the point. Most invasions/migrations of history and prehistory don't involve genocide and suplantation of one people by the newcomers. This is a extremely simplified vision that is obvioulsy wrong. At least when the invaded were sedentary farmers, all invasions were +/- like that of the Visigoths: a small number of well armed and well organized people over a mass of peasants. In the Visigothic case, they never tried to assimilate the submitted peoples and in fact they were the ones that became assimilated into Roman culture but often the invaders are in position of imposing some of their traits, particularly language, customs and socio-political organization.

Another good example could be Latin America, where most of it is basically Amerindian with only a small European (and African) aportation. Still most of them speak Spanish as mother language and feel Hispanic and not Inca or Aztec or Arawak or whatever. But the actual Spanish blood there is limited, maybe 10-15%?? (not counting the southernmost countries like Argentina that resemble more the genocidal-colonizing model of Angloamerica)

As a curiosity, I'll mention that Basque has no Celtic apportations at all, while is abundant in Latin ones. This maybe because Basques (as Iberians) were probably in almost continuous fight with Celts while the relation with Romans was good before feudalism evolved.

Most likely yes.
 

If you're talking about Galicians, they are a unique group and most do look vaguely Mediterranean to me. They are (jn their plurality) darker and smaller than Basques and Asturians and Cantabrians as well. But I can't explain well why. Surely with Megalithism "mediterranean" colonists went northwards... but this is very speculative.

Mediterraneans, apart of the natural selection due to climate, seem to have a greater proportion of Near Eastern or Aegean (Mediterranean) genes.