Spanish people: Encyclopedia II - Spanish people - Background

Spanish people - Background

Spaniards are a Southern European Mediterranean population fused with some Nordic elements. The earliest inhabitants of Spain are believed to have been the Iberians who arrived in the region between the fourth and third millennium BCE from North Africa. These early Iberians may have had some relationship with the Basques who are largely beileved to have been an aboriginal population that may have existed throughout Europe before the coming of Indo-European-speaking peoples in the first millenium BCE. The Celtic tribes (which became a localized offshoot termed Celtiberians) arrived in northern Spain between the 9th and 6th century BCE. The seafaring Phoenicians, Greeks and Carthaginians successively settled along the Mediterranean coast and founded trading colonies there over a period of several centuries.

The Romans annexed Spain during the second century BCE and transformed the region into a series of Latin-speaking provinces. Ultimately, the majority of local languages, with the exception of Basque, stem from a type of vulgarized version of Latin that was spoken in Roman Spain, which evolved into the modern languages of the Iberian peninsula, including Spanish. Spain emerged as an important part of the Roman Empire and produced notables such as Trajan and Hadrian.

The Germanic Vandals and their subordinates the Iranic Alans arrived around 409 CE, but were displaced to North Africa by another Germanic tribe, the Visigoths who arrived around 415 CE and became the dominant power in the region for a time. Iberian-Roman culture eventually romanized the Visigoths and other tribes. Another Germanic tribe, the Suebi, who arrived at roughly the same time as the Vandals, established in the old Roman province of Gallaecia a kingdom which survived until late sixth century when it too was destroyed by the Visigoths.

By 711, the Iberian Peninsula was invaded by Muslim Arab-Berbers, popularly known as Moors, who settled in the region for nearly eight centuries until 1492. These Muslim invaders were mainly of Berber origin with prominent Arab tribesmen mixed in and they converted many locals to Islam (to the point that local Iberian Muslims outnumbered them) and contributed much to the culture of Muslim Spain. Ultimately, the vast majority of Muslims and Sephardic Jews were either expelled after the Christian reconquest (Reconquista) or forced to convert to Catholicism (see conversos).

Modern Spaniards are linguistically Latin, while their ancestors are derived from a variety of Iberian, Basque, Phoenician, Greek, Celtic, Roman, Germanic, and Berber elements. Genetic genealogy testing has revealed that most Spaniards reflect a Mediterranean affinity with some Nordic admixture and negligible sub-Saharan genetic inflow.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Background", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki