Populations and languages: the Strait of Gibraltar

Many years ago I made a trip to Gibraltar. At that time I was a post-graduate student at the University of Valencia, and one of the courses I took was about dialectology and sociolinguistics. We had to do some research as the final assignment of the course and in my group we decided to go to Gibraltar to do some field-work about the linguistic situation of this peculiar place. We spent three days there, with our questionnaires and interviews, and we also had time to do some sightseeing: we walked around the city, we saw the famous monkeys and we finally climbed the Rock, from where we had some spectacular views of both Spain and the African coast, which is a mere 14 km away. We can imagine that, throughout history and prehistory, many humans living on either side of the Strait must have felt curious to know about the land that they could see across the water, and this curiosity could have led to a significant movement of human populations in both directions.
The surprising fact, however, is that the Strait of Gibraltar has been a barrier for human migration in all ages, especially in prehistory. The main reason for this is geological: the Strait of Gibraltar has remained as it is now for the last 5 million years, even at the various glacial ages, where the sea level lowered significantly all over the world. We also have other types of evidence, e.g. the archaeological record, but the most important confirmation has come from population genetics. I recently read an interesting article about this subject: Bosch et al, 2001, High-Resolution Analysis of Human Y-Chromosome Variation Shows a Sharp Discontinuity and Limited Gene Flow between Northwestern Africa and the Iberian Peninsula, American Journal of Human Genetics, 68:1019-1029). In this article, the authors analysed the genetic components of various populations in Spain and Morocco, combined with other evidence from archaeology and history, and reached a series of interesting conclusions. It seems for example that in both cases, the populations of today are mostly the descendants of the people who lived in these areas in the Paleolithic, with a minor impact of migration from the Middle East, probably associated with Neolithic expansion. On the other hand, the genetic components of Iberian and NW African populations show that they come from different origins. Human settlement in Iberia is connected with the expansion of modern humans into Europe from Eurasia or Anatolia, whereas the population of NW Africa is mostly connected with components that originated in the African continent. The gene flow across the Strait of Gibraltar is not considered relevant; it can be estimated at about 5%, and it could, at least partially, show the traces of some recent historical phenomena, like the expansion of the Roman Empire or the Arabic conquest of Iberia. There’s no doubt that the Strait of Gibraltar, as a natural barrier, has played a decisive role in the distribution of human populations, both for modern humans and for older types of hominids. Instead of crossing the 14 km stretch of water that separates Africa from Europe, it took humans a few thousand years to go all the way to the Middle East and eastern Europe until they reached the Iberian Peninsula. This is what I would call a ‘Grand Tour’.

Now, what are the linguistic consequences of all this? Is there also a linguistic barrier as well? Has this language barrier existed from prehistoric times? In a previous post I wrote about the expansion of Arabic as a consequence of the Islamic Empire. The main conclusion I reached was that Arabic dialects are spoken today only in areas where other Afro-Asiatic languages (formerly known as Hamito-Semitic) were already spoken before the arrival of the Arabs, and not in areas where there were other types of languages, e.g. in Persia or Iberia. I’m not sure if anyone had realised this simple fact before, but it looks quite clear in my opinion. The important factor here is affinity. The language of the conquerors (in this case Arabic) has a varying degree of influence on the languages of the conquered depending on the affinity between them. When the Arabs arrived in northern Africa they found Berber-speaking populations, and Berber languages belong to the Afro-Asiatic group. The subsequent process of hybridization led to the linguistic situation that we find in the area today, with a series of dialects which are considered regional variations of Arabic (with the exception of the areas where Berber languages have survived until today). What about Iberia? The languages spoken in this territory were quite different from Arabic; they were connected with Latin, an Indo-European language belonging to the Italic group. The Islamic conquest brought about a process of hybridization, with a significant exchange of linguistic (mainly lexical) material in both directions, as can be seen in the vocabulary of Spanish, Portuguese and other Ibero-Romance languages, and also in many features of the Hispano-Arabic dialect. However, Arabic and Romance languages were always perceived as something different. There were not enough opportunities for hybridization to produce significant hybrids between them; people spoke one of the languages, or both, but not a mixture of them (except perhaps in some local, pidgin-like cases). Another example of the importance of affinity in situations of language contact can be seen in the Roman conquest. The influence of the Romans was linguistically relevant in the Iberian Peninsula, where there was already a background of Indo-European languages, whereas it was rather insignificant in northern Africa, with no Indo-European background (see this post for more details and some maps).

It seems therefore that the population/language distribution in NW Africa and Iberia corresponds to a pattern that dates back to Paleolithic times, when modern humans arrived in these areas via different routes. The Strait of Gibraltar, as a natural barrier, was the main factor behind the whole process, limiting the possibilities of genetic or cultural exchange. Later developments, associated with the rise and fall of empires and the expansion of religions, were not strong enough to change the overall picture.

Notes on the illustrations:
- First picture: The Strait of Gibraltar from Spain. Source: OjoDigital (here).
- Second picture: The Strait of Gibraltar and the Alboran Sea. Source: NASA (here).

Ibn Mardaniś, the Wolf King

The conquest of the Iberian Peninsula by the Muslim Empire started in 711, when the last Visigothic King, Roderic, was defeated; only some areas in the north remained independent, the rest of the Peninsula (Al-Andalus) being under the rule of the Emirs (and later Caliphs) of Cordoba. In the following centuries, the Christian territories (Asturias, Castile, Leon, Galicia, Aragon, Catalonia, etc.) became stronger and started their gradual expansion towards the south, which ended in 1492 with the conquest of Granada. All in all, the presence of Muslims in Al-Andalus comprises a period of more than seven centuries, which resulted in an important legacy that is still felt today, e.g. in the Romance languages of the Iberian Peninsula, where there are many words from Arabic. Now, what was the linguistic situation in the territories under Muslim rule?

It is generally thought that the Muslim territories were basically bilingual in the first centuries of this period, with one language (Arabic) connected with power, religion and administration, and a series of Romance dialects, generally referred to as Mozarabic, spoken by a high percentage of the population. When the Castilians conquered the city of Toledo in1085, they found a multicultural society, with Christian, Muslim and Jewish elements. However, this situation of relative, diglossic balance in Al-Andalus started to break at the end of the 11th century, with the arrival of the Almoravids, who established their Kingdom from 1085 to 1145. The Almoravids had a more rigorous view on religious matters and pursued a repressive policy against the non-Muslim or non-Arabic. But they were not the only ‘fundamentalists’ who arrived in Al-Andalus. They were followed by the Almohads, who ruled between 1147 and 1227. It is clear that in those years the Romance dialects spoken in Muslim territory were in a very weak position, and some scholars think that by the 13th century their presence in those territories was minimal. It is supposed, for example, that when King James I of Aragon conquered Valencia in 1238, the population of this city was predominantly or (for some scholars) nearly exclusively Arabic-speaking. This, however, has been a matter of hard-fought debate, because of its ideological implications. In general, Arabic continued as a living language in the new Catholic kingdoms, but in a position of inferiority to the languages of the new elite. The repressive measures against the Muslim population increased after the end of the ‘Reconquista’, and culminated in 1606, when the remaining 'Moriscos' (Muslims 'converted' to Christianity) where expelled, ending a nine-century period of Arabic as a spoken language in the Iberian Peninsula.

As we have seen, the emergence of fundamentalist ideologies, triggered by a series of complex historical events, put an end to a long history of cultural hybridization and coexistence in Al-Andalus. If we look at some of the historical figures of this period we can get a rich picture of the times they lived in. One of them is Muhammad Ibn Mardaniś (1124 or 1125- 1172), also known as the Wolf King. He ruled over the Kingdom of Murcia (one of the Taifa Kingdoms into which Al-Andalus was divided at the time) and became an important political figure of his time, and also a controversial one. He expanded the limits of his Kingdom, incorporating new territories in eastern Spain, among them the region of Valencia. King Mardaniś was an example of hybridization. He came from a Hispanic family who had converted to Islam (his surname is supposed to derive from the same source as Martínez or other similar Romance names). His attitude towards the Catholic Kingdoms or the presence of Hispanic elements in his troops, and also some aspects of his private life (for example the clothes he used to wear), reveal the mixture of cultural elements in his personality. During his reign he had to fight the Almohads, who were trying to impose a unified, ultra-orthodox state in Al-Andalus. It was only after his death, in 1172, that the Kingdom of Murcia became a vassal to the Almohads. This defeat can also be seen as the end of an era in the history of the Iberian Peninsula, and the beginning of another. I find it surprising that his life, so full of events and marked by such a rich and controversial personality, has not yet inspired a major literary work or a feature film.

Notes:
- for more on Ibn Mardaniś you can read this article, by Ignacio González Cavero. In Spanish.
- further reading on the languages of Al-Andalus: Federico CORRIENTE (2008). Romania Arabica. Tres cuestiones básicas: arabismos, 'mozárabe' y 'jarchas'. Madrid, Trotta.
Images:
- first picture: Muslim architecture in the Mosque of Cordoba.
- second picture: Castle of Monteagudo, near Murcia, an important place in Ibn Mardaniś's life. Source: here.

Last Edit: 5 March 2009

The expansion of Arabic

abic So far, this blog has focused mainly on European languages, but it is clear that the Continuity/Hybridization Model (another name for the Continuity Theory) can be applied to other groups of languages. Today’s post is about a non-European, and also non-Indo-European language: Arabic, which belongs to the Semitic group (Afro-Asiatic family).

Arabic dialects are spoken today in many areas of the Near East and Northern Africa, as we can see in the following map:

(Source: Wikipedia. Click here for a larger image and further details)

This linguistic situation is a direct consequence of a historical fact: the emergence of the Islamic Empire, which originated in Arabia in the 7th c. AD and quickly expanded to many other territories, carrying with it both Islam and Arabic. The next image shows the extension of this empire at different stages:

(Source: Wikipedia. Click here for a larger image and further details).

Both maps look quite similar but we can spot some significant differences between them. We only find Arabic dialects in places where Semitic languages, or at least other Afro-Asiatic languages, were already spoken before the conquest (e.g. northern Africa, Mesopotamia, Arabia). On the contrary, there are some areas of the Empire where no Arabic dialects have survived, e.g. Persia, Kurdistan, south-eastern Anatolia and the Iberian Peninsula. The languages spoken in these areas before the arrival of the Arabs, and the languages spoken there today are not Semitic or Afro-Asiatic; they belong to other groups (mainly Indo-European). Historical events such as military conquest, and the dominance of an intrusive elite over extensive territories, do not seem to affect the basic pattern of continuity, at least at the language-group level. If we apply this type of analysis to other processes of expansion the conclusions are very similar, as we have seen, for example, in a series of posts about language distribution in the Roman Empire (you can read them here: What the Romans spoke; Language continuity in Europe (II): Switzerland; Romance Languages before the Romans). In the context of ancient times, the language of the conquerors (associated with social prestige and political power, and also with religion) is always a very influential factor, but there is not a generalized process of language substitution. What we find instead is a process of language hybridization. If the language of the conquered has a high degree of affinity with the language of the conquerors, i.e. if they belong to the same language group, it is much more likely that the final result will be a dialect of the new language. In the absence of this kinship, the normal scenario is the continuity of the pre-existing dialects. In fact, language continuity is always present: Afro-Asiatic dialects were spoken in northern Africa and the Near-East before the Roman conquest, and are still spoken today, in the form of Arab dialects created through a process of hybridization.

Last Edit: 13th October 2008.