Lusitanic

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Some information in this article or section has not been verified and may not be reliable.
Please check for any inaccuracies, and modify and cite sources as needed.

The neutrality of this article is disputed.
Please see the discussion on the talk page.

1 Contemporary meaning
2 Etymology
3 Relation with Hispanic
4 Historical value
5 Latino
6 External links
7 See also

[edit] Contemporary meaning

Lusitanic is a term used to categorize persons who share the linguistic and cultural traditions of the Portuguese-speaking nations of Portugal, Brazil, Macau, East Timor, Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, São Tomé and Príncipe, Guinea Bissau and others. The term can be easily compared to Hispanic - as this term describes those who speak the Spanish language, have ancestry from a Spanish speaking nation or otherwise have cultural ties to Spanish speaking nations. Neither of the terms are based specifically on race or ethnicity, but rather on a shared cultural or linguistic heritage. The term Anglo, however, when used to describe English speaking nations is less comparable.

[edit] Etymology

Historical 1849 map of Roman Hispania showing Lusitania in green on the left, Tarraconensis in red at the top and right and Betica in yellow at the bottom

The term "Lusitanic" derives from the name of one tribe, the Lusitani, that lived in the Western part of the Iberian Peninsula, prior to the Roman conquest; the lands they inhabited were known as Lusitania. The Lusitani were mentioned for the first time, by Livy, as Carthaginian mercenaries who incorporated the army of Hannibal, when he fought the Romans.

After the conquest of the peninsula (25-20 BC) Augustus divided it into the southwestern Hispania Baetica and the western Provincia Lusitana that included the territories of Asturia and Gallaecia. In 27 BC the Emperor Augustus made a smaller division of the province: Asturia and Gallaecia were ceded to the jurisdiction of the new Provincia Tarraconensis, the former remained as Provincia Lusitania et Vettones. The Roman province of Lusitania comprised what is now central and south Portugal and parts of modern day north-central Spain.

Other definitions include Galicia, because Portuguese and Galician share close linguistic ties, having both derived from the ancient Portuguese-Galician and the term is cultural classification, rather than a Historic-Geographical definition. However, in the Roman times, the Gallaeci were not part of the Lusitania province.

Despite all this, the language was born in the old Gallaecia which comprise what is now Galicia and the region where Portugal was born, north Portugal.

[edit] Relation with Hispanic

There has often been debate as to whether Lusitanics are Hispanics, as historical arguments find that the region of Lusitania was a part of Hispania - and thus, "Lusitanics" are a subset of "Hispanic." The same way Spanish speaking South America was not a part of Hispania and the same argument can be applied: if Spanish Latin American people should be called Hispanic. Lusitania and the Lusitanians were known long before their conquest by the Roman Empire (Livy 218 b.c.) and incorporated in the Roman province of Hispania thus can not be considered a subset of "Hispanic." The contemporary meaning of "Hispanic" is much broader than the historical meaning: in the United States the term "Hispanic" was first adopted by the administration of Richard Nixon and today is one of the several terms of ethnicity employed to categorize any person, of any racial background, of any country and of any religion who has at least one ancestor from the people of Spain or Spanish-speaking Latin America, whether or not the person has Spanish ancestry.

In the historical sense Hispanic is synonym of Iberic, it refers only to the people of the Iberian peninsula. In Portugal the term "hispânico" can be used in two context:It has a historical meaning when referring to the people of the Roman Hispania; the contemporary meaning is for Spain-related culture.

[edit] Historical value

This section may stray from the topic of the article.
Please help improve this section or discuss this issue on the talk page. (help)

Roman Hispania under Diocletian 293 BCE; Lusitania found in the extreme west

Hispania was an ancient Roman province including modern day Spain, Portugal, Andorra, and Gibraltar; the province was later divided into Hispania Ulterior and Hispania Citerior after the Punic Wars.

In 27 BC the Emperor Augustus made a smaller divisions of the province, creating the Hispania Ulterior Baetica, Hispania Citerior Terraconensis, Hispania Ulterior Lusitania, from where came the term "Lusitanic".

After the Barbarian invasion, the Roman names for the provinces were no longer used as new nations formed. The territory where the Galego-Portuguese identity was formed, was dominated by the Alans and Suevi, while the South of modern Portugal and remain Iberian peninsula was dominated by the Visigoth.

A secondary form of the word Hispania gained usage through the times: Spania. According to Isidore of Seville, when the Visigothic egemony of the zone, they returned the idea of a peninsular unity is sought after, and the phrase Mother Hispania is first spoken. Up to that date, Hispania designated all of the peninsula's lands. In Historia Gothorum, the Visigoth Suinthila appears as the first king of "totius Spaniae"; the history's prologue is the well-known De laude Spaniae ("About Hispania's pride") where Hispania is dealt with as a Gothic nation.

The Muslim Moorish invasion of Hispania (اسبانيا, Isbá-nía ), which they called Al-Andalus (الأندلس), gave a new development, both in its form and meaning, to the term Hispania. The different chronicles and documents of the high Middle Ages designate as Spania, España or Espanha only the Muslim-dominated territory. King Alfonso I of Aragon (1104-1134) says in his documents that "he reigns over Pamplona, Aragon, Sobrarbe y Ribagorza", and that when in 1126 he made an expedition to Málaga he "went to the España lands".

But by the last years of the 12th century the whole Iberian Peninsula, whether Muslim or Christian, became known as España or Espanha and the denomination "the Five Kingdoms of Spain" became used to refer to the Muslim Kingdom of Granada, and the Christian Kingdom of León and Castile, Kingdom of Navarre, Kingdom of Portugal and Crown of Aragon (including the County of Barcelona). At that time, Luís Vaz de Camões, the most important author of the Portuguese language said: "castellanos y portugueses, porque españoles lo somos todos" (castillians and Portuguese, because we are all Spanish).

The process of the Reconquista (Reconquest) of Hispania from the Moors, produced the emergence of several Christian kingdoms, as the ones mentioned above. Some of these eventually merged into a single country. In fact, with the union of Castile and Aragon in 1479 (and specially with the incorporation of Navarre in 1512), the word Spain (España, in Spanish, or Espanha, in Portuguese), began being used only to refer to the new kingdom and not to the whole of the Iberian peninsula, now formed of two independent countries, Portugal and Spain.

Portugal was grouped in the Iberian Union in the 16th century, and the term Spain or Hispania started to be used to classify all the peninsula as an united entity. Sixty years later, since the Portuguese Restoration War, Portugal left the union, but Spain kept using the term Spain for itself.

The Lusophone identity, distinguished from Spain, has been formed and secured by the formation of a national state, distintic language, a Lusitanic culture and its offsprings.

[edit] Latino

This section may stray from the topic of the article into the topic of another article, Latino.
Please help improve this section or discuss this issue on the talk page. (help)

Latino is another term that causes similar debate. Latino may refer to Latin-Americans as short for latino-americano but to say that is its only meaning is another fallacy. Latino is not an English word and it applies to any person of a Latin-based culture whether from Latin America, Latin Europe or others. Furthermore, even if one was to only accept the definition of Latino as used in the United States of America, considering Brazilians to not be "Latino" is inconsistent. According to this logic we may fancy claiming the French are not European, the Koreans are not Asian and that perhaps even United States citizens are not American.