Castilian people
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Castilian people are the inhabitants of the historical region of Castile. Through the Reconquista, they spreaded outside historical region of Castile all over the Iberian Peninsula, especially in the southern Spanish regions of Extremadura, Andalusia, Murcia and the Canary Islands. After this, since the 15th century, through the Spanish conquest of the Americas, they also spreaded over the New World, bringing with them not only their language but also their culture, traditions and idiosyncracy.
[edit] The land of Castile
Castile is a historical region of Spain that comprises the territories of the old Crown of Castile (the conjunction of the Kingdom of Castile and the Kingdom of León) at the north, and the new territories that were conquered to the Moors during the Reconquista at the south.
[edit] The Castilian language
The Castilian language is the native language of the Castilians. It originated in the Cordillera Cantábrica, in northern Spain, during the 8th and 9th centuries AD. After the Reconquista, the Castilian was brought to the south and almost entirely replaced the languages that were spoken in the Moorish zone, such as the Arabic and the Mozárabe. However, in this process the Castilian also acquired strong influences from these languages that gradually absorved and eventually came to be known as Spanish.
During the Spanish conquest of the Americas, the Castilian was the dominant language in Spain, and therefore was the language that was transmitted to the New World by the Conquistadores. Due to this gradual process, the Hispanophone was created.
