correction

[Lia Laura Puglesi]

Hi Linda:

Yes it is actually that sort of poem.

Though, the "Cantigas de amigos" weren't really a collection of poems dedicated to Maria by Alfonso el Sabio, but a very common and profane kind of literature written and sung by the "trovadores" o "juglares" which usually didn't make reference to religion as much as to the "amor sensual" of the poor lovers that had the privilege of choosing their partners, for opposition to the marriages for interest among the people at the courts. Or they made reference to the impossibility for the people at the court to have more than fleeting sensual love with the people they were in love with, as they had to fulfill their political and family obligations and getting married according to it.

"Maria das Rosas"  is one of the most famous religious "cantigas" attributed to  Alfonso X , but many researchers have doubts about the fact that Alfonso was the author of most of the songs and poetry attributed to him.

He wrote them in "Galego" because he wanted to reach his people for "their moral education"  in a way he wouldn't have been able to if he had written in Latin.

He got also lots of inspiration from the Arabic literature for what he was a great translator.  Through his efforts, "Castellano" became the official language , as he used it in all the legal and religious documents he emitted, leaving Latin just for the international affairs.  He also incorporated many terms from Arabic, specially in Mathematics , Astronomy and Medicine.

Spanish and Portuguese recognize a common root in the vulgar Latin (becoming rustica romana lingua) and are 2 of the 7 modern Romanic languages. (Lenguas Romances) altogether with French, Rumanian, Italian, Catalan, and Gallego. But also Romanian (the languages that gypsy speak) and Sardo are Romanic dialects.  I understand that "Ladino" (language of the Jews in exile) also has a strong Romanic influence but I ignore if it is considered a  "romana linguae”  and I don't know how much it resembles Hebrew either.

Romanicus, is an adjective that means "related to Romania”, which was the group of countries that spoke those languages coming from a vulgar -and usually not written) Latin. Latin, at its turn, came from the “Etrucos” (sorry I don’t know how you say that in English) who used a slightly different alphabetic system that lacked of some letters that would them be added to the Latin alphabet. Therefore, Romanice means “in the vulgar language' This vulgar language ended up being opposed to the "cultivated language" that was Latin, much better conserved in the monasteries and libraries. But literature and scientific tractatus were always written in Latin just until beginnings of the second millennium, when the apparition of the "El Cantar del Mio Cid" and shortly after, the work of Alfonso X were intended to reach the masses.

As I said before, spanish more than Portuguese received a strong influence from Arabic. We are taught that almost 100 % of the words written  with "a" in Spanish come from Arabic: alabastro, alharaca, alhaja, almohada, albahaca, alcázar, carcaza, argamasa, jacarandá, ventana, alfeizar, melaza, just to mention some.

Many vulgar botanical names in Spanish come from Arabic , while Linnus decided that Latin would suit better a scientific taxonomy.

Old Galego, till certain extend, had more influence in Portuguese than in modern Spanish, and it is also very similar to French, following many of its grammar rules.

It is a very curious thing that, despite the fact that Celts in Ireland and Bretagne, Galos (a big, if not the biggest, part of the French population ) and Gallegos are ethnically the same people (Celts) and all of them kept many aspects pf their common roots, they didn't keep a similar language. (With the exception of the people in Bretagne whihch dialect is similar to the Gaelic spoken in the in Ireland.) I think that the biggest similarities are in music and musical instruments and of course, pieces of art. And jewels

It is also very curious how the only language left almost untouched in the Peninsula was the Vasco. There are also the oldest ethnical group in Europe and nobody knows with certitude where they came from, but it is almost sure that they don’t come from the Indian region I, as all the rest did.

Having 50 % of Vyscaine blood my self, I was always very interested in Eusqueda (or Eusquera) and found several common roots between this language and Spanish Unfortunately, at the time I was trying to study Eusqueda, there weren't many books or dictionaries in Argentina to do so, and even when in Mendoza the Vasco population is HUGE, I never met any who spoke the language.

In my own family, my grandfather knew a few words and that was all, and I wasn't sure it was Vasco, it could have been the dialect spoken in Aragon, where part of his family had came from or words invented by himself just to seem mysterious.

The Castellano spoken nowadays grew in the Cantabric region, very close to Vascongada  and absorbing other dialects that you can not find completely "pure" at this time.







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