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Al-Andalus?
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runner
Posts: 357
Joined: Dec. 5 2008
From: New Jersey USA
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 Al-Andalus?
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Every time I've encountered a reference to the origin of the name Andalusia, I've read that it is derived from the Arabic Al-Andalus and means Land of the Vandals. The Vandals, as we remember, were a Germanic tribe who, after vandalizing Rome, worked their way into the south of what was left of Roman Spain and set up shop. Then, in the mid-400s AD, they crossed the Straits of Gibraltar into North Africa, to annoy and then crush the remnants of the Romans there. They evidently all crossed, and left Spain open for the Visigoths, who replaced them as overlords of Spain.
But it turns out that there are several explanations of the origin of the name Andalusia. The book God's Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570-1215 by David Levering Lewis, tells that Andalusia is a corruption of a Gothic phrase, landa-hlauts or "land lots", referring to the various landholdings of the Visigoth nobility. Another aficionado, though, has read that the term comes from the Gothic vandalen-haus, "House of the Vandals". Neither of these explanations originates the term with the Arabs or with Arabic. And considering that the Arab-Moorish invasion of Spain occurred centuries after the Vandals had packed up and left Spain, to be replaced there by the Visigoths, why would the Arabs name Spain "Land of the Vandals" and not "Land of the Visigoths"?
Anybody have any other info on this?
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Aug. 18 2014 13:47:19
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3459
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: Al-Andalus? (in reply to runner)
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I have come across all the explanations you mention and more, Runner. The origin of the name "Al-Andalus" probably will never be definitively settled. Nevertheless, I have always considered the possibility that the Arabic "Al Andalus" might have been a corruption of a descriptive Latin (or early Spanish, as Latin was fragmenting into the various Romance languages, including Spanish) term. It has occurred to me that the Spanish verb "anda" (infinitive "andar"), meaning to walk or to travel, coupled with the Spanish (and Latin) noun "luz," meaning light, might have predated the Moorish invasion of Spain and was absorbed into the Arabic tongue. Together, "Al-Andaluz" may have meant to travel in the land of light (sunny Spain!) or something of that sort.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Aug. 19 2014 1:46:16
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