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runner -> Al-Andalus? (Aug. 18 2014 13:47:19)
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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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