Post by Drooperdoo on Apr 22, 2005 4:58:27 GMT -5
Sensunesco,
A modern person is not--as you suggest--presuming too much to know what Jews in the 1400s looked like. We know exactly what they looked like--not much different from modern Sephardic Jews. Geneticists tell us that they've changed and intermarried remarkably little--and hence preserved to an astonishing extent--their original Middle Eastern ethnological character.
Remember--Jews in Spain arrived there directly from North Africa and the Middle East.
And, after arriving, they lived and married only within their own isolated communities.
As to your contention that Columbus could have been from any of Catalunya's Mediterranean colonies--- That remark shows a refreshing intelligence, and betrays the fact that you know history. For, indeed, Catalunya [or as they call it in English-speaking countries, "Catalonia"] vied with Venice itself for supremacy of the Mediterranean. It had ports and colonies all over. Even today, there are parts of Sardinia and Sicily that still speak Catalan, rather than Italian. And "Catalano" is not an uncommon Sicilian surname.
The one thing that challenges the assertion that Columbus may have been a non-Catalan Catalan-speaker is those darned looks--blue eyes, reddish-blond hair, long Nordic horse-head. Whether you want to admit it or not, these traits don't exactly go with "Southern Mediterranean" breeding. Sure, blondism happens in low rates in all these regions [blue eyes here, occasional blond hair there], but hardly ever do you see ALL the traits combined in one person--as they were in Columbus. Ethnologically, he'd be placed squarely in the Northern Mediterranean [where large infusions of Germanic blood poured into the populace from the Visigoths, Vandals, etc]. So once again, we're left with either Northern Italy or Northern Spain.
Geneticists agree.
P.S.--Just so that you know: My maternal grandparents were Catalan and I grew up, listening to the language and even speaking it. I still remember a surprising amount. Beautiful language--locked somewhere between Castilian and French. (And, yes, the Catalan branch of my family is far, far fairer than my southern Iberian family. The Catalans could pass as Germans.)
A modern person is not--as you suggest--presuming too much to know what Jews in the 1400s looked like. We know exactly what they looked like--not much different from modern Sephardic Jews. Geneticists tell us that they've changed and intermarried remarkably little--and hence preserved to an astonishing extent--their original Middle Eastern ethnological character.
Remember--Jews in Spain arrived there directly from North Africa and the Middle East.
And, after arriving, they lived and married only within their own isolated communities.
As to your contention that Columbus could have been from any of Catalunya's Mediterranean colonies--- That remark shows a refreshing intelligence, and betrays the fact that you know history. For, indeed, Catalunya [or as they call it in English-speaking countries, "Catalonia"] vied with Venice itself for supremacy of the Mediterranean. It had ports and colonies all over. Even today, there are parts of Sardinia and Sicily that still speak Catalan, rather than Italian. And "Catalano" is not an uncommon Sicilian surname.
The one thing that challenges the assertion that Columbus may have been a non-Catalan Catalan-speaker is those darned looks--blue eyes, reddish-blond hair, long Nordic horse-head. Whether you want to admit it or not, these traits don't exactly go with "Southern Mediterranean" breeding. Sure, blondism happens in low rates in all these regions [blue eyes here, occasional blond hair there], but hardly ever do you see ALL the traits combined in one person--as they were in Columbus. Ethnologically, he'd be placed squarely in the Northern Mediterranean [where large infusions of Germanic blood poured into the populace from the Visigoths, Vandals, etc]. So once again, we're left with either Northern Italy or Northern Spain.
Geneticists agree.
P.S.--Just so that you know: My maternal grandparents were Catalan and I grew up, listening to the language and even speaking it. I still remember a surprising amount. Beautiful language--locked somewhere between Castilian and French. (And, yes, the Catalan branch of my family is far, far fairer than my southern Iberian family. The Catalans could pass as Germans.)