Lusitanic
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Lusitanic is a term used to categorize persons who share the linguistic and cultural traditions of the Portuguese-speaking nations of Portugal, Brazil, Macau, East Timor, Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, São Tomé and Príncipe, Guinea Bissau and others. The term can be easily compared to Hispanic - as this term describes those who speak the Spanish language, have ancestry from a Spanish speaking nation or otherwise have cultural ties to Spanish speaking nations. Neither of the terms are based specifically on race or ethnicity, but rather on a shared cultural or linguistic heritage. The term Anglo, however, when used to describe English speaking nations is less comparable.
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Etymology
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The term "Lusitanic" derives from the name of one tribe, the Lusitani, that lived in the Western part of the Iberian Peninsula, prior to the Roman conquest; the lands they inhabited were known as Lusitania. The Lusitani were mentioned for the first time, by Livy, as Carthaginian mercenaries that incorporated the army of Hannibal, when he fought the Romans.
After the conquest of the peninsula (25-20 BC) Augustus divided it into the southwestern Hispania Baetica and the western Provincia Lusitana that included the territories of Asturia and Gallaecia. In 27 BC the Emperor Augustus made a smaller division of the province: Asturia and Gallaecia were ceded to the jurisdiction of the new Provincia Tarraconensis, the former remained as Provincia Lusitania et Vettones. The Roman province of Lusitania, comprised Portugal and parts of modern day north-central Spain.
Other definitions include Galicia, because Portuguese and Galician share close linguistic ties, having both derived from the ancient Portuguese-Galician and the term is cultural classification, rather than a Historic-Geographical defintion. However, in the Roman times, the Callaeci were not part of the Lusitania province.
Relation with Hispanic
There has often been debate as to whether Lusitanics are Hispanics, as historical arguments find that the region of Lusitania was a part of Hispania - and thus, "Lusitanics" are only a subset of "Hispanic."
The use of the term "Hispanic" in the United States, is attributed mostly to Spanish-speaking Latin Americans, Spaniards and/or their descendants. This definition outlines the difference between Hispanics and Portuguese-speaking Latin-Americans - Brazilians - and other Lusophones. It is important to note the term "Hispanic" is more commonly used in the United States than in Spanish-speaking and Portuguese-speaking countries. In the United States, Brazilians are not widely considered hispanic by the U.S. Census because they speak Portuguese rather than Spanish. They are however categorised as Latino, as Brazil is located in Latin America, and are also classed as Latin, as the Portuguese derivation of Brazil also makes it derive ultimately from the Latins.
Historical value
Hispania was an ancient Roman province including modern day Spain, Portugal, Andorra, and Gibraltar; the province was later divided into Hispania Ulterior and Hispania Citerior after the Punic Wars.
In 27 BC the Emperor Augustus made a smaller divisions of the province, creating the Hispania Ulterior Baetica, Hispania Citerior Terraconensis, Hispania Ulterior Lusitania, from where came the term "Lusitanic".
After the Barbarian invasion, the Roman names for the provinces were no longer used as new nations formed. The territory where the Galego-Portuguese identity was formed, was dominated by the Alans and Suevi, while the South of modern Portugal and remain Iberian peninsula was dominated by the Visigoth.
A secondary form of the word Hispania gained usage through the times: Spania. According to Isidore of Seville, when the Visigothic egemony of the zone, they returned the idea of a peninsular unity is sought after, and the phrase Mother Hispania is first spoken. Up to that date, Hispania designated all of the peninsula's lands. In Historia Gothorum, the Visigoth Suinthila appears as the first king of "totius Spaniae"; the history's prologue is the well-known De laude Spaniae ("About Hispania's pride") where Hispania is dealt with as a Gothic nation.
The Muslim Moorish invasion of Hispania (اسبانيا, Isbá-nía ), which they called Al-Andalus (الأندلس), gave a new development, both in its form and meaning, to the term Hispania. The different chronicles and documents of the high Middle Ages designate as Spania, España or Espanha only the Muslim-dominated territory. King Alfonso I of Aragon (1104-1134) says in his documents that "he reigns over Pamplona, Aragon, Sobrarbe y Ribagorza", and that when in 1126 he made an expedition to Málaga he "went to the España lands".
But by the last years of the 12th century the whole Iberian Peninsula, whether Muslim or Christian, became known as España or Espanha and the denomination "the Five Kingdoms of Spain" became used to refer to the Muslim Kingdom of Granada, and the Christian Kingdom of León and Castile, Kingdom of Navarre, Kingdom of Portugal and Crown of Aragon (including the County of Barcelona). At that time, Luís Vaz de Camões, the most important author of the Portuguese language said: "castellanos y portugueses, porque españoles lo somos todos" (castillians and portuguese, because we are all spanish).
The process of the Reconquista (Reconquest) of Hispania from the Moors, produced the emergence of several Christian kingdoms, as the ones mentioned above. Some of these eventually merged into a single country. In fact, with the union of Castille and Aragon in 1479 (and specially with the incorporation of Navarre in 1512), the word Spain (España, in Spanish, or Espanha, in Portuguese), began being used only to refer to the new kingdom and not to the whole of the Iberian peninsula, now formed of two independent countries, Portugal and Spain.
Portugal was grouped in the Iberian Union in the 16th century, and the term Spain or Hispania started to be used to classify all the peninsula as an united entity. Sixty years later, since the Restoration War, Portugal left the union, but Spain kept using the term Spain for itself.
The Lusophone identity, distinguished from Spain, has been formed and secured by the formation of a national state, distintic language, a Lusitanic culture and its offsprings.
Therefore, to regard Lusophone people as Hispanic it is only accurate in the case of Lusitanic interaction with the Hispanic culture, what can be noticed by the presence of Gallician and Fala da Xalima (both languages and ethnicities are classified by many linguistics and anthropologists as Lusitanics) in Spain; or by the occurrence of immigration: Madeirans in Venezuela and Caribbean, Gallicians in the Caribbean and Argentina, Spaniards in Brazil. In those cases above, and similar others, are the only situation that an identity could be definied as "Luso-Hispanic".
Latino
Latino is another term that causes similar debate. Latino may refer to Latin-Americans as short for latino-americano but to say that is its only meaning is another fallacy. Latino is not an English word and it applies to any person of a latin-based culture whether from Latin America, Latin Europe or others. Furthermore, even if one was to only accept the definition of Latino as used in the United States of America, considering Brazilians to not be "Latino" is inconsistent. According to this logic we may fancy claiming the French are not European, the Koreans are not Asian and that perhaps even United States citizens are not American.
External links
- Filología política - La Hispanidad (in Castillian)
- Hispanic Lusitania - Second Map of Europe - Book II, Chapter IV from Geography of Claudius Ptolemy
- Sabores da Lusofonia (in Portuguese)
- Comunidade dos Países de Língua Portuguesa (CPLP) (in Portuguese)
- PORTUGUESE-AMERICAN HISTORICAL & RESEARCH FOUNDATION