tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7315236707728759521.post5465916600598944454..comments2024-03-28T21:52:52.100-06:00Comments on Dispatches From Turtle Island: Venezuelan Maternal Ancestry Mostly Native AmericanAndrew Oh-Willekehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537151821869153861noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7315236707728759521.post-72086437845865280152011-11-28T08:17:02.624-07:002011-11-28T08:17:02.624-07:00"3.6% is Portugese"...
C'mon! You ..."3.6% is Portugese"... <br /><br />C'mon! You can't thread so thinly: they are probably comparing some Portuguese with some Spaniards (a much larger state and hence quite more heterogeneous) and found that there is almost as much connection with Lisbon as with Madrid. So they are mostly from Extremadura and surroundings, I guess, as were Pizarro and Cortés and so many other "conquistadores" (and humbler but equally ruthless settlers). <br /><br />"... a paternal superstrate population can give rise to language shift even in the absence of a large maternal genetic contribution". <br /><br />Of course. But it is even more complicated. The political and socio-economical dominance is the key: if you were a purebred Native American and you adopted Spanish language and customs, you became a Mestizo (regardless of ancestry) and went up the social scale (with lots of potential in the long run for your descendants). <br /><br />Native Americans often considered that Mestizos were people without roots and that is in fact the essence of all expansive ethnicities like Spanish, Arabs or Chinese: to uproot all those who fall in their identity trap and assimilate into a quite shallow but linguistically homogeneous identity. Not all ethno-linguistic groupings are equal: some have deep roots and are usually small, compact and endangered, while others have shallow roots and are typically large, empty and expansive, being the ethnic tool of states and empires. <br /><br />So there were many ethnicities early on in what is now Venezuela but Spanish superseded all them. Even the last Native groups of the Orinoco are too fragmented and weak to pose any challenge to the hegemony of Spanish. <br /><br />Instead in the Andes the Quechua and Aymará languages used by the Incas and their predecessors were strong enough to even grow significantly on the back of the success of the Castilian Empire. <br /><br />That is not the case of Mexico or Guatemala, with similar native ancestry apportions, where the Native languages are all very fragmented and marginalized instead. <br /><br />It's not a mere matter of genetics, regardless that it may be of some influence indeed, but a matter of which language becomes a true practical tool. This is often determined by which is the language of the political, military, religious and commercial elites, as farmers, who used to make up the vast majority, are generally fragmented and powerless.Majuhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12369840391933337204noreply@blogger.com