cluster and sequence

Sequence clustering

In bioinformatics, sequence clustering algorithms attempt to group sequences that are somehow related. The sequences can be either of genomic, "transcriptomic" (ESTs) or protein origin. For proteins, homologous sequences are typically grouped into families. For EST data, clustering is important to group sequences originating from the same gene before the ESTs are assembled to reconstruct the original mRNA.

Some clustering algorithms use single-linkage clustering, constructing a transitive closure of sequences with a similarity over a particular threshold. UCLUST and CD-HIT use a greedy algorithm that identifies a representative sequence for each cluster and assigns a new sequence to that cluster if it is sufficiently similar to the representative; if a sequence is not matched then it becomes the representative sequence for a new cluster. The similarity score is often based on sequence alignment. Sequence clustering is often used to make a non-redundant set of representative sequences.

Sequence clusters are often synonymous with (but not identical to) protein families. Determining a representative tertiary structure for each sequence cluster is the aim of many structural genomics initiatives.

Linguistic anthropology

Linguistic anthropology

Linguistic anthropology is the interdisciplinary study of how language influences social life. It is a branch of anthropology that originated from the endeavor to document endangered languages, and has grown over the past 100 years to encompass almost any aspect of language structure and use.[1]

Linguistic anthropology explores how language shapes communication, forms social identity and group membership, organizes large-scale cultural beliefs and ideologies, and develops a common cultural representation of natural and social worlds.[2

Historical development

As Alessandro Duranti has noted, three paradigms have emerged over the history of the subdiscipline. The first, now known as "anthropological linguistics," focuses on the documentation of languages. The second, known as "linguistic anthropology," engages in theoretical studies of language use. A third paradigm, developed over the past two or three decades, studies questions related to other subfields of anthropology with the tools of linguistic inquiry. Though they developed sequentially, all three paradigms are still practiced today.[3]

"Anthropological linguistics"
Main article: Anthropological linguistics

The first paradigm was originally referred to as "linguistics", although as it and its surrounding fields of study matured it came to be known as "anthropological linguistics". The field was devoted to themes unique to the subdiscipline—linguistic documentation of languages then seen as doomed to extinction (these were the languages of native North America on which the first members of the subdiscipline focused) such as:

• Grammatical description,
• Typological classification (see typology), and
• The unresolved issue of linguistic relativity (associated with Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf but actually brought to American linguistics by Franz Boas working within a theoretical framework going back to European thinkers from Vico to Herder to Humboldt). The so-called Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis is perhaps a misnomer insofar as the approach to science taken by these two differs from the positivist, hypothesis-driven model of science. In any case, it was Harry Hoijer (Sapir's student) who coined the term.[4]

"Linguistic anthropology"

Dell Hymes was largely responsible for launching the second paradigm that fixed the name "linguistic anthropology" in the 1960s, though he also coined the term "ethnography of speaking" (or "ethnography of communication") to describe the agenda he envisioned for the field. It would involve taking advantage of new developments in technology, including new forms of mechanical recording.

A new unit of analysis was also introduced by Hymes. Whereas the first paradigm focused on ostensibly distinct "languages" (scare quotes indicate that contemporary linguistic anthropologists treat the concept of "a language" as an ideal construction covering up complexities within and "across" so-called linguistic boundaries), the unit of analysis in the second paradigm was new—the "speech event." (The speech event is an event defined by the speech occurring in it—a lecture, for example—so that a dinner is not a speech event, but a speech situation, a situation in which speech may or may not occur.) Much attention was devoted to speech events in which performers were held accountable for the form of their linguistic performance as such.[5][6]

Hymes also pioneered a linguistic anthropological approach to ethnopoetics.

Hymes had hoped to link linguistic anthropology more closely with the mother discipline. The name certainly stresses that the primary identity is with anthropology, whereas "anthropological linguistics" conveys a sense that the primary identity of its practitioners was with linguistics, which is a separate academic discipline on most university campuses today (not in the days of Boas and Sapir). However, Hymes' ambition in a sense backfired; the second paradigm in fact marked a further distancing of the subdiscipline from the rest of anthropology.

Anthropological issues studied via linguistic methods and data

In the third paradigm, which has emerged since the late 1980s, instead of continuing to pursue agendas that come from a discipline alien to anthropology, linguistic anthropologists have systematically addressed themselves to problems posed by the larger discipline of anthropology—but using linguistic data and methods. Popular areas of study in this third paradigm include investigations of social identities, broadly shared ideologies, and the construction and uses of narrative in interaction among individuals and groups.[3]

Areas of interest

Contemporary linguistic anthropology continues research in all three of the paradigms described above. Several areas related to the third paradigm, the study of anthropological issues, are particularly rich areas of study for current linguistic anthropologists.

Identity

A great deal of work in linguistic anthropology investigates questions of sociocultural identity linguistically. Linguistic anthropologist Don Kulick has done this in relation to identity, for example, in a series of settings, first in a village called Gapun in Papua New Guinea.[7] Kulick explored how the use of two languages with and around children in Gapun village—the traditional language (Taiap) not spoken anywhere but in their own village and thus primordially "indexical" of Gapuner identity, and Tok Pisin (the widely circulating official language of New Guinea). (Linguistic anthropologists use "indexical" to mean indicative, though some indexical signs create their indexical meanings on the fly, so to speak.[8]) To speak the Taiap language is associated with one identity—not only local but "Backward" and also an identity based on the display of *hed* (personal autonomy). To speak Tok Pisin is to index a modern, Christian (Catholic) identity, based not on *hed* but on *save*, that is an identity linked with the will and the skill to cooperate. In later work, Kulick demonstrates that certain loud speech performances called *um escândalo*, Brazilian travesti (roughly, 'transvestite') sex workers shame clients. The travesti community, the argument goes, ends up at least making a powerful attempt to transcend the shame the larger Brazilian public might try to foist off on them—again, through loud public discourse and other modes of performance.[9]

Socialization

In a series of studies, linguistic anthropologists Elinor Ochs and Bambi Schieffelin addressed the important anthropological topic of socialization (the process by which infants, children, and foreigners become members of a community, learning to participate in its culture), using linguistic as well as ethnographic methods.[10] They discovered that the processes of enculturation and socialization do not occur apart from the process of language acquisition, but that children acquire language and culture together in what amounts to an integrated process. Ochs and Schieffelin demonstrated that baby talk is not universal, that the direction of adaptation (whether the child is made to adapt to the ongoing situation of speech around it or vice versa) was a variable that correlated, for example, with the direction it was held vis-à-vis a caregiver's body. In many societies caregivers hold a child facing outward so as to orient it to a network of kin whom it must learn to recognize early in life.

Ochs and Schieffelin demonstrated that members of all societies socialize children both to and through the use of language. Ochs and Taylor uncovered how, through naturally occurring stories told during dinners in white middle class households in southern California, both mothers and fathers participated in replicating male dominance (the "father knows best" syndrome) by the distribution of participant roles such as protagonist (often a child but sometimes mother and almost never the father) and "problematizer" (often the father, who raised uncomfortable questions or challenged the competence of the protagonist). When mothers collaborated with children to get their stories told they unwittingly set themselves up to be subject to this process.

Schieffelin's more recent research has uncovered the socializing role of pastors and other fairly new Bosavi converts in the Southern Highlands, Papua New Guinea community she studies.[11][12][13][14] Pastors have introduced new ways of conveying knowledge— i.e. new linguistic epistemic markers[11]—and new ways of speaking about time.[13] And they have struggled with and largely resisted those parts of the Bible that speak of being able to know the inner states of others (e.g. the gospel of Mark, chapter 2, verses 6-8).[14]

Ideologies

In a third example of the current (third) paradigm, since Roman Jakobson's student, Michael Silverstein opened the way, there has been an efflorescence of work done by linguistic anthropologists on the major anthropological theme of ideologies[15]—in this case "language ideologies", sometimes defined as "shared bodies of commonsense notions about the nature of language in the world."[16] Silverstein has demonstrated that these ideologies are not mere false consciousness but actually influence the evolution of linguistic structures, including the dropping of "thee" and "thou" from everyday English usage.[17] Woolard, in her overview of "code switching", or the systematic practice of alternating linguistic varieties within a conversation or even a single utterance, finds the underlying question anthropologists ask of the practice—Why do they do that?—reflects a dominant linguistic ideology. It is the ideology that people should "really" be monoglot and efficiently targeted toward referential clarity rather than diverting themselves with the messiness of multiple varieties in play at a single time.[18]

Attitudes toward languages such as Spanish and English in the U.S. are certainly informed by linguistic ideologies. This extends to the widespread impression, created by statements such as that by U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee (in regards to a recently passed measure making English the "official" language of the U.S.), that English is "part of our blood." To Horwitz, this invocation of blood implies that English reflects the deepest vein of the nation's ancestry, i.e., the oldest language spoken in what is now the United States. Such a claim, if made openly, would be doubly absurd, ignoring a) all of the Native American languages severely impacted by the arrival of Europeans, but also b) Spanish, the language of a rather sizable number of European explorers and settlers across the length and breadth of what is now the United States.[19] Thus Alexander is attempting to "naturalize" language and national identity via the metaphor of "blood."

Much research on linguistic ideologies probes subtler influences on language, such as the pull exerted on Tewa — a Kiowa-Tanoan language spoken in certain New Mexico Pueblos as well as on the Hopi Reservation in Arizona — by "kiva speech," discussed in the next section.[20]

Social space

In a final example of this third paradigm, a group of linguistic anthropologists has done very creative work on the idea of social space. Duranti published a ground breaking article on Samoan greetings and their use and transformation of social space.[21] Prior to that, Indonesianist Joseph Errington — making use of earlier work by Indonesianists not necessarily concerned with language issues per se—brought linguistic anthropological methods (and semiotic theory) to bear on the notion of the "exemplary center," or the center of political and ritual power from which emanated exemplary behavior.[22] Errington demonstrated how the Javanese *priyayi*, whose ancestors served at the Javanese royal courts, became emissaries, so to speak, long after those courts had ceased to exist, representing throughout Java the highest example of 'refined speech.' The work of Joel Kuipers further develops this theme vis-a-vis the island of Sumba, Indonesia. And, even though it pertains to Tewa Indians in Arizona rather than Indonesians, Paul Kroskrity's argument that speech forms originating in the Tewa kiva (or underground ceremonial space) forms the dominant model for all Tewa speech can be seen as a rather direct parallel.

Silverstein tries to find the maximum theoretical significance and applicability in this idea of exemplary centers. He feels, in fact, that the exemplary center idea is one of linguistic anthropology's three most important findings. He generalizes the notion in the following manner, arguing that "there are wider-scale institutional 'orders of interactionality,' historically contingent yet structured. Within such large-scale, macrosocial orders, in-effect ritual centers of semiosis come to exert a structuring, value-conferring influence on any particular event of discursive interaction with respect to the meanings and significance of the verbal and other semiotic forms used in it."[23] Current approaches to such classic anthropological topics as ritual by linguistic anthropologists emphasize not static linguistic structures but the unfolding in realtime of a "'hypertrophic' set of parallel orders of iconicity and indexicality that seem to cause the ritual to create its own sacred space through what appears, often, to be the magic of textual and nontextual metricalizations, synchronized."[24][23]

References

   1. ^Duranti, Alessandro. ed. 2004. Companion to Linguistic Anthropology. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
   2. ^Society for Linguistic Anthropology. n.d. About the Society for Linguistic Anthropology. Accessed 7 July 2010.
   3. ^ a b Duranti, Alessandro. 2003. Language as Culture in U.S. Anthropology: Three Paradigms. Current Anthropology 44(3):323-348.
   4. ^ Hoijer, Harry. 1954. "The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis," in Language in culture: Conference on the interrelations of language and other aspects of culture. Edited by H. Hoijer, pp. 92–105. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
          * Hill, Jane, and Bruce Mannheim. 1992. "Language and Worldview." Annual Reviews in Anthropology 21:381-406.
   5. ^ Bauman, Richard. 1977. Verbal Art as Performance. American Anthropologist 77:290-311.
   6. ^ Hymes, Dell. 1981 [1975] Breakthrough into Performance. In In Vain I Tried to Tell You: Essays in Native American Ethnopoetics. D. Hymes, ed. Pp. 79-141. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
   7. ^ Kulick, Don. 1992. Language Shift and Cultural Reproduction: Socialization, Self and Syncretism in a Papua New Guinea Village. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
   8. ^ Silverstein, Michael. 1976. Shifters, Linguistic Categories, and Cultural Description. In Meaning in Anthropology. K. Basso and H.A. Selby, eds. Pp. pp. 11-56. Albuquerque: School of American Research, University of New Mexico Press.
   9. ^ Kulick, Don, and Charles H. Klein. 2003. Scandalous Acts: The Politics of Shame among Brazilian Travesti Prostitutes. In Recognition Struggles and Social Movements: Contested Identities, Agency and Power. B. Hobson, ed. Pp. 215-238. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  10. ^ Ochs, Elinor. 1988. Culture and language development: Language acquisition and language socialization in a Samoan village. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
          * Ochs, Elinor, and Bambi Schieffelin. 1984. Language Acquisition and Socialization: Three Developmental Stories and Their Implications. In Culture Theory: Essays on Mind, Self, and Emotion. R. Shweder and R.A. LeVine, eds. Pp. 276-320. New York: Cambridge University.
          * Ochs, Elinor, and Carolyn Taylor. 2001. The “Father Knows Best” Dynamic in Dinnertime Narratives. In Linguistic Anthropology: A Reader. A. Duranti, ed. Pp. 431-449. Oxford. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
          * Schieffelin, Bambi B. 1990. The Give and Take of Everyday Life: Language Socialization of Kaluli Children. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  11. ^ a b Schieffelin, Bambi B. 1995. Creating evidence: Making sense of written words in Bosavi. Pragmatics 5(2):225-244.
  12. ^ Schieffelin, Bambi B. 2000. Introducing Kaluli Literacy: A Chronology of Influences. In Regimes of Language. P. Kroskrity, ed. Pp. 293-327. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press.
  13. ^ a b Schieffelin, Bambi B. 2002. Marking time: The dichotomizing discourse of multiple temporalities. Current Anthropology 43(Supplement):S5-17.
  14. ^ a b Schieffelin, Bambi B. 2006. PLENARY ADDRESS: Found in translating: Reflexive language across time and texts in Bosavi, PNG. Twelve Annual Conference on Language, Interaction, and Culture, University of California, Los Angeles, 2006.
  15. ^ Silverstein, Michael. 1979. Language Structure and Linguistic Ideology. In The Elements: A Parasession on Linguistic Units and Levels. R. Cline, W. Hanks, and C. Hofbauer, eds. Pp. pp. 193-247. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.
  16. ^ Rumsey, Alan. 1990. Word, meaning, and linguistic ideology. American Anthropologist 92(2):346-361.
  17. ^ Silverstein, Michael. 1985. Language and the Culture of Gender: At the Intersection of Structure, Usage, and Ideology. In Semiotic Mediation: Sociocultural and Psychological Perspectives. E. Mertz and R. Parmentier, eds. Pp. 219-259. Orlando: Academic Press.
  18. ^ Woolard, Kathryn A. 2004. Codeswitching. In Companion to Linguistic Anthropology. A. Duranti, ed. Pp. 73-94. Malden: Blackwell.
  19. ^ Horwitz, Tony. 2006. Immigration—and the Curse of the Black Legend (Op-Ed). New York Times. Week in Review, July 9, 2006, p. 13.
  20. ^ Kroskrity, Paul V. 1998. Arizona Tewa Kiva Speech as a Manifestation of Linguistic Ideology. In Language ideologies: Practice and theory. B.B. Schieffelin, K.A. Woolard, and P. Kroskrity, eds. Pp. 103-122. New York: Oxford University Press.
  21. ^ Duranti, Alessandro. 1992. Language and Bodies in Social Space: Samoan Greetings. American Anthropologist 94:657-691.
  22. ^ Errington, J. Joseph. 1988. Structure and Style in Javanese: A Semiotic View of Linguistic Etiquette. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania.
  23. ^ a b Silverstein, Michael. 2004. "Cultural" Concepts and the Language-Culture Nexus. Current Anthropology 45(5):621-652.
  24. ^ Wilce, James M. 2006. Magical Laments and Anthropological Reflections: The Production and Circulation of Anthropological Text as Ritual Activity. Current Anthropology. 47(6):891-914.

History Of Spain III

Muslim Era al-Andalusia (8th–15th centuries)
Main articles: Muslim conquests, Umayyad conquest of Hispania, Al-Andalus, and Reconquista

The Arab Islamic conquest covered dominated most of North Africa by 640 AD. In 711 an Islamic Arab and Berber raiding party, led by Tariq ibn-Ziyad, was sent to Iberia to intervene in a civil war in the Visigothic Kingdom. Crossing the Strait of Gibraltar, they won a decisive victory in the summer of 711 when the Visigothic King Roderic was defeated and killed on July 19 at the Battle of Guadalete. Tariq's commander, Musa bin Nusair quickly crossed with substantial reinforcements, and by 718 the Muslims dominated most of the Iberian Peninsula. The advance into Western Europe was stopped in north-central France by the West Germanic Franks under Charles Martel at the Battle of Tours in 732.

Caliph Al-Walid I paid great attention to the expansion of an organized military, building the strongest navy in the Umayyad Caliphate (first Moorish dynasty of Al-Andalus) era. It was this tactic that supported the ultimate expansion to Spain. Caliph Al-Walid I's reign is considered as the apex of Islamic power.

The rulers of Al-Andalus were granted the rank of Emir by the Umayyad Caliph Al-Walid I in Damascus. Emir Abd-ar-rahman I challenged the Abbasids. The Umayyad Caliphate or Emirate was overthrown by the Abbasid Caliphate or Emirate (second Moorish dynasty), some of the remaining Umayyad leaders escaped to Castile and declared Cordoba an independent emirate. Al-Andalus was rife with internal conflict between the Islamic Umayyad rulers and people and the Christian Visigoth-Roman leaders and people.

In the 10th century Abd-ar-rahman III declared the Caliphate of Cordoba, effectively breaking all ties with the Egyptian and Syrian caliphs. The Caliphate was mostly concerned with maintaining its power base in North Africa, but these possessions eventually dwindled to the Ceuta province. The first navy of the Caliph of Cordoba or Emir was built after the humiliating Viking ascent of the Guadalquivir in 844 when they sacked Seville. In 942, pagan Magyars (present day Hungary) raided across Europe as far west as Al-Andalus. Meanwhile, a slow but steady migration of Christian subjects to the northern kingdoms in Christian Hispania was slowly increasing their power. Even so, Al-Andalus remained vastly superior to all the northern kingdoms combined in population, economy, culture and military might, and internal conflict between the Christian kingdoms contributed to keep them relatively harmless.

Al-Andalus coincided with La Convivencia, an era of religious tolerance and with the Golden age of Jewish culture in the Iberian Peninsula. (See: Emir Abd-ar-Rahman III 912 ; the Granada massacre 1066 ).

Muslim interest in the peninsula returned in force around the year 1000 when Al-Mansur (known as Almanzor), sacked Barcelona (985). Under his son, other Christian cities were subjected to numerous raids. After his son's death, the caliphate plunged into a civil war and splintered into the so-called "Taifa Kingdoms". The Taifa kings competed against each other not only in war, but also in the protection of the arts, and culture enjoyed a brief upswing. The Taifa kingdoms lost ground to the Christian realms in the north and, after the loss of Toledo in 1085, the Muslim rulers reluctantly invited the Almoravides, who invaded Al-Andalus from North Africa and established an empire. In the 12th century the Almoravid empire broke up again, only to be taken over by the Almohad invasion, who were defeated in the decisive battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212.

Medieval Spain was the scene of almost constant warfare between Muslims and Christians. The Almohads, who had taken control of the Almoravids' Maghribi and Andalusian territories by 1147, far surpassed the Almoravides in fundamentalist outlook, and they treated the dhimmis harshly. Faced with the choice of death, conversion, or emigration, many Jews and Christians left. By the mid-13th century Emirate of Granada was the only independent Muslim realm in Spain, which would last until 1492.

The Kings of Aragón ruled territories that consisted of not only the present administrative region of Aragon but also Catalonia, and later the Balearic Islands, Valencia, Sicily, Naples and Sardinia (see Crown of Aragon). Considered by most to have been the first mercenary company in Western Europe, the Catalan Company proceeded to occupy the Duchy of Athens, which they placed under the protection of a prince of the House of Aragon and ruled until 1379.

Dynastic Union
As the Reconquista continued, Christian kingdoms and principalities developed. By the 15th century, the most important among these were the Kingdom of Castile (occupying a northern and central portion of the Iberian Peninsula) and the Kingdom of Aragon (occupying northeastern portions of the peninsula). The rulers of these two kingdoms were allied with dynastic families in Portugal, France, and other neighboring kingdoms. The death of Henry IV in 1474 set off a struggle for power between contenders for the throne of Castile, including Joanna La Beltraneja, supported by Portugal and France, and Queen Isabella I, supported by the Kingdom of Aragon, and by the Castilian nobility. Following the War of the Castilian Succession, Isabella retained the throne, and ruled jointly with her husband, King Ferdinand II.

Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon were known as the "Catholic Monarchs" (Spanish: los Reyes Católicos), a title bestowed on them by Pope Alexander VI. They married in 1469 in Valladolid, uniting both crowns and effectively leading to the creation of the Kingdom of Spain, at the dawn of the modern era. They oversaw the final stages of the Reconquista of Iberian territory from the Moors with the conquest of Granada, conquered the Canary Islands and expelled the Jews and Muslims from Spain under the Alhambra decree. They authorized the expedition of Christopher Columbus, who became the first European to reach the New World since Leif Ericson, which led to an influx of wealth into Spain, funding the coffers of the new state that would prove to be a dominant power of Europe for the next two centuries.

Isabella ensured long-term political stability in Spain by arranging strategic marriages for each of her five children. Her firstborn, a daughter named Isabella, married Alfonso of Portugal, forging important ties between these two neighboring countries and hopefully to ensure future alliance, but Isabella soon died before giving birth to an heir. Juana, Isabella’s second daughter, married into the Habsburg dynasty when she wed Philip the Handsome, the son of Maximilian I, King of Bohemia (Austria) and entitled to the crown of the Holy Roman Emperor. This ensured alliance with the Habsburgs and the Holy Roman Empire, a powerful, far-reaching territory that assured Spain’s future political security. Isabella’s first and only son, Juan, married Margaret of Austria, further maintaining ties with the Habsburg dynasty. Her fourth child, Maria, married Manuel I of Portugal, strengthening the link forged by her older sister’s marriage. Her fifth child, Catherine, married Henry VIII, King of England and was mother to Queen Mary I.

If until the 13th century religious minorities (Jews and Muslims) had enjoyed quite some tolerance in Castilla and Aragon - the only Christian kingdoms where Jews were not restricted from any professional occupation - the situation of the Jews collapsed over the 14th century, reaching a climax in 1391 with large scale massacres in every major city, with the exception of Avilla. Over the next century, half of the estimated 200,000 Spanish Jews converted to Christianity (becoming "conversos"). The final step was taken by the Catholic Monarchs, who, in 1492, ordered the remaining Jews to convert or face expulsion from Spain. Depending on different sources, the number of Jews actually expelled is estimated to be anywhere from 40,000 to 120,000 people. Over the following decades, Muslims faced the same fate and about 60 years after the Jews, they were also compelled to convert ("moriscos") or be expelled. Jews and Muslims were not the only people to be persecuted during this time period. Gypsies also endured a tragic fate: all Gypsy males were forced to serve in galleys between the age of 18 and 26 - which was equivalent to a death sentence - but the majority managed to hide and avoid arrest.

The Spanish language and universities

In the 13th century, there were many languages spoken in the Christian sections of what is now Spain, among them Castilian, Aragonese, Catalan, Basque, Galician, Aranese and Leonese. But throughout the century, Castilian (what is also known today as Spanish) gained more and more prominence in the Kingdom of Castile as the language of culture and communication. One example of this is the El Cid. In the last years of the reign of Ferdinand III of Castile, Castilian began to be used for certain types of documents, but it was during the reign of Alfonso X that it became the official language. Henceforth all public documents were written in Castilian, likewise all translations were made into Castilian instead of Latin.

Furthermore, in the 13th Century many universities were founded in León and in Castile, some, like those of the leonese Salamanca and Palencia were among the earliest universities in Europe. In 1492, under the Catholic Monarchs, the first edition of the Grammar of the Castilian Language by Antonio de Nebrija was published.

Imperial Spain
Main article: Spanish Empire
See also: Habsburg Spain

The Spanish Empire was one of the first modern global empires. It was also one of the largest empires in world history. In the 16th century Spain and Portugal were in the vanguard of European global exploration and colonial expansion and the opening of trade routes across the oceans, with trade flourishing across the Atlantic between Spain and the Americas and across the Pacific between East Asia and Mexico via the Philippines. Conquistadors toppled the Aztec, Inca and Maya civilizations and laid claim to vast stretches of land in North and South America. For a time, the Spanish Empire dominated the oceans with its experienced navy and ruled the European battlefield with its fearsome and well trained infantry, the famous tercios: in the words of the prominent French historian Pierre Vilar, "enacting the most extraordinary epic in human history". Spain enjoyed a cultural golden age in the 16th and 17th centuries.

This American empire was at first a disappointment, as the natives had little to trade, though settlement did encourage trade. The diseases such as smallpox and measles that arrived with the colonizers devastated the native populations, especially in the densely populated regions of the Aztec, Maya and Inca civilizations, and this reduced economic potential of conquered areas.

In the 1520s large scale extraction of silver from the rich deposits of Mexico's Guanajuato began, to be greatly augmented by the silver mines in Mexico's Zacatecas  and Bolivia's Potosí from 1546. These silver shipments re-oriented the Spanish economy, leading to the importation of luxuries and grain. They also became indispensable in financing the military capability of Habsburg Spain in its long series of European and North African wars, though, with the exception of a few years in the seventeenth century, Spain itself (Castile in particular) was by far the most important source of revenue. From the time beginning with the incorporation of the Portuguese empire in 1580 (lost in 1640) until the loss of its American colonies in the 19th century, Spain maintained the largest empire in the world even though it suffered fluctuating military and economic fortunes from the 1640s. Confronted by the new experiences, difficulties and suffering created by empire-building, Spanish thinkers formulated some of the first modern  thoughts on natural law, sovereignty, international law, war, and economics; there were even questions about the legitimacy of imperialism  — in related schools of thought referred to collectively as the School of Salamanca.

Profession

What it is.............?

A profession is a vocation founded upon specialised educational training, the purpose of which is to supply disinterested counsel and service to others, for a direct and definite compensation, wholly apart from expectation of other business gain.

History

Classically, there were only three professions: Divinity, Medicine, and Law. The main milestones which mark an occupation being identified as a profession are:

   1. It became a full-time occupation;
   2. The first training school was established;
   3. The first university school was established;
   4. The first local association was established;
   5. The first national association was established;
   6. The codes of professional ethics were introduced;
   7. State licensing laws were established.

The ranking of established professions in the United States based on the above milestones shows Surveying first (George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln were all land surveyors before entering politics), followed by Medicine, actuarial science, Law, Dentistry, Civil Engineering, Logistics, Architecture and Accounting. With the rise of technology and occupational specialization in the 19th century, other bodies began to claim professional status: Pharmacy, Veterinary Medicine, Nursing, Teaching, Librarianship, Optometry and Social Work, all of which could claim to be professions by 1900 using these milestones.

Just as some professions rise in status and power through various stages, so others may decline. This is characterized by the red cloaks of bishops giving way to the black cloaks of lawyers and then to the white cloaks of doctors. With the church having receded in its role in western society, the remaining classical professions (law and medicine) are both noted by many as requiring not just study to enter, but extensive study and accreditation above and beyond simply getting a university degree.

Accordingly more recently-formalized disciplines, such as architecture, which now have equally-long periods of study associated with them.
Although professions enjoy high status and public prestige, not all professionals earn high salaries, and even within specific professions there exist significant inequalities of compensation; for example, a trial lawyer (one specializing in tort litigation on a contingent-fee basis) may earn several times what a prosecutor or public defender earns.

List of professions
Professionals include:

    * Accountants
    * Actuaries
    * Advocates
    * Architects
    * Dentists
    * Engineers
    * Lawyers
    * Librarians
    * Nurses
    * Pharmacists
    * Physicians
    * Professors
    * Teachers

Formation of a profession

A profession arises when any trade or occupation transforms itself through "the development of formal qualifications based upon education, apprenticeship, and examinations, the emergence of regulatory bodies with powers to admit and discipline members, and some degree of monopoly rights."

Regulation

Professions are typically regulated by statute, with the responsibilities of enforcement delegated to respective professional bodies, whose function is to define, promote, oversee, support and regulate the affairs of its members. These bodies are responsible for the licensure of professionals, and may additionally set examinations of competence and enforce adherence to an ethical code of practice. However, they all require that the individual hold at least a first professional degree before licensure. There may be several such bodies for one profession in a single country, an example being the accountancy bodies (ACCA, ICAEW, ICAI, ICAS, CIPFA, AAPA, CIMA, IFA, CPA) of the United Kingdom, all of which have been given a Royal Charter although not necessarily considered to hold equivalent-level qualifications.

Typically, individuals are required by law to be qualified by a local professional body before they are permitted to practice in that profession. However, in some countries, individuals may not be required by law to be qualified by such a professional body in order to practice, as is the case for accountancy in the United Kingdom (except for auditing and insolvency work which legally require qualification by a professional body). In such cases, qualification by the professional bodies is effectively still considered a prerequisite to practice as most employers and clients stipulate that the individual hold such qualifications before hiring their services.

Autonomy

Professions tend to be autonomous, which means they have a high degree of control of their own affairs: "professionals are autonomous insofar as they can make independent judgments about their work" This usually means "the freedom to exercise their professional judgement."

Professional autonomy which is an essential characteristic of the concept of professional ideology is based on three claims.

First, the work of professionals entails such a high degree of skill and knowledge that only the fellow professionals can make accurate assessment of professional performance.

Second, professionals are characterized by a high degree of selflessness and responsibility, that they can be trusted to work conscientiously.

Third, in the rare instance in which individual professionals do not perform with sufficient skill or conscientiousness, their colleagues may be trusted to undertake the proper regulatory action.

However, it has other meanings. "Professional autonomy is often described as a claim of professionals that has to serve primarily their own interests...this professional autonomy can only be maintained if members of the profession subject their activities and decisions to a critical evaluation by other members of the profession "The concept of autonomy can therefore be seen to embrace not only judgement, but also self-interest and a continuous process of critical evaluation of ethics and procedures from within the profession itself.

Status and prestige

Professions enjoy a high social status, regard and esteem conferred upon them by society. This high esteem arises primarily from the higher social function of their work, which is regarded as vital to society as a whole and thus of having a special and valuable nature. All professions involve technical, specialised and highly skilled work often referred to as "professional expertise." Training for this work involves obtaining degrees and professional qualifications (see Licensure) without which entry to the profession is barred (occupational closure). Training also requires regular updating of skills through continuing education.

Power

All professions have power. This power is used to control its own members, and also its area of expertise and interests. A profession tends to dominate, police and protect its area of expertise and the conduct of its members, and exercises a dominating influence over its entire field which means that professions can act monopolist, rebuffing competition from ancillary trades and occupations, as well as subordinating and controlling lesser but related trades. A profession is characterised by the power and high prestige it has in society as a whole. It is the power, prestige and value that society confers upon a profession that more clearly defines it.

Characteristics of a profession
The list of characteristics that follows is extensive, but does not claim to include every characteristic that has ever been attributed to professions, nor do all of these features apply to every profession:

1. Skill based on theoretical knowledge: Professionals are assumed to have extensive theoretical knowledge (e.g. architecture, medicine, law, scripture) and to possess skills based on that knowledge that they are able to apply in practice.
2. Professional association: Professions usually have professional bodies organized by their members, which are intended to enhance the status of their members and have carefully controlled entrance requirements.
3. Extensive period of education: The most prestigious professions usually require at least three years[dated info] at university. Undertaking doctoral research can add a further 4–5 years to this period of education (for example, architecture generally requires 5 years of study, 2 years work experience and a further year of work related study before one can apply to become a chartered member. Architects generally become charterd in their late 20s early 30s and earn between 22 - 24k before tax in the United Kingdom).
4. Testing of competence: Before being admitted to membership of a professional body, there is a requirement to pass prescribed examinations that are based on mainly theoretical knowledge.
5. Institutional training: In addition to examinations, there is usually a requirement for a long period of institutionalized training where aspiring professionals acquire specified practical experience in some sort of trainee role before being recognized as a full member of a professional body. Continuous upgrading of skills through professional development is also mandatory these days.
6. Licensed practitioners: Professions seek to establish a register or membership so that only those individuals so licensed are recognized as bona fide.
7. Work autonomy: Professionals tend to retain control over their work, even when they are employed outside the profession in commercial or public organizations. They have also gained control over their own theoretical knowledge.
8. Code of professional conduct or ethics: Professional bodies usually have codes of conduct or ethics for their members and disciplinary procedures for those who infringe the rules.
9. Self-regulation: Professional bodies tend to insist that they should be self-regulating and independent from government. Professions tend to be policed and regulated by senior, respected practitioners and the most highly qualified members of the profession,
10. Public service and altruism: The earning of fees for services rendered can be defended because they are provided in the public interest, e.g. the work of doctors contributes to public health.
11. Exclusion, monopoly and legal recognition: Professions tend to exclude those who have not met their requirements and joined the appropriate professional body. This is often termed professional closure, and seeks to bar entry for the unqualified and to sanction or expel incompetent members.
12. Control of remuneration and advertising: Where levels of remuneration are determined by government, professional bodies are active in negotiating (usually advantageous unless where the RIBA is concerned) remuneration packages for their members. Though this is sometimes done in good intention but can be proven good when the partner, family or mentor recommend something contrary to the general norms. This was further buttressed in the world bank essay paper written by Idiaro AbdulazeezPaper Challenges and associated solutions for companies working together in collective action to fight corruption. This has caused for global audience and even the worldbank launched an international competition in it people are used to Some professions set standard scale fees, but government advocacy of competition means that these are no longer generally enforced.
13. High status and rewards: The most successful professions achieve high status, public prestige and rewards for their members.[citation needed] Some of the factors included in this list contribute to such success.
14. Individual clients: Many professions have individual fee-paying clients.[dubious – discuss] For example, in accountancy, "the profession" usually refers to accountants who have individual and corporate clients, rather than accountants who are employees of organizations.
15. Middle-class occupations: Traditionally, many professions have been viewed as 'respectable' occupations for middle and upper classes.
16. Male-dominated: The highest status professions have tended to be male dominated although females are closing this gender gap[dated info] Women are now being admitted to the priesthood while its status has declined relative to other professions.[citation needed] Similar arguments apply to race and class: ethnic groups and working-class people are no less disadvantaged in most professions than they are in society generally.
17. Ritual: Church ritual and the Court procedure are obviously ritualistic.
18. Legitimacy: Professions have clear legal authority over some activities (e.g. certifying the insane) but are also seen as adding legitimacy to a wide range of related activities.
19. Inaccessible body of knowledge: In some professions, the body of knowledge is relatively inaccessible to the uninitiated. Medicine and law are typically not school subjects and have separate faculties and even separate libraries at universities.
20. Indeterminacy of knowledge: Professional knowledge contains elements that escape being mastered and communicated in the form of rules and can only be acquired through experience.
21. Mobility: The skill knowledge and authority of professionals belongs to the professionals as individuals, not the organizations for which they work. Professionals are therefore relatively mobile in employment opportunities as they can move to other employers and take their talents with them. Standardization of professional training and procedures enhances this mobility.

Profesionalism

What it is.............?

A professional is a member of a vocation founded upon specialised educational training.

The word professional traditionally means a person who has obtained a degree in a professional field. The term professional is used more generally to denote a white collar working person, or a person who performs commercially in a field typically reserved for hobbyists or amateurs.

In western nations, such as the United States, the term commonly describes highly educated, mostly salaried workers, who enjoy considerable work autonomy, a comfortable salary, and are commonly engaged in creative and intellectually challenging work.Less technically, it may also refer to a person having impressive competence in a particular activity.

Because of the personal and confidential nature of many professional services and thus the necessity to place a great deal of trust in them, most professionals are held up to strict ethical and moral regulations.

Work
Definition

Main criteria for professional include the following:

1. Academic qualifications - A teaching degree (University doctoral program), engineering, medical, or law degree - i.e., university college/institute.
2. Expert and specialized knowledge in field which one is practicing professionally.
3. Excellent manual/practical and literary skills in relation to profession.
4. High quality work in (examples): creations, products, services, presentations, consultancy, primary/other research, administrative, marketing or other work endeavours.
5. A high standard of professional ethics, behaviour and work activities while carrying out one's profession (as an employee, self-employed person, career, enterprise, business, company, or partnership/associate/colleague, etc.). The professional owes a higher duty to a client, often a privilege of confidentiality, as well as a duty not to abandon the client just because he or she may not be able to pay or remunerate the professional. Often the professional is required to put the interest of the client ahead of his own interests.
6. Reasonable work moral and motivation. Having interest and desire to do a job well as holding positive attitude towards the profession are important elements in attaining a high level of professionalism.
7. Participating for gain or livelihood in an activity or field of endeavor often engaged in by amateurs b : having a particular profession as a permanent career c : engaged in by persons receiving financial return

In Britain and elsewhere, professionalism is often designated by Royal Charter.

Trades

In narrow usage, not all expertise is considered a profession. Although sometimes referred to as professions, such occupations as skilled construction work are more generally thought of as trades or crafts. The completion of an apprenticeship is generally associated with skilled labor or trades such as carpenter, electrician, plumber, bricklayer and other similar occupations. A related (though not always valid) distinction would be that a professional does mainly mental or administrative work, as opposed to engaging in physical work. Many companies include the word professional in their company name to signify the quality of their workmanship or service

Sports

In sports, a professional is someone who participates for money. The opposite is amateur, meaning a person who does not play for money, but in an academic (e.g. college football) or other private setting. The term "professional" is commonly used incorrectly when referring to sports, as the distinction simply refers to how the athlete is funded, and not necessarily competitions or achievements.

Sometimes the professional status of an activity is controversial; for example, there is debate as to whether professionals should be allowed to compete in the Olympic Games. The motivation for money (either in rewards, salaries or advertising revenue) is sometimes seen as a corrupting influence, tainting a sport.

It has been suggested that the crude, all or nothing categories, of professional or amateur should be reconsidered. A historical shift is occurring with the rise of Pro-Ams, a new category of people that are pursuing amateur activities to professional standards.

History Of Spain II

Introduction

The history of Spain spans the period from prehistoric Iberia, through the rise and fall of a global empire, to the recent history of Spain as a member of the European Union.

Modern humans entered the Iberian Peninsula about 32,000 years ago. Different populations and cultures followed over the millennia, including the Iberians, the Tartessians, Celts and Celtiberians, Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Suebi and Visigoths. In 711, the Moors, a Berber and Arab army, invaded and conquered nearly the entire peninsula. During the next 750 years, independent Muslim states were established, and the entire area of Muslim control became known as Al-Andalus. Meanwhile the Christian kingdoms in the north began the long and slow recovery of the peninsula, a process called the Reconquista, which was concluded in 1492 with the fall of Granada.

The Kingdom of Spain was created in 1492 with the unification of the Kingdom of Castile and the Kingdom of Aragon. In this year also was the first voyage of Christopher Columbus to the New World, beginning the development of the Spanish Empire. The Inquisition was established and Jews and Muslims who refused to convert were expelled from the country.

For the next three centuries Spain was the most important colonial power in the world. It was the most powerful state in Europe and the foremost global power during the 16th century and the greater part of the 17th century. Spanish literature and fine arts, scholarship and philosophy flourished during this time. Spain established a vast empire in the Americas, stretching from California to Patagonia, and colonies in the western Pacific. Financed in part by the riches pouring in from its colonies, Spain became embroiled in the religiously charged wars and intrigues of Europe, including, for example, obtaining and losing possessions in today's Netherlands, Italy, France, and Germany, and engaging in wars with France, England, Sweden, and the Ottomans in the Mediterranean Sea and northern Africa. Spain's European wars, however, led to economic damage, and the latter part of the 17th century saw a gradual decline of power under an increasingly neglectful and inept Habsburg regime. The decline culminated in the War of Spanish Succession, which ended with the relegation of Spain's from the position of a leading western power, to that of a secondary one, although it remained (with Russia) the leading colonial power.

The eighteenth century saw a new dynasty, the Bourbons, which directed considerable efforts towards the renewal of state institutions, with some success, finishing in a successful involvement in the American War of Independence. However, as the century ended, a reaction set in with the accession of a new monarch. The end of the eighteenth and the start of the nineteenth centuries saw turmoil unleashed throughout Europe by the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, which finally led to a French occupation of much of the continent, including Spain. This triggered a successful but devastating war of independence that shattered the country and created an opening for what would ultimately be the successful independence of Spain's mainland American colonies. Shattered by the war, Spain was destabilised as different political parties representing "liberal", "reactionary" and "moderate" groups throughout the remainder of the century fought for and won short-lived control without any being sufficiently strong to bring about lasting stability. Nationalist movements emerged in the last significant remnants of the old empire (Cuba and the Philippines) which led to a brief war with the United States and the loss of the remaining old colonies at the end of the century.

Following a period of growing political instability in the early twentieth century, in 1936 Spain was plunged into a bloody civil war. The war ended in a nationalist dictatorship, led by Francisco Franco which controlled the Spanish government until 1975. Spain was officially neutral during World War II, although many Spanish volunteers fought on both sides. The post-war decades were relatively stable (with the notable exception of an armed independence movement in the Basque Country), and the country experienced rapid economic growth in the 1960s and early 1970s. The death of Franco in 1975 resulted in the return of the Bourbon monarchy headed by Prince Juan Carlos. While tensions remain (for example, with Muslim immigrants and in the Basque region), modern Spain has seen the development of a robust, modern democracy as a constitutional monarchy with popular King Juan Carlos, one of the fastest-growing standards of living in Europe, entry into the European Community, and the 1992 Summer Olympics.

Early History

Prehistoric Iberia

The earliest record of hominids living in Europe has been found in the Spanish cave of Atapuerca; fossils found there are dated to roughly 1.2 million years ago. Modern humans in the form of Cro-Magnons began arriving in the Iberian Peninsula from north of the Pyrenees some 35,000 years ago. The most conspicuous sign of prehistoric human settlements are the famous paintings in the northern Spanish cave of Altamira, which were done ca. 15,000 BC and are regarded as paramount instances of cave art. Furthermore, archeological evidence in places like Los Millares in Almería and in El Argar in Murcia suggests developed cultures existed in the eastern part of the Iberian Peninsula during the late Neolithic and the Bronze Age.

The seafaring Phoenicians, Greeks and Carthaginians successively settled along the Mediterranean coast and founded trading colonies there over a period of several centuries. Around 1100 BC, Phoenician merchants founded the trading colony of Gadir or Gades (modern day Cádiz) near Tartessos. Regarding Tartessos, it should also be mentioned that according to John Koch Cunliffe, Karl, Wodtko and other highly respected scholars, Celtic culture may well have developed first in far Southern Portugal and Southwestern Spain, approximately 500 years prior to anything recorded in Central Europe.The Tartessian language from the southwest of Spain, written in a version of the Phoenician script in use around 825 BC, has been readily translated by John T. Koch as Celtic and is being accepted by a growing number of philologists and other linguists as the first Celtic language.In the 9th century BC, the first Greek colonies, such as Emporion (modern Empúries), were founded along the Mediterranean coast on the east, leaving the south coast to the Phoenicians. The Greeks are responsible for the name Iberia, apparently after the river Iber (Ebro in Spanish). In the 6th century BC, the Carthaginians arrived in Iberia, struggling first with the Greeks, and shortly after, with the newly arriving Romans for control of the Western Mediterranean. Their most important colony was Carthago Nova (Latin name of modern day Cartagena).

The native peoples whom the Romans met at the time of their invasion in what is now known as Spain were the Iberians, inhabiting from the southwest part of the Peninsula through the northeast part of it, and then the Celts, mostly inhabiting the north and northwest part of the Peninsula. In the inner part of the Peninsula, where both groups were in contact, a mixed, distinctive, culture was present, the one known as Celtiberian.The Celtiberian Wars or Spanish Wars were fought between the advancing legions of the Roman Republic and the Celtiberian tribes of Hispania Citerior from 181 to 133 BC.

Roman Hispania

Roman conquest of Hispania

Roman bridge in Cordoba

Hispania was divided: Hispania Ulterior and Hispania Citerior during the late Roman Republic; and, during the Roman Empire, Hispania Taraconensis in the northeast, Hispania Baetica in the south (roughly corresponding to Andalucia), and Lusitania in the southwest (corresponding to modern Portugal).

The base Celtiberian population remained in various stages of Romanisation, and local leaders were admitted into the Roman aristocratic class.

The Romans improved existing cities, such as Tarragona (Tarraco), and established others like Zaragoza (Caesaraugusta), Mérida (Augusta Emerita), Valencia (Valentia), León ("Legio Septima"), Badajoz ("Pax Augusta"), and Palencia. The peninsula's economy expanded under Roman tutelage. Hispania supplied Rome with food, olive oil, wine and metal. The emperors Trajan, Hadrian, Theodosius I, the philosopher Seneca and the poets Martial, Quintilian and Lucan were born in Spain. The Spanish Bishops held the Council at Elvira in 306.

The first Germanic tribes to invade Hispania arrived in the 5th century, as the Roman Empire decayed. The Visigoths, Suebi, Vandals and Alans arrived in Spain by crossing the Pyrenees mountain range.The Romanized Visigoths entered Hispania in 415. After the conversion of their monarchy to Roman Catholicism, the Visigothic Kingdom eventually encompassed a great part of the Iberian Peninsula after conquering the disordered Suebic territories in the northwest and Byzantine territories in the southeast.

The collapse of the Western Roman Empire did not lead to the same wholesale destruction of Western classical society as happened in areas like Roman Britain, Gaul and Germania Inferior during the Dark Ages, even if the institutions, infrastructure and economy did suffer considerable degradation. Spain's present languages, its religion, and the basis of its laws originate from this period. The centuries of uninterrupted Roman rule and settlement left a deep and enduring imprint upon the culture of Spain.

Germanic Occupation of Hispania (5th–8th centuries)

After the decline of the Roman Empire, Germanic tribes invaded the former empire. Several turned sedentary and created successor-kingdoms to the Romans in various parts of Europe. Iberia was taken over by the Visigoths after 410.

Visigothic Hispania and its regional divisions in 700, prior to the Muslim conquest.

In the Iberian peninsula, as elsewhere, the Empire fell not with a bang but with a whimper. Rather than there being any convenient date for the "fall of the Roman Empire" there was a progressive "de-Romanization" of the Western Roman Empire in Hispania and a weakening of central authority, throughout the 3rd, 4th and 5th centuries.At the same time, there was a process of "Romanization" of the Germanic and Hunnic tribes settled on both sides of the limes (the fortified frontier of the Empire along the Rhine and Danube rivers). The Visigoths, for example, were converted to Arian Christianity around 360, even before they were pushed into imperial territory by the expansion of the Huns. In the winter of 406, taking advantage of the frozen Rhine, the (Germanic) Vandals and Sueves, and the (Sarmatian) Alans invaded the empire in force. Three years later they crossed the Pyrenees into Iberia and divided the Western parts, roughly corresponding to modern Portugal and western Spain as far as Madrid, between them. The Visigoths meanwhile, having sacked Rome two years earlier, arrived in the region in 412 founding the Visigothic kingdom of Toulouse (in the south of modern France) and gradually expanded their influence into the Iberian peninsula at the expense of the Vandals and Alans, who moved on into North Africa without leaving much permanent mark on Hispanic culture. The Visigothic Kingdom shifted its capital to Toledo and reached a high point during the reign of Leovigild.

Importantly, Spain never saw a decline in interest in classical culture to the degree observable in Britain, Gaul, Lombardy and Germany. The Visigoths tended to maintain more of the old Roman institutions, and they had a unique respect for legal codes that resulted in continuous frameworks and historical records for most of the period between 415, when Visigothic rule in Spain began, and 711, when it is traditionally said to end. The proximity of the Visigothic kingdoms to the Mediterranean and the continuity of western Mediterranean trade, though in reduced quantity, supported Visigothic culture. Arian Visigothic nobility kept apart from the local Catholic population. The Visigothic ruling class looked to Constantinople for style and technology while the rivals of Visigothic power and culture were the Catholic bishops— and a brief incursion of Byzantine power in Cordoba.

Greatest extent of the Visigothic Kingdom of Toulouse, c. 500, showing Territory lost after Vouille in light orange.

The period of rule by the Visigothic Kingdom saw the spread of Arianism briefly in Spain. In 587, Reccared, the Visigothic king at Toledo, having been converted to Catholicism put an end to dissension on the question of Arianism and launched a movement in Spain to unify the various religious doctrines that existed in the land. The Council of Lerida in 546 constrained the clergy and extended the power of law over them under the blessings of Rome.

The Visigoths inherited from Late Antiquity a sort of feudal system in Spain, based in the south on the Roman villa system and in the north drawing on their vassals to supply troops in exchange for protection. The bulk of the Visigothic army was composed of slaves, raised from the countryside. The loose council of nobles that advised Spain's Visigothic kings and legitimized their rule was responsible for raising the army, and only upon its consent was the king able to summon soldiers.

The impact of Visigothic rule was not widely felt on society at large, and certainly not compared to the vast bureaucracy of the Roman Empire; they tended to rule as barbarians of a mild sort, uninterested in the events of the nation and economy, working for personal benefit, and little literature remains to us from the period. They did not, until the period of Muslim rule, merge with the Spanish population, preferring to remain separate, and indeed the Visigothic language left only the faintest mark on the modern languages of Iberia. The most visible effect was the depopulation of the cities as they moved to the countryside. Even while the country enjoyed a degree of prosperity when compared to the famines of France and Germany in this period, the Visigoths felt little reason to contribute to the welfare, permanency, and infrastructure of their people and state. This contributed to their downfall, as they could not count on the loyalty of their subjects when the Moors arrived in the 8th century.

History of Spain I

Spain (pronounced /ˈspeɪn/ (  listen) spayn; Spanish: España, pronounced [esˈpaɲa]  (  listen)), officially the Kingdom of Spain (Spanish: Reino de España), is a member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.[note 6] Its mainland is bordered to the south and east by the Mediterranean Sea except for a small land boundary with the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar; to the north by France, Andorra, and the Bay of Biscay; and to the northwest and west by the Atlantic Ocean and Portugal.

Spanish territory also includes the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean, the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean off the African coast, and two autonomous cities in North Africa, Ceuta and Melilla, that border Morocco. Furthermore, the town of Llívia is a Spanish exclave situated inside French territory. With an area of 504,030 km², it is the second largest country in Western Europe and the European Union after France.
Because of its location, the territory of Spain was subject to many external influences since prehistoric times and through to its dawn as a country. Conversely, it has been an important source of influence to other regions, chiefly during the Modern Era, when it became a global empire that has left a legacy of over 400 million Spanish speakers today, making it the world's second most spoken first language.

Spain is a democracy organised in the form of a parliamentary government under a constitutional monarchy. It is a developed country with the ninth or tenth largest economy in the world by nominal GDP, and very high living standards (15th highest Human Development Index), including the seventeenth-highest quality of life index rating in the world.[citation needed] It is a member of the United Nations, European Union, NATO, OECD, and WTO.

Etymology

The true origins of the name España and its cognates "Spain" and "Spanish" are disputed. The ancient Roman name for Iberia, Hispania, may derive from poetic use of the term Hesperia to refer to Spain, reflecting Greek perception of Italy as a "western land" or "land of the setting sun" (Hesperia) and Spain, being still further west, as Hesperia ultima.

It may also be a derivation of the Punic Ispanihad, meaning "land of rabbits" or "edge", a reference to Spain's location at the end of the Mediterranean; Roman coins struck in the region from the reign of Hadrian show a female figure with a rabbit at her feet. There are also claims that España derives from the Basque word Ezpanna meaning "edge" or "border", another reference to the fact that the Iberian peninsula constitutes the southwest of the European continent.

The humanist Antonio de Nebrija proposed that the word Hispania evolved from the Iberian word Hispalis, meaning "city of the western world". According to new research by Jesús Luis Cunchillos published in 2000 with the name of Gramática fenicia elemental (Basic Phoenician grammar), the root of the term span is spy, meaning "to forge metals". Therefore i-spn-ya would mean "the land where metals are forged".

Geography

At 504,782 km2 (194,897 sq mi), Spain is the world's 51st-largest country. It is some 47,000 km2 (18,000 sq mi) smaller than France and 81,000 km2 (31,000 sq mi) larger than the U.S. state of California. The Teide (Tenerife, Canary Islands) is the highest peak of Spain and the third largest volcano in the world from its base.
El Sardinero beach, in Santander (Cantabria)

On the west, Spain borders Portugal; on the south, it borders Gibraltar (a British overseas territory) and Morocco, through its exclaves in North Africa (Ceuta, Melilla, and Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera). On the northeast, along the Pyrenees mountain range, it borders France and the tiny principality of Andorra.

Spain also includes the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea, the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean and a number of uninhabited islands on the Mediterranean side of the Strait of Gibraltar, known as Plazas de soberanía, such as the Chafarine islands, the isle of Alborán, Alhucemas, and the tiny Isla Perejil. Along the Pyrenees in Catalonia, a small exclave town called Llívia is surrounded by France. The little Pheasant Island in the River Bidasoa is a Spanish-French condominium.

Mainland Spain is dominated by high plateaus and mountain ranges, such as the Sierra Nevada. Running from these heights are several major rivers such as the Tagus, the Ebro, the Duero, the Guadiana and the Guadalquivir. Alluvial plains are found along the coast, the largest of which is that of the Guadalquivir in Andalusia.

Climate

Due to Spain's geographical situation and orographic conditions, the climate is extremely diverse; discounting the mountain climate, it can be roughly divided into five areas:
* A Continental Mediterranean climate in the inland areas of the Peninsula (largest city, Madrid).

* An Oceanic climate in Galicia and the coastal strip near the Bay of Biscay or (largest city, Bilbao). This area is often called Green Spain.

* A Semiarid climate or arid Mediterranean in the southeast (largest city, Murcia).

* A Mediterranean climate region extends from the Andalusian plain along the southern and eastern coasts up to the Pyrenees, on the seaward side of the mountain ranges that run near the coast. Also in Ceuta and Melilla (largest city, Barcelona). Localized Subtropical climate areas exist in the coasts of Granada and Málaga (Costa Tropical).
    * A Subtropical climate in the Canary Islands (largest city, Las Palmas and Santa Cruz de Tenerife).

The rain in Spain does not stay mainly in the plain. It falls mainly in the northern mountains.