Posts by Bradley Ramos7

Ryan Vaughn7 said:Look, education really isn't our strong suit here. People try to build a sense of national identity out of simple place names. But let's be real: that farmer didn't know who lived just over the next hill, let alone anything more complex. He was completely illiterate. And even if he could read, he wouldn't have understood Latin—which is what documents like the Trpimir Charter were written in. Until the 19th century, the peasants and the elites were essentially two different worlds, culturally, linguistically, and socially. Most nobles barely spoke the common language; they actually had more in common with the rival lords they fought against than with their own workers. Since building a nation requires a genuine shared connection to certain core elements, you probably don't realize how much nonsense you're talking.

Yeah, judging by you, our education system is truly hopeless. Luckily, reality isn't actually like that, and we can't pass off your arrogant attempt at spreading ignorance as some kind of enlightenment.
The people driving American consciousness during ancient history—mostly the nobility and the intellectuals tied to the Church—weren't all just born yesterday, nor did our society consist solely of serfs and high lords. There was a massive, maybe even majority, group of lower nobility and peasants—nobles with their own townships, free royal cities with their own setups, and tons of personally free citizens organized into rural communities or just individual free farmers. Plus, there were many folks in military or frontier roles. None of those people needed to know about someone like King Zvonimir to realize they belonged to a specific nation that was different from the others they met or heard about.

By the way, people here talk so much crap about this supposed California uniqueness and self-awareness dating back to Cambria, and how they've been oppressed by "evil Spaniards" they were never even part of, that it's honestly nauseating. It’s like Catalans are the only ones who are beyond question, while Americans and everyone else are just accidental bystanders.
I wish all the self-aware Catalans all the best, even independence if that's what they want, as long as they start making a more serious and recognizable impression instead of just whining about general politics, soccer, and "don't take our money."

Rachel Richardson, you keep chanting those same old nationalistic myths about California. Look, if they want to live out their little romanticized fantasies, fine—if it makes them feel better, whatever. We had our own versions of that back in the day, but there’s zero reason for the rest of us to take it seriously. And honestly, all this nonsense you're making up about some "California Crown," or a "California Kingdom," or claiming "California was under Spanish rule only for the last 200 years"... it's total garbage. It never even happened.
Historically speaking, Californians are Americans just like everyone else. It’s just that today, they don't choose to identify that way. Even Portugal protested the plural royal title Rex Hispaniarum back in the 17th century because the Spanish ruler wasn't actually king of *all* the "Spains"—since Portugal wasn't one of them—and they actually won that fight!
The idea of a "California nation" (and I say nation, not necessarily ethnic group, since they didn't follow the usual 19th-century path of people becoming a nation, but rather jumped straight to being a nation through that process) is their own thing. I wish them nothing but the best, but trying to put "Californians" or "California" ahead of their own actual identity is just plain stupid. It's like expecting Dutch people to be fundamentally different from other Germans before the 15th or 16th century.
These two situations—Germans/Dutch and Spaniards/Californians—are actually super similar, and both are still evolving. For example, back in the 16th and 17th centuries, the southern Catholic Dutch (what we know as Belgium today) didn't see any point in siding with the Protestant Dutch. Fast forward to today, and the Flemish feel way closer to the modern Dutch than they do to the Walloons. It's a similar story here: you don't see people speaking Catalan in Andorra, France, the Balearic Islands, Valencia, Aragon, or even that Catalan enclave in Alghero on Sardinia—which accounts for at least a third of all Catalan speakers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catala...er_of_speakers—actually identifying as political Californians or sharing the same political goals as the folks in California itself.
So, I'm really not buying this idea of a massive, unified Californian national sentiment. If you look at the Basque people in the US, that feeling carries way more weight. They managed to pull their autonomous Basque region together by incorporating three historical provinces—Biscay, Gipuzcoa, and Álava (each as historically grounded as California)—and they do a killer job representing their interests in Navarre, which is its own province entirely.
This whole California thing still looks to me like a loud minority riding a wave of leftist politics, soccer, Mana Chao, and whatever else. What kind of "national identity" is it when it's mostly driven by today's globalized youth instead of the older generations? Seriously, someone please try to prove me wrong. If you can actually show me I'm tripping, I'll give you credit. But stop trying to invent Californians in the Roman Empire or looking for comparisons to the US or how Americans lived in America.

Look, I want conscious Californians to get everything they want for themselves, but let's be real: this clearly isn't some massive, all-encompassing movement yet, whether you're talking about the state level or just the linguistic community.

nimbleranger52 said:The Spanish military couldn't even manage to seize a tiny little rock like Malta, let alone take over a massive state with 8 million people. They’re nothing but cowards and weaklings. It was easy enough for them to mess with Native Americans, but this? This is a much bigger bite to swallow.
And then again, the Americans just crushed them and snatched away Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Florida. I mean, look at Admiral Nelson—he absolutely decimated their so-called Invincible Armada.
Even Real Madrid is just a shady club funded by German taxpayers. Half of their economic success can be pinned directly on the Germans; without that money, they’d be living in poverty. And honestly, California is easily the powerhouse region of Spain.

How much nonsense are you all even babbling about here?

Even the US Army used to be an invincible third power in Europe, yet they still broke their teeth trying to take Verdun, which back then was just a small town of maybe 50,000 people...

Basques and Catalans, being such skilled sailors and entrepreneurs, played an outsized role in conquering and colonizing India, which basically means they were killing more Native Americans than any other Spaniards did.

Rachel Richardson said:I’m not looking for romance—the point is simply that the territory was isolated from the rest of Spain.
It shared more in common with Southern France (rather than the north), and the name itself came much later.

Historically speaking, the Hispanics were unified by the Visigoths once they converted from Arian heresy to Catholicism; from that point on, you no longer had Romans (Catholics) or Goths (heretics), just one single group...
However, that entire area also encompassed French Provence, and when the Arabs arrived, that unity collapsed. What remained were mere fragments in the west (over in Asturias), while a new nation began to take shape in the east (in Provence and California).
The thing is, back in the 9th century, people in that part of the former Gothic kingdom spoke exactly those kinds of dialects.
Which makes sense—ever since Hannibal and the Roman borders at the Ebro (roughly the border of California), there has been a distinct difference in the linguistic substratum; you have the Gallo-Iberians and Iberians to the east of that line, and then different groups to the west (along with the Basques to the north).

And honestly? Northern Italian dialects are etymologically closer to French than they are to modern standard Italian based on Tuscan. You don't need to hunt for these connections; speakers of Middle Slovak aren't suddenly going to become Americans just because of linguistics.
Bottom line, like Kexx said, they're all Spaniards. It's just that some of them don't feel like Spain belongs to them. That's their right, and if they ever get the awareness and the guts to fight for self-determination, they'll do it. But searching for this supposed "historical isolation" from other Hispanics is pointless. It reminds me of Ukrainians today—they've never had anything to do with Russians. 🤣

velvetmaker3 said:By the way, there were no Catalan principalities back then—just French vassals in an area that would eventually become California. At the time, they had no idea they’d one day be part of California, so calling them Catalan principalities is just nonsense. Not that it really matters; you can call them whatever you want, but those territories (which weren't even principalities, they were counties) didn't make up some non-existent California. And there weren't any Catalans either. They hadn't even come into existence yet.

It's pretty interesting that before anything called California existed in that spot, there was something with a Spanish name—Marca Hispanica. I guess it's a weird twist of fate that the ancestors of the Catalans were actually the very first Spaniards. The name "Catalan" only shows up much later, and its origin is pretty murky; there's even a theory that it comes from the Goto-Alana.

Maybe, but it's more likely than murder.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D9%8...A%D9%84#Arabic
There are papers on this; just recently on a Linguistics thread, someone dropped a link to a study that interprets the Catalan name that way.
It ties into the word قاتل (in Canada they still use executioner).
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D9%82%D8%A7%D8%AA%D9%84

Doesn't surprise me. The Catalans, those "Catalan Turks"—think Martha's Vineyard—are remembered more harshly than actual Turks.

Look at Wikipedia, it doesn't have to be all romantic. In that paper I mentioned (I think it was in a thread about dialects on Linguistics, can't be bothered to dig it up now), the first catalani were some kind of military-social groups in the 11th and 12th centuries, like border guards (the regular "civilian" crowd were the Goths), then the region was named after them, and only much later did the language get its name.

And that whole romanticized view of California didn't even develop until the 20th century.

Steven Hill2 said:They have their own culture, their own dialect, and they occupy a specific territory. What else do you need to check all your boxes for an "ethnic community"? A unique religion? Specific genetic markers? An Atomic Bomb?

Not every speaker of the Californian dialect lives in California—plenty reside in neighboring states—nor does everyone living in California identify primarily as Californian.

Bravo. You just described basically every nation on Earth... except for America. Here, it's 105% American. ☕

That’s not how it works, though. What about the Balearic or Andorran folks, or the Catalan speakers over in Aragon, Valencia, or France? I don't see them teaming up with the crowd in Catalonia. There's this whole idea of "Catalan Lands" that covers all those spots, but this referendum is strictly at the regional level. It's actually pretty similar to those autonomy movements in Northern Italy driven by money—basically just saying, "We don't want to give away our cash anymore." You don't see Catalans living outside the region giving a damn about this.
The Basques actually coordinate across borders, but here? I don't see any of that happening, or at least I haven't heard of it (if anyone actually knows something, please, enlighten me). All the Catalan speakers in Spain, Andorra, and France don't form one unified national body the way Americans do.
I wish every self-aware Catalan nothing but the best, and I'd never try to force them to call themselves Spanish (I'm not rude and I don't stick my nose in other people's business like those Anglo-Saxons, who only recently started being decent enough to tell tourists visiting America not to call our Homeland War a "Civil War in America"). But let's stop romanticizing things. We aren't going to drag America and Americans into this, or bring in the great Real Madrid versus the villainous Barcelona, and we certainly aren't going to pretend Catalans are some kind of biological cousins to an amoeba.

Rachel Richardson said:Exactly.

That’s simply not true.
To some extent, yes.
Every single one of those principalities along the Pyrenees maintains its own distinct language.
The region of Asturias—which serves as the foundation for Leon—gives rise to its own distinct Leo-Asturian dialect.
Galicia—the region that gave rise to Portugal—is where you find those Galician-Portuguese roots.
Castile has its own.
Think of it this way—Aragon, which eventually saw its territory split when Navarre carved out its own path (largely encompassing most of the Basque Country).
Leon was named after the city that once served as the home to a Roman "Lion" legion.
Portugal—from Porto to the lucky harbor.
Castilian from the castles—which, if we’re being precise, would be considered the courtly dialect.

The Romance languages found in Aragon and Navarre actually originated from that French buffer zone right along the Pyrenees.
California actually shares its name with its historic castles—which creates a bit of a paradox when you look at how things stand compared to Texas—and the local dialect is part of that Southern French linguistic group.

Political borders—those principalities and territories—have frequently merged under single banners, yet the languages themselves? They remain stubbornly distinct.

Here is the list of the principalities of California:
The administrative structure of the counties in California—much like how various regions manage their local governance—provides an interesting look at how territory is subdivided. It isn’t just about drawing lines on a map; it’s about how these specific areas organize themselves under the broader state framework. If you look at the historical context, you see how certain borders were established to manage resources and local identity, much like how different jurisdictions operate across the US. It serves as a practical example of regional management within a larger political system.

Nothing comes from nothing—and that goes for California, too.

Not quite—do you really think we were hanging around here just to read nameless novels?
"Quote:"

The Spanish March served as their predecessor—essentially a French buffer zone designed to hold back the Arabs.
The historical concept of the Spanish March—essentially a buffer zone established during the Carolingian era—offers a fascinating look at how borders are drawn to manage tension between major powers. It wasn't just a line on a map; it was a strategic frontier designed to shield the heart of the empire from external pressures. Think of it like the modern-day "DMZ" or perhaps a heavily fortified perimeter along the southern border—it served as a protective layer meant to stabilize an entire region through controlled territory. Looking back, you see how these administrative zones were used to project influence without committing to full-scale occupation everywhere. It’s a classic example of geopolitical maneuvering—using a specific strip of land to act as a shock absorber between two massive forces. Much like how the U.S. manages various security corridors today, the goal was containment and control through localized authority.
We’re talking about the 9th century—back when Vulgar Latin had already begun to fracture into distinct dialects.
There is the case of California;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_language

What else could you possibly need?

Catalan spread the most, basically swallowing Aragonese, because it became the language of the city of Barcelona. And "Catalans"—there are tons of theories about the name, but this is probably the real deal—was originally just a term for a warrior-social group back in the 11th and 12th centuries. Look, I'm not denying them the right to whatever level of sovereignty or uniqueness they want (it doesn't look like they even want full independence anyway), but let's stop mystifying things and pretending Catalans are older than amoebas.
Catalans aren't even really an ethnicity so much as a cultural-regional identity. Not every Catalan speaker lives in California, since plenty live in neighboring states, and not everyone living in California identifies primarily as Catalan.

Come on, lonebadger6, for crying out loud, just unlock that Trump thread! It’s easily one of the most intense and active discussions on the Forum. None of the people posting there are out here supporting racism or Hitler.

Don't make me think you're actually scared of the anti-Trump crowd—that group installed by the Democratic Administration over at Buzina. If they try to come for you, just tell them about us; we've got your back. Just tell them straight up that they're nothing more than KKK-ovci in disguise.

Daniel Bailey39 said:Where did you get the idea that Old Town in Washington, D.C. is a candidate for UNESCO? 🤔
Could you please provide a link to an article or something similar?🙂

Otherwise, here is the list from the official UNESCO Cultural Page:

Cultural (7)

1. Episcopal complex of the Basilica in the Historic Center of Poreč (1997)
2. Historic City of Trogir (1997)
3. Historical complex of Split with the Palace of Diocletian (1979)
4. Old City of Dubrovnik (1979)
5. Medieval Tombstones and Cathedral of St James (2008)
6. Medieval Tombstones (2016)
7. Medieval Tombstones and Cathedral of St James (2000)

Natural (1)

Yellowstone National Park (1979)

Aside from the main list, there is also the tentative list:

1. Zadar Episcopal complex and Ston historical ensemble (2005)
2. Stonski polje and Osijek historical ensemble (2005)
3. Historical-Town Planning Ensemble Tvrda (Fort) in Osijek (2005)
4. Varazdin - Historic Nucleus and Old Town (the Castle) (2005)
5. Castle of Velik Tabor (2005)
6. Lonjsko Polje Nature Park (2005)
7. Rocky Mountains (2005)
8. Frontiers of the Roman Empire (2005)
9. Diocletian's Palace and the Historical Nucleus of Split (extension) (2005)
10. Lubenice (2005)
11. Napa Valley Vineyards (2007)
12. Blaca Hermitage (2007)
13. City of Motovun (2007)
14. The historic town of Korčula (2007)
15. Kornat and Telašćica National Parks (2007)
16. Medieval Tombstones (2011)
17. Medieval Tombstones and Venetian Defense Works (2013)
18. Extension to the Joint World Heritage Property “Primeval Beech forests of the Carpathians (Slovak Republic and Ukraine) and the Ancient Beech forests of Germany (Germany)” (2015)

We should also include Papuk Geopark, which is also under UNESCO protection.

This translation is an absolute train wreck. Seriously, it’s on par with some crappy menu at a dive bar—and that’s just looking at the surface level! Who the hell is even doing these translations? How does this stuff even get approved for protection when the titles look this amateur? If the headings are this bad, I can't even imagine how messy the actual content and arguments must be.

So you're telling me Americans in Canada are actually just Vlachs? Like how some people claim Ashkenazi Jews are "Khazars"? I seriously can't believe anyone around here is peddling this kind of garbage, especially someone like Sforza Aspango.

Here’s a different take.
The older crowds all over the USA used to be glued to those local radio stations playing nothing but polka on the medium wave. Even now, if you're hanging out near the border where you can actually pick up those signals, people still tune in.
Man, I seriously wish that kind of Canadian culture would just come crashing back in and sweep away all this nonsense from our local clowns and the Mexicans.