Talk:Morisco

In my reasearch, somewhat unrelated, I have come across the number 300,000 a few times, never 3,000,000. At this time it is estiamted that there were only 7-8 million people living in Spain, and there is no way that a nation would expel nearly half of its population, or if there did, other events in Spanish history would point to such a massive exodus indirectly, which isn't the case. If anyone disagrees, feel free to discuss.

I agree. The figure 3 million is false. 300,000 would be a more acceptable figure. Recent studies have shown that the expulsion was more of a failure than had previously been believed. Land owners refusing to follow edicts of expulsion fearing to lose their labourers, and moriscos simply moving to different regions of Spain taking up the identities of northern colonists.

The use of the word morisco for the casta system in the Spanish colonies in the Americas is mostly unrelated to the main topic of this page, therefore it should be split to a new page, or included in the aforementioned casta page. --Jotamar (talk) 17:52, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Agreed. Carlstak (talk) 21:01, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

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The article makes the point that, "Historians generally agree that, at the height of Muslim rule, Muladis or Muslims of pre-Islamic Iberian origin were likely to constitute the large majority of Muslims in Spain."

There is one sentence between that one and this; "A wide number of recent genetic studies of modern-day Spanish and Portuguese populations have ascertained significantly higher levels of North African admixture in the Iberian peninsula than in the rest of the European continent.[101] which is generally attributed to Islamic rule and settlement of the Iberian peninsula."

The same short section ends with, "As for tracing Morisco descendants in North Africa, to date there have been few genetic studies of populations of Morisco origin in the Maghreb region, although studies of the Moroccan population have not detected significant recent genetic inflow from the Iberian peninsula.[citation needed] A recent study of various Tunisian ethnic groups has found that all were indigenous North African, including those who self-identified as Andalusians."

So were most of the 'Moriscos' of North African origin or not? After reading this I'm more confused that I was before. It goes on to mostly talk about Y-DNA Haplogroup E-M81 for the rest of this section as evidence of said "settlement".

Is Eupedia a valid source? https://www.eupedia.com/europe/Haplogroup_E1b1b_Y-DNA.shtml#M81_origins

The origins of E-M81 in Europe far predates the Islamic invasions and goes back to the Phoenician, Carthaginian, & Roman Eras. Furthermore the age and distribution and of E-M81 and its subclades within Iberia and across Europe suggest it spread within the borders of the Roman Empire. In fact transmission during the Roman era would be the only real explanation for its existence in mountain areas of Wales and Scotland and other areas of Europe given the estimated age of E-M81 is only about 2200-2900 YBP.

The distribution of E-M81 in Spain that is commonly being attributed to the Islamic era makes very little sense. How can E-M81 come from Islamic era migrations when many of the places it is found most in Iberia are in isolated northern mountain communities of Asturias and Cantabria that were farthest from the areas the Muslims conquered, never held any substantial control, over much less settled? If it came from Islamic migrations it would make sense maybe if the concentrations would be highest in mountain of southern Spain like the Sierra Neveda; not those in the north.

Note E-M81 exists in higher % in Wales than it does in England likely because Wales was a holdout for the Romano-British population from the Anglo-Saxons; suggesting its presence in Europe was more common outside of Iberia during Roman times and reinforcing the evidence it was transmitted during Roman times. This is corroborated by references in other Wikipedia articles as well; "E-M81 is also found in other parts of Western Europe, in the British Islands (mostly in Mountain areas of Wales and Scotland) and in France, 2.70% (15/555) overall with frequencies surpassing 5% in Auvergne (5/89) and Île-de-France (5/91)" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_E-Z827#Europe

Note also the highest concentration of E-M81 today is in Tunisia, where the former capital of the Carthaginian Empire was located, and not in Morocco. And which would later become a major Roman senatorial province and the breadbasket of Rome.

So I don't understand; why is E-M81 behind talked about as evidence of Morisco or Islamic genetic legacy when the reality is obviously far more complicated and more ancient than that going back to Phoenican, Carthaginian, and Roman eras? None of this is to deny the presence of E-M81 in Iberia or that more of it came during the Islamic era; but rather to question to what extent Iberia's 'relatively higher' amount of E-M81 can be attributed to the Islamic era and not the Phoenician, Carthaginian, and Roman eras.

The fact E-M81 is found in higher frequencies in isolated mountain populations not only in Iberia, but also in Wales and Scotland, I think clearly speaks to a more ancient legacy than one that came during the Islamic era. --Avarserda (talk) 3:21, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

So were most of the 'Moriscos' of North African origin or not? Moriscos cannot be defined in ancestry terms, as there were no DNA tests back in the 16th century. They were perceived as different or Moorish-like because of their customs, language, clothes or whatever. All the DNA speculation in the page is obviously based on the assumption that they had more North African ancestry than the rest of Spaniards of the time, an assumption that perhaps should be made explicit. --Jotamar (talk) 22:14, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

The issue I see here is that in essence this section talking about E-M81 being evidence of Islamic era migration is committing the exact same error that is often seen when people talk about J1-P58 being evidence of Arab migration into Europe; it is an error committed out of ignorance of the fact the histories of these haplogroup and their diversification is much more complicated than J1-P58 = all Arabs and E-M81 = Islamic era Berbers. An misconception if not committed by the article then it surely only propagates by makingwhat appear to be assumptions lacking context that the amount of E-M81 in Iberia is explained better by era that preceded the Islamic one.

I'll quote what Eupedia says about J1-P58 on this topic because it is 100% applicable to how E-M81 is being interpreted in this article.

"All three branches of J1-L858 (S640, YSC76 and FGC11) are found in Europe, principally in Spain, Italy, central and eastern Europe. Their relatively recent time of divergence with their Middle Eastern cousins (Late Bronze Age to Iron Age) suggests that they would have arrived with the Phoenicians (Sicily, Sardinia, Spain), and later in greater numbers with the Jewish diaspora. Spain and Portugal have the highest percentage of FGC12 (Arab) in Europe, but this amounts to about 12% of J1 lineages, i.e. less than 0.5% of the population, suggesting that the Arabs had a much smaller genetic impact on the Iberian population than the Jews and the Phoenicians.

Looking at the map of J1-P58, it is easy to assume that P58 is a marker of Arabic ancestry because it reaches its maximum frequency in and around the Arabian peninsula. That would be an oversimplification.

Most present-day Arabic speakers outside the Arabian Peninsula are likewise only very partially or not all Arabic genetically. In the northern half of the Middle East, most of the people who call themselves Arabs of today are in fact mainly descendants of other historic peoples, such as the Phoenicians, Assyrians, Babylonians, or even the Hurrians. Most of these peoples are predominantly J2, with many minority haplogroups (E1b1b, G, J1, L, Q, R1a, R1b, T).

The true lineage of the historic Arab people (so mainly from Jordan and Saudi Arabia) is J1-FGC12 (aka S21237). This subclade started expanding in the Arabian peninsula a bit over 3,000 years ago and did experience a tremedous expansion in the last 1,300 years, as can be seen in the completely phylogenetic tree on Yfull.com. Nowadays these more genuinely Arabic J1-FGC12 lineages are found throughout the Arabic-speaking world, but they only represent a small minority of lineages in any region but the Arabian peninsula.

The other subclades of J1 cannot be considered to be the paternal descendants of first speakers of Arabic. These other J1 lineages were Arabicized alongside other haplogroups (J2, Q1b, etc.) during the Islamic expansion from the 7th century onward. More importantly, J1-FGC12 is not the only haplogroup that spread with the Arabic expansion linked to the diffusion of Islam. Nowadays only 40% of Saudis and 30% of Jordanians belong to J1 (most but not all to FGC12). E1b1b-M34 is another important Arabic lineage, being found in 25% of Jordanians and 10% of Saudis. Like J1-P58, E-M34 it is also shared with their Semitic cousins, the Jews. Haplogroup E1b1b is considered the prime candidate for the origin and dispersal of Afro-Asiatic languages across northern and eastern Africa and south-west Asia. The Semitic languages appear to have originated within a subclade of the M34 branch of E1b1b. One specific deeper subclade is surely associated with the development of Arabic language and with J1-FGC12, but it hasn't been identified yet. Note that E-M34 itself is many thousands of years old and is also found in non-Semitic countries, including Turkey, Greece, Italy, France and Spain."

https://www.eupedia.com/europe/Haplogroup_J1_Y-DNA.shtml#Arabic

Note how at the end of that it is talking about E1b was associated with the origin and spread of Afro-Asiatic languages rather than J1 and how the spread of both of these is mostly taking place thousands of years before Islam and not during the Islamic era. These are common misconception Wikipedia does very little to clear up and even seemingly propagates in some areas like this one. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.91.82.125 (talk) 18:04, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

---Avarserda (talk) 20:56, 21 July 2020 (UTC)