Braindroppings

It would seem that the translater of the Spanish Histories to English was not as knowledgable a linguist as you! Perhaps you should communicate your correction to the appropriate academic community.

I don't know much about the history of Spain, but I have wondered why the Muslims didn't conquer all of Spain. Why did they leave the predecessors of Ferdinand and Isabella alive to allow the eventual overthrow of Muslim rule?

Actually, the English ones are correct: James is a more "correct" form than Diego. We should really correct the people who named the city of San Diego, and I think they are long dead!

As for the Muslim conquests. Well, they would not have known that the petty kingdoms of Asturias and Navarre would eventually come to destroy them. It took them quite awhile. In many cases, such as the formation of the kingdom of Pampalona which morphed into Navarre, the founder, Inigo Iniguez(as I have mentioned before) was assisted by his son-in-law, Musa bin Musa, a Muslim ruler. Sancho the Fat of Navarre took a trip to Toledo to visit the doctors of the Caliph and find a cure for his extra weight. The fact is, initially, they were not big enemies of each other and they lived in semi-peace, having a common enemy (the Franks). It was only much later, when Navarre had managed to take over Aragon and Castile, that the issue of religion came up and things got ugly, and by that time, the Spanish Christians already had the upper hand.

Sorry, I guess I got a bit mixed up regarding who was "correct". I have a cousin who lives in San Diego. She would probably be amused that she actually lives in St. James! :)

Well, it seems that history is always more convoluted than I assume! It sounds like there was a considerable amount of intermarriage between the Muslims and the Spanish natives. I wonder if Ferdinand or Isabella were decended from Musa bin Musa or some other Muslim ruler? Sort of like the rumors of Hitler being part Jewish. Quite an ironic possibility!

Yes, actually both Ferdinand and Isabella are descendants of Sancho the Great of Navarre, and are thus descended from Musa bin Musa bin Fortun, from the Banu Qasi family! I imagine they knew it as well, but politics was more important than these little detailed.

Halló Khodadad!
Well first of all, thanks for leaving such a nice comment on my blog! It was a suprise after a long and tiring day (as you might have read, I had my first job interview today, which is no small thing for a teenager!). I see you love etymology! So do I! I would absolutely love to get myself an Icelandic etymological dictionary (Orðsifjabók íslenskra tungu). Icelandic has such an interesting way of making words, sometimes it's suprising how words can relate and look so different (that is, within a single language). Funny you should speak farsi! My friend (who comments on my blog very often. "Marcel".) is learning it! You might want to talk to him too! Unfortunately, my knowledge is restricted to the more western european languages (especially north germanic). I'm trying to learn finnish yes, but the lessons you saw on my blog are actually a lesson of my own little language (or conlang), which I'm trying to explain to myself. It sounds silly, but the language is actually quite complex and complete, so I don't exactly get to explain it fully or clearly sometimes. That's why I like to write little lessons so I can go slowly through the material.

Well, keep writing!

Hafðu það gott!
(have it good!)

Ljóni

Amazing trip.

But just for your enjoyment here goes the comment of a Spaniard;

'Jaime' and 'Jacobo' derive from Hebrew 'Yahaqob', the "impersonator". They will later become 'Santiago' and 'Diego' (from 'Diago', Latinized 'Didacus' -related to Greek 'Didachos', "educated"), the four names remaining perfectly differentiated in Spanish.
These Spanish names thus (Jaime, Jacobo, Santiago and Diego) have a common root but they are never alternatively written one for another as you seem to point out. Translating 'Santiago' and 'Diego' into English is a problem just as long as there are only two and not four English derivatives of 'Yahaqob' (this is, 'James' and 'Jacob'), and so they are usually transformed into the common form 'James'.

And for those worried that the city of San Diego in California is an etymological mistake, just take it easy: San Diego was a Franciscan monk born in Spain around 1400 who lived mainly in the Canary Islands as a missionary and was canonized in 1588.
The city of San Diego (CA) was first named San Miguel in 1542 by Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo and it was only later (in 1602) when Vizcaino gave the city its actual name in honor of the recently canonized monk.

Amazing, amazing trip. Even more for it was a Farsi speaking American who sent me here.
Later!

Sorry, just an addenda:
The apostle James is named Santiago in Spanish -this is the reason why Santiago is translated as James and not as Jacob. As far as I know the name Diego is never translated into English and remains as such.
Ok.
And by the way, yes, we Spaniards are all partly Arabs (and so they were the Kings Fernando and Isabel); even us, Asturians, who have a rather barbaric blood line -whatever that means- are partly Arabs (no matter what 'other' Arabs say...).
Rejoice.

Sorry guys, but as long as nobody is commenting the comments of the Spaniard and as long as I’m baffled by snow curtains with not much to do right now, I, the Argentinian out of pace, will tell you something:
A guy called Amir wrote -a couple of ‘articles’ ago- about the fake dichotomy between objectivity (which is the actual fake) and subjectivity (which is necessary; objectively so -at least for all the deconstructionists this beautiful world has come up with). But what if so; subjectiviy means dependence, submission of the whatever-it to perception, this is, to the self. And this self is neural and psychic and also cultural and thus learnable, malleable, submerged to the we (or the they), intermingled within a hierarchically superior level of understanding (superior of under, did you note that?).
Diego, Santiago, Jaime... James and even Jacob or the Hebrew Ya’kub or Yahaqob, are all “made up” names; Galicia is not Asturias; “Nuestro Señor Don Yago” (our lord mister Yago) was a popular medieval (Spanish) form of calling the apostle Santiago; the Welsh, ah, the Brave New Welsh...
But no, I do not pretend to be objective here (the less under the baffling effect of this snow). And so I’ll better leave you guys here, with one last reflection: we, the ‘gauchos’ from La Pampa, in Argentina, descend –etymologically I mean, but not only- from moorish (Arab and Berber Spanish) exiles of the fifteen hundreds; we are their “chauch”, the herdsman: leaders of a neverending march towards who knows where; Arabs out of Arabia, Berbers out of Africa, Spanish out of Europe... we are the exiles to the square root... but only subjectively: I am an Argentinian Gaucho. And I can always go home.