Raíces árabes means Arab roots
Posted on YouTube in 2013
1) Click Settings Wheel and choose Subtitles/CC.
2) Click to turn on: Spanish (auto-generated) .
3) Click – for a second time – to turn on: Subtitles/CC(1) Spanish (auto-generated) .
4) Click auto-translate.
5) Choose English – THIS CAN BE TRICKY – I suggest using up and down arrows to chose English, and then press Enter.
This can be very touchy, and you may have to play with it, but it works. Once you get the hang of it, you can turn the option on in a few seconds.
This is a video from Live in Argentina. It showed Mario Kirlis (1957-2023), who was a famous Argentine musician. Jf you listen to him speak, he was the Argentine-born son of Greek immigrants to Argentina.
The areas he grew up in were a mix of Greeks, Arabs, and Jews. He got along with all of them. However, the third largest ethnicity in Argentina is the Arabs. And so, if he was going to play music for a living, he would make more money playing Arabic music.
He became a world famous maestro of Arabic music, playing and composing, he toured all over the world, even to Arabic countries themselves.
The video was from 2013, but it shows the penetration of Arabic culture in Argentina.
Arab culture in Latin America has produced a wealth of music. The most well-known musician was Mario Kirlis, an Argentine composer, band leader whose fame has spread world-wide. Oddly, though an admirer of Arab music, Mario Kirlis was not himself of Arab ancestry, but rather the son of Greek immigrants to Argentina.
He is probably most famous for what is called bellydance music. Yet, a lot of his tunes are much more than that.
I want you to listen to the tune Awal Suhur (morning meal before the daytime fast of Ramadan), on the top video.
Just close your eyes. This music is truly beautiful, above and apart from the women who might dance to it.
Mario Kirlis was the [chief] exponent of Arabic music in Latin America. His music is heard in Chile, Peru, Colombia, Brazil, Venezuela, the United States, Mexico, countries that he had already visited and had had an excellent reception from the public.
Born and raised in Buenos Aires, he is the son of Nicolás Kirlis, a Greek violinist who was one of the first exponents of Arabic music in Argentina. At the age of 7 he began to study piano, harmony, counterpoint and composition.
He carried out in-depth research on Arabic music, with musicians who emigrated from the Middle East and arrived in Argentina.
…
He was famous and had performed all over Latin America and the Arab world. He had even performed in China.
Mario Kirlis: Lat Jaf
Posted on YouTube: December 5, 2019
Of course, there is a lot more Latin Arab music in South America than just Mario Kirlis, but as he was world famous, and a maestro, I figured that I should give you the best.
February 14, 2024 – Corrected an ambiguity. Kirlis passed away in 2023.
Cumbia is a popular form of music throughout Latin America.
This video is clearly political, by the Orkestra Popular San Bomba (Holy Music Popular Orchestra).
Orkestra Popular literally means Popular Orchesta, but in actuality would mean something like Pop Music or Street Music.
Bomba literally means bomb, but has so many meanings that it is impossible to translate apart from context. In this context, it probably means music. Bomba is a type of MUSIC.
San means holy.
The group’s name is clearly farcical and idiomatic.
Again, one must remember that in Latin America there is no equivalent of AIPAC, so the Palestinian viewpoint is more mainstream. The chief exception is Brazil, which has a very large pro-Israel Evangelical community. But this video comes from Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Listen to that tune! It is haunting to the core. The melody was published by Francisco Tárrega in 1896, about the Alhambra in Granada, Spain – the capital of the last Moorish outpost in Spain.
The Alhambra is a World Treasure to this day. Tourists are stunned by its intricacy and beauty – the Arabic calligraphy on its walls is breathtaking.
One is reminded how the last Moorish/Arabic ruler in Granada, Boabdil – that was what the Spanish called him; the Arabs knew him as Muhammad XII of Granada – cried after his defeat, when he looked back on Granada and realized he had to leave the Alhambra. Legend has it that his mother supposedly told him …
“You weep like a woman for what you could not defend like a man?”
Talk about a toxic mother!!!
I do not care if it is politically incorrect to say this, but that mother seriously deserved a slap for that. That was brutal.
The Arabs remember this defeat to this very day, and call it “The Tragedy of Andalusia.”
The conquering Catholic royals, Ferdinand and Isabella, were so enamored of the Moorish architecture that they chose to be buried in Granada, not the expected Christian capital.
There is a tension in Spanish culture – and to a lesser extent in Portuguese culture – between European and Arabian civilization. The Portuguese liberated all their territory by 1249. The Spanish allowed Granada to linger on under Islamic control for another 243 years, until 1492, but only as a vassal state.
Yes, Granada was reduced to vassalage – having to pay tribute to Spain – but it was still there, and so the effect of Arab rule is stronger in Spanish culture.
Sections of the Iberian Peninsula had been under Islamic rule for 781 years (711 to 1492). Such a long duration has cultural, genetic, political, and linguistic consequences.
While the Spanish were happy to be rid of Muslim tyranny – and it was tyranny, do not kid yourselves – they realized that something had been lost as well – and hence the Spanish fascination with Alhambra, and Arabic culture in general.
And so the story of Muslim rule, and the Reconquista to free Spain, lingers on in the Spanish imagination the same way the civil war lingers on in the American. Everyone knows the good guys (Spain/the North) won, but the losing side (the Moors/the Confederacy) have been glamorized out of all reality.
About 8% of the Spanish language is Arabic in origin. Look at these two words to see where the Spanish term differs from other European languages – and know that Spanish has thousands of such Arabic words.
Arabic
Spanish
English
French
Italian
German
‘azraq
azul
blue
bleu
blu
blau
zeit
aciete
oil
huile
olio
Öl
The linguistic effect on Spanish in enormous. On Portuguese, too.
Genetically, the effect is there, though not enormous. The Spanish have between 2% and 10% North African admixture. Though part of that admixture may be due to pre-Islamic, pre-Roman Carthaginian DNA. In 1609, Spain expelled all Muslims from its country, including some who had converted to Catholicism, so whatever Arabic genetic input had occurred during Moorish rule was probably reduced somewhat.
STILL, THE GENETIC EFFECT IS THERE, EVEN IF LIMITED
The Albu(r)querque region of Iberia likely derived its name from the Arabic (the area was occupied by the Moors for centuries) Abu al-Qurq (land of the cork oak; Spanish: pais del alcornoque), which in turn may have been derived from the Latin `albus quercus’ (white oak) as the trunk of the cork oak is white after the outer layer has been exposed. Note that the seal of the Spanish city of Alburquerque bears the design of an oak. (The other main theory is that the name derives from al-burquq, the plum.)
This Arabic influence was brought to the New World – and that does not even include the Moriscos who came with the Conquistadores.
There are echoes of this Arabic influence which carry over to Latin America. Argentina’s gauchos may be, in part, derived from Moriscos who fled the Inquisition to Latin America.
A full treatment would require a very large book, not a post on a website.
January 24, 2024 – Edited: replaced a dead video link.
