2761: Español is not Normal Jul 12, 2024

‘Spanish’, in Spanish, is ‘Español’ but by people-group or language standards, this is a pretty new word. In Old Spanish it was ‘espanyol’ or  ‘espanno’, but this really only took place at the time of the reconquista and eventually the Spanish Inquisition. Up until this time, under Moorish, Muslim rule it was called Al-Andalus, and there was not a uniquely Iberian identity per se. Before the total success of the reconquista, one might identify with a local kingdom or more likely as a ‘cristiano’ (christian), after which point, the Latin ‘Hispania’ was revived, itself taken from a Semitic word from the days of the Carthaginian empire, from the Canaanite/Phoenician ‘yšpn, related to the Hebrew שָׁפָן (shafan), probably in reference to hyraxes along the coast in ancient times.

All of this is to say that the word ‘Español’ is rather strange looking, because normally one would expect to see *españuelo according to what one would expect to see in the transition from the expected Vulgar Latin *Hispaniolus into Old Spanish through to Modern Spanish. Since this is not a normal Latin word, nor was this in common use while the transition from Latin → Vulgar Latin → Old Spanish was underway, it has its modern form.