Al-Andalus - Etymology

Etymology

The etymology of "Al-Andalus" is disputed, as is the extent of Iberian territory encompassed by the name over the centuries. The traditional and most widely accepted idea is that the name derives from the Late Latin Vandalucia, meaning "land of the Vandals. The Vandals were a Germanic tribe that invaded the Roman Empire in 408-409 CE and received southern Hispania in the subsequent partition of the peninsula. As a designation for Iberia or its southern portion, the name is first attested to by inscriptions on coins minted by the new Muslim government in Iberia, circa 715 (the uncertainty in the year is due to the fact that the coins were bilingual in Latin and Arabic and the two inscriptions differ as to the year of minting).

At least three specific etymologies have been proposed in Western scholarship, all presuming that the name arose after the Roman period in the Iberian Peninsula's history. Their originators or defenders have been historians. Recently, linguistics expertise has been brought to bear on the issue. Arguments from toponymy (the study of place names), history, and language structure demonstrate the lack of substance in all following proposals, and evidence has been presented that the name predates, rather than postdates, the Roman occupation.

A major objection to all earlier proposals is that the very name Andaluz (the equivalent of Andalus in Spanish spelling) exists in several places in mountainous areas of Castile. Furthermore, the fragment and- is common in Spanish place names, and the fragment -luz also occurs several times across Spain.