Re: Celtic, semitic, etc.

Raymond Brown <ray.brown@...> wrote:

>>>Are we talking about the Patagonia in South America?
>>
>>Yes--there was, IIRC, a Welsh colony there.
>
>There most certainly was.  It was originally (semi-)independent; but later
>became part of hispanophone Argentina.
It's worth noting that by that time Argentina was basically
north Buenos Aires plus what was north of it; the rest
(the Pampa and the Patagonia) were called "the Desert"
(meaning it was not inhabited by people of European
descent, but by Indians). I was wondering what status
the Welsh colony had, and how they got along with the
natives, since the Argentine government centered in
Buenos Aires could not care less about the south
(the Patagonia has only two abundant resources:
space for sheep to pasture, and oil -- which was
not discovered until the end of the XIX century).
Later I did a search about this and found a nice
article:

    http://www.britannia.com/wales/whist19b.html

where it says that the natives were actually friendly
and many ended up learning Welsh (!). The Welsh
community is alive and well in Patagonia, it seems,
as well the language (I also ran into a guest house
[Gwesty Tywi] in the town of Gaiman, with a welcome
page in Welsh and a red dragon and all) and the
customs (they have eistedfoddau in Welsh and Spanish
and so on).


--Pablo Flores
  http://www.geocities.com/pablo-david/index.html
  "... When all men on earth think, day and night, about the
   Zahir, which one will be a dream and which one a reality?"
                              Jorge Luis Borges, _The Zahir_