ANDALUZ

This story is a clear demonstration of the decline of Spanish etymology—alongside linguistics and history.

Let’s begin with the official account of the origin of Spain’s famous province. Nothing particularly compelling—Andalusia lacks a definitive etymology.

Anyone investigating the word Andaluz should start with the Basque dictionary, since even in Ukraine, the Basque word luze—meaning "long" or "extended"—is well known. It appears in compound words, such as mihiluz ("long-tongued"). Therefore, Andaluz is undoubtedly related to the concept of length. However, searching for the root "Anda" in Basque yielded no results.

What did yield results, however, was the fascinating toponym Andaluz—unrelated to Andalusia. This town is located in the province of Castilla y León, near Soria, right next to Basque territory. Yet even here, Spaniards refuse to acknowledge the presence of Basque linguistic elements, preferring instead to believe the word somehow drifted in from the south with the Arabs.

If you examine variant spellings of this northern place name, you’ll find that at one point, the town was also called Fandaluz. And here lies the key to unraveling Andalusia’s origins.

The letter "f" is an artificial replacement for the "ph" digraph (as in the word photo). Historically, these words contained "ph", which represented "p" with aspiration, akin to the Georgian letter "ფ".

Thus, to establish the etymology of "fand-", we need to look for "pand-". Sure enough, we find pando in the Lingua dictionary, meaning "valley (between mountains)" in Spanish. This confirms that Andaluz (also Fandaluz, or Pandaluz) translates to "long valley." In turn, Andalusia means "long valley."

Is this theory valid? Absolutely:

> "...The term Andalusia has three meanings: > 3. It refers to lands conquered by Christians in the valley of the Guadalquivir River (the kingdoms of Jaén, Córdoba, and Seville). This third definition was the most common during the Middle Ages and in modern history."

Indeed, Andalusia historically referred to the long valley of the Betis River, now known as Guadalquivir, flanked by mountains—Sierra Morena on one side and Sistemas Béticos on the other.

To further confirm this hypothesis, let’s check whether northern Andaluz near Soria is also situated in a valley.

Yes, it is:

> "...Located on a plain within the Duero River basin."

Mountains are abundant there too—Sistema Ibérico, Sistema Central, Submeseta.