The principle that defends the so-called is well known. Occam's razorAt least in the world of philosophy and science, it is. In short, and very briefly, what this principle says is this: if two opposing theories reach the same conclusion, the simpler, less complex theory, the one that requires fewer steps to reach a conclusion, a goal, is likely to be more accurate.
Those of us who have been studying Logic for years understand these things. Let's take a real-life example, beyond other abstractions. It is said in everyday language: “This is like going to Rome via Santiago.” This popular wisdom helps us. Indeed, if someone reaches Rome via Santiago, they will have successfully accomplished what they wanted to do—reach Rome—but in a circuitous way, traveling many more kilometers than necessary. Another person, on the other hand, will have reached Rome by traveling more directly via other routes. Both will have reached Rome, but the second has done so in the simplest and most direct way, that is, the most correct way.
All this is applicable to what interests us here, the flamenco, and more specifically to the name of these musical forms that are grouped under the common name of flamenco. Flamenco It is a word, in principle, mysterious. I am aware that there are several fruitful and interesting theories, and certainly worthy of consideration. Perhaps the most considered or read, given its exploration of the Arabic language, which was spoken for so long in much of Spain, is that of the father of Andalusian nationalism, Blas Infante, which he proposed for the origin of the word flamenco This Arabic compound noun Falah Mengus, which means wandering peasant, but can also be translated as “one who flees.”
If we take this theory of Blas Infante into account, we could consider it true, and as I do not intend to present a thesis here, but rather a mere opinion or speculation, I will say that Maybe it is, I don't know, I don't want to make imperative or reckless statements here.It is also true that after their expulsion from the Iberian Peninsula in the 17th century, some Moriscos refused to leave their Spanish homeland and either pretended to convert to Christianity or went into hiding and sometimes took refuge in Gypsy tribes or among people of the road, people outside the law or with a different life, little attached to the official or socially respected, as the professor has clearly seen in her essays on Flemish anthropology Cristina Cruces. But that would be as much as saying that the flamencos would be the Moriscos, and not the gypsies or other social gypsies o pimped out, something so common in Spanish society at the crossroads of the 18th and 19th centuries, to the great displeasure of the Frenchified or some enlightened people, such as Scaffold o Jovellanos.
Another theory today rejected by many and almost forgotten (although it was maintained by scholars) claims that the word flamenco comes from those Tercios of Flanders when the current Netherlands were a Spanish property. There are flamencoYes, of course, but in a cultural, linguistic and ethnic sense.
"The bird called flamenco "It raises one of its legs while planting the other in the water and on the ground, at the same time raising its wings. And that's what a flamenco dancer does, that's what the men did in the 19th-century Candil Dances: tapping their heels, stepping on the ground, the mother earth, raising their arms or a leg, while the woman danced the Vito on a table imitating bullfighting moves."
But perhaps the theory considered the most absurd, humorous, and hilarious of all is the one I'm going to defend here. Although, by the way, despite the fact that it's completely forgotten today, it was also defended by some distinguished scholar. I'm referring to the theory that says that the word flamenco referring to art jondo comes from the bird of the same name, the flamenco. Well, yes, that's what I think, that it comes from there. Why? Because, again evoking Occam, It is the simplest, most straightforward, most immediate theory in its formal appearance and most common sense.I can already imagine many people smiling ironically at my words. I understand and accept it. As I said, I welcome all criticism or contradictions; I don't have infallible documents to support my theory, or my simple opinion. Perhaps someone will allow themselves to put my face to it. color.
But let's see. It must be said that the flamenco, to trace its origins, it must first be approached from a sociological or anthropological perspective, rather than even a musical one. Of course, flamenco, like any music, can and must be studied from the musical regulations, but not to trace its sociological origins and even less to find out the origin of its name. As Cristina Cruces has clearly seen again, there is, at least in part, a focus of the emergence of the cante in people of the road, people removed from honest society, people of vagrancy, moving alongside petty thieves and other people of bad living. People, also thrown out p'alante, cocky, ruffianly men…
Now let's continue looking. If we take a look at the novels and literature of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, we see, gradually or simultaneously, that certain characters that appear in the narrative of the period, such as the handsome men, a few years later appear as the pimps and, finally, already in the nineteenth century, as the flamencos. What is a flamenco person among the common people but a cocky and forward-thinking person? “Don't be mean to me flamenco", it is said, and the one who says it does not do so because his interlocutor has started to sing flamenco, but because it is very flamenco, maybe a little cocky, maybe a little cheeky.
And finally, something of an aesthetic nature, obvious but revealing: the bird called flamenco He raises one of his legs while he sticks the other in the water and on the ground –water and ground, what two flamenco words!–, at the same time he raises his wings, and that is what a flamenco dancer does, that is what the men did in the Candil Dances from the 19th century, clicking his heels, stepping on the ground, the mother earth, raising his arms or a leg, while the woman danced the Vito on a table imitating bullfighting moves. Cool young men, freaks, gypsies and flamencos. It's funny how well an anti-flamenco and anti-bullfighting person described part of the Spanish society at the beginning of the 20th century, and in particular flamencoism. Eugenio Noel. The writer, like the Enlightenment a century before, bitterly criticized the "declassification" of the "señoritismo" (gentry), attached to flamencoism, and which imitated the gypsies in language and the "pimps of Madrid" in dress, as Noel recalls in his cited work.
I have to say that part of the bullfighting atmosphere – the phenomena are the bullfighters in Noel's work – has always seemed to me a bit like the dark Spain that he painted. Solarium. Those half-assed followers of bullfighters, sometimes 'suppliers'. It's not so common in the flamenco scene, but it also happens at times. Of course, everything is tolerated and tolerated when you saw just one act of Paula or Curro in the Maestranza or in Jerez. But we were talking about the origin of the word flamenco. How can we not think, after alluding to certain marginalized groups or environments, of the handsome, the arrogant, the...flamencos.
But let's leave it, let's not touch the rose anymore, what does its name matter? From that bullfighting environment or flamenco One finally remembers the dream of a half veronica of such a bullfighter or the moan jondo of such a singer or singer. That is what it came to symbolize Umberto Eco at their The Name of the Rose: Even if the thing itself does not exist objectively, even if the Rose does not exist, what is important is its essence, the sublime memory of its scent. And we will end up saying it with Juan Ramon Jimenez: “Don’t touch it anymore, that’s how the rose is.” Okay.
