Guess you folks are curious as to why I would be a fountain of knowledge about Iberian linguistics. There is a reason and it directly relates to the study of our heritage. I first became aware of the numerous languages and dialects in Spain, while backpacking through Europe after working in Sweden. When you backpack, you really get to know the people. The Spanish were the most hospitable people in Europe at that time. Several times, Spanish families in rural areas invited me to stay in their homes for free, because they said that I seemed different than most Americans. Guess I still am - given the non-stop harassment I have received from the "powers that be" since the year 2000. At any rate, the Australian mates I traveled with in Europe assumed that I would be totally lost in the province of Catalan. However, since I knew Spanish, Swedish and French, I understood most everything the Catalan people said. An Aussie gal with a college minor in Spanish, understood very little. She would ask the people to speak in their second tongue, Castilian, in order to understand them. When I started doing thoroughly studying the chronicles of the early Spanish explorers, I noticed wide variations in the way that the 16th century writers spelled Muskogean words that the explorers recorded. How could I translate these words with a Muskogee, Alabama or Koasati dictionary if I didn't know what the original word really was? Then I came across a glossary website from Spain that compared words in the 15 languages of Spain. The same word could mean the same, sound the same, but be spelled differently. In other words (if you excuse the pun) each Spanish language not only varied in grammar and vocabulary, but had different alphabets. An alphabetic letter in one Iberian language might have a different sound than the same letter in another language. So even though Spanish chroniclers might have prepared reports to the king in the official language of the Court of Seville, Castilian, they often spelled foreign words in the alphabet of their native tongue from one of the other provinces of Spain. How this is applied to research into our own heritage ... Here is one example how this knowledge helps us understand the real history of the Creeks. All the books put out by UGA, UT and UNC professors state that de Soto visited Etowah Mounds, because his chroniclers mentioned the expedition stayed in a town called Itaba for several days. I thought this was not necessarily true, since I knew, unlike the learned professors, that there is no B in Muskogee! Also, in 1542 the Great Mound at Etalwa (our word for the town) was the LARGEST, OCCUPIED MAN-MADE STRUCTURE IN THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE. It is bigger than most all the Aztec and Toltec pyramids, even when they were still occupied. The Spanish made no mention of any large structure at Etalwa. There is no W in any Iberian language. The various languages of Spain would have spelled Italwa as either Italhua, Italgua, Italjoa or Italxoa. However, Itaba is the Alabama word for a border crossing. The Alabama's do have the B sound - obviously, it is part of their name. So, we know that de Soto's Kusaw (Upper Creek) guides intentionally steered the conquistadors away from their sacred shrine of Italwa. Itaba would have been a smaller town on the edge of the Kusa province that originally, or still, spoke the Alabama language. The de Soto chroniclers also mentioned that the river at Itaba was flooded, and they had to wait several days for the waters to subside in order to cross and continue westward along river into what is Alabama. The main trail along the Etowah River is on the Etowah Mounds side. The Etowah River is SOUTH of Etowah Mounds. So this statement makes no sense if the Spanish were at Etowah Mounds. However, the main trail to Alabama (still known as the Alabama Road) does cross westward over the Oostanaula River near Downtown Rome, GA - where the Oostanaula and the Etowah join to form the Coosa River. The Great Alabama Trail then continues along the Coosa River all the way through Alabama till it becomes the Alabama River. Well, I guess what this analysis really says is that to understand our Creek cultural heritage, we must also thoroughly understand the other peoples who came in contact with the ancestors of the Creeks. The cultural biases of the invaders and immigrants affected how they described our ancestors. Richard T. **************Get fantasy football with free live scoring. Sign up for FanHouse Fantasy Football today. (http://www.fanhouse.com/fantasyaffair?ncid=aolspr00050000000020)