- La Timba
La Timba is a strip of land located at the border of a cliff, between the
neighbourhood s of "Covadonga" and "Nostra Llar" at the upper side, and the bottom of aprecipice that gives place to thecanyon at the bottom of which lie theriver Ripoll and the neighbourhood of "Torre Romeu" at the lower side. It is located inSabadell , in the shire ofVallès Occidental ,Catalonia ,Spain .The term "La Timba": meaning, origin and usage
Meaning
The word "Timba" is a
female shortform of themale Catalan word "Estimbat" ("despeñado" in Spanish), theparticiple of theverb "Estimbar-se" [Due to the rarity of theword it probably will be found only in advanced Catalan-English dictionaries.] ("despeñarse" in Spanish), meaning "to fall over a cliff" or a "precipice". And this applies when someone has "fell over" an "Estimball", meaning "cliff" or "precipice". And since La Timba is located on a cliff, hence the name of the place.Origin
Due to the extremely local usage of the word, it is hard to find stated evidences of the term. However, it is very likely that the term was originated at the mid 20th century, when the adjacent lands to the precipice began to be inhabited by both local peoples and
immigrants from thesouthern Spain because thecity centre ofSabadell began to be small for the newcomers.Usage
The usage of the term is extremely scarce and the word is only known by the very few people whose lives have been linked with the neighbourhood of "Covadonga" and "Nostra Llar" all their lives, and even the people living few blocks away the Timba do not know what the word means. When these very few people die, or the
speculation reaches thissmall andtranquil piece of land, located on a precipice between the neighbourhoods of "Covadonga" and "Nostra Llar", and theoutskirts adjacent to the Ripoll, the term will probably disappear. It is a clear example of moribund term.Geography
La Timba has a distance of about 2
km , starting next to the UABComputer Science andBusiness faculty, where the "Tres Creus" road bifurcates into the "Santiga" street and then goes down the canyon while the "Santiga street" (which is then followed by the "Ronda d'Orient" street, and the "Egara" Avenue in the neighbourhood of "Nostra Llar") follows it from the upper side of the precipice, and the "Sant Oleguer" neighbourhood. The strip of land that remains between the road that goes down the canyon (the "Tres Creus" road) and the street that follows that road from the upper side of the precipice (the "Santiga" street and then the "Ronda d'Orient" street in the "Covadonga" neighbourhood, and then the "Egara" Avenue in the "Nostra Llar" neighbourhood) is what is called La Timba by the locals. [Probably there is not anyproof of the usage of this term on the net and neither could be found in any physical sourceoffline , due to thecolloquial nature of the term, which has been transmittedorally generation after generation by the locals of theneighbourhood .]History
The adjacent lands to La Timba (the upper side of the precipice that gives place to the canyon at the bottom of which lies the Ripoll river), began to be inhabited by both local peoples and
immigrants from theSouthern Spain in the beginnings of the 20th century. By those times, thecity centre ofSabadell could not host morenewcomers so thecity radius started an unstoppable expansion that, few tens later, would reach the Ripoll river at the bottom of the canyon, with the creation of the "Torre Romeu" neighbourhood. In some cases, theimmigrants from theSouthern Spain lived incaves in the Timba, as they had nowhere else to stay.With the time, the local peoples began to cultivate
Orchards and breed small farm animals (such aschickens ,ducks andrabbits ) on the strip between the "Covadonga" neighbourhood and the precipice. Because there are just few metres between the houses and the precipice, the orchards began to descend the precipice to the point that, nowadays, the cliff is filled with them.At the mid 1990s, the
local police ofSabadell closed thefence that sepparates the upper side of the precipice and the slope, and the activity in "La Timba" stopped. During this happening, some acts of plundering were committed by locals in the abandoned orchards.Nowadays, the orchards of the slope of the cliff are abandoned, and the upper side of the precipice is a
green corridor which width varies from a half-metre to not more than 20 m.Gallery
ee also
*
Moribund language
*Sabadell
*Barberà del Vallès
*Vallès Occidental
*Barcelona (province)
*Catalonia
*Spain References
External links
* [http://www.sabadell.net/ Sabadell City Council's website]
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