Aljamiado
Encyclopedia
Mozarabic language
Mozarabic was a continuum of closely related Romance dialects spoken in Muslim-dominated areas of the Iberian Peninsula during the early stages of the Romance languages' development in Iberia. Mozarabic descends from Late Latin and early Romance dialects spoken in the Iberian Peninsula from the 5th...
, Berber Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
or Ladino.
According to Anwar G. Chejne, Aljamiado or Aljamía is "a corruption of the Arabic word ''ʿajamiyah
Ajam
Ajam is a word used in Persian and Arabic literature but with different concepts. Ajam in Arabic has two primary meanings: "non-Arab" and "Persian".literally it has other meaning "one who is illiterate in language", "silent", or "mute", and refers to non-Arabs in general, or people of Southern...
(in this case it means foreign language) and, generally, the Arabic expression ''ʿajam and its derivative ''ʿajamiyah are applicable to peoples whose ancestry is not of Arabian origin". In linguistic terms, the Aljamía is the Romance language (i.e. "foreigners' language") which was used by some people in some areas of Al-Andalus
Al-Andalus
Al-Andalus was the Arabic name given to a nation and territorial region also commonly referred to as Moorish Iberia. The name describes parts of the Iberian Peninsula and Septimania governed by Muslims , at various times in the period between 711 and 1492, although the territorial boundaries...
as an everyday communication vehicle, while Arabic was reserved as the language of high culture and religion.
The systematic writing of Romance-language texts in Arabic scripts appears to have begun in the fifteenth century, and the overwhelming majority of such texts that can be dated belong to the sixteenth century. A key aljamiado text was the mufti
Mufti
A mufti is a Sunni Islamic scholar who is an interpreter or expounder of Islamic law . In religious administrative terms, a mufti is roughly equivalent to a deacon to a Sunni population...
of Segovia's compilation Suma de los principales mandamientos y devediamentos de nuestra santa ley y sunna, of 1462.
In later times, Morisco
Morisco
Moriscos or Mouriscos , meaning "Moorish", were the converted Christian inhabitants of Spain and Portugal of Muslim heritage. Over time the term was used in a pejorative sense applied to those nominal Catholics who were suspected of secretly practicing Islam.-Demographics:By the beginning of the...
s were banned from using Arabic as a religious language, and wrote in Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
on Islamic subjects. Examples are the Coplas del alhichante de Puey Monzón, narrating a Hajj
Hajj
The Hajj is the pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia. It is one of the largest pilgrimages in the world, and is the fifth pillar of Islam, a religious duty that must be carried out at least once in their lifetime by every able-bodied Muslim who can afford to do so...
, or the Poema de Yuçuf on the Biblical Joseph.
Usage by the Moriscos during the persecution of Muslims in Spain
Aljamiado played a very important role in preserving Islam and the Arabic language in the life of the Moriscos. After the fall of the last Muslim kingdom on the Iberian peninsula, the Moriscos (Andalusian Muslims in Granada and other parts of what was once Al-AndalusAl-Andalus
Al-Andalus was the Arabic name given to a nation and territorial region also commonly referred to as Moorish Iberia. The name describes parts of the Iberian Peninsula and Septimania governed by Muslims , at various times in the period between 711 and 1492, although the territorial boundaries...
) were forced to convert to Christianity or leave the peninsula. They were forced to adopt Christian customs and traditions and to attend church services on Sundays. Nevertheless, some of the Moriscos kept their Islamic belief and traditions secretly
Crypto-Islam
Crypto-Islam is the secret adherence to Islam while publicly professing to be of another faith; people who practice crypto-Islam are referred to as "crypto-Muslims"...
through the usage of Aljamiado.
In 1567, Philip II of Spain
Philip II of Spain
Philip II was King of Spain, Portugal, Naples, Sicily, and, while married to Mary I, King of England and Ireland. He was lord of the Seventeen Provinces from 1556 until 1581, holding various titles for the individual territories such as duke or count....
issued a royal decree in Spain which forced Moriscos to abandon using Arabic on all occasions, formal and informal, speaking and writing. Using Arabic in any sense of the word would be regarded as a crime. They were given three years to learn the language of the Christian Spanish, after which they would have to get rid of all Arabic written material. Moriscos translated all prayers and the sayings of their prophet Mohammed into Aljamiado transcriptions of the Spanish language, while keeping all Qur'an
Qur'an
The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...
ic verses in the original Arabic. Aljamiado scrolls were circulated amongst the Moriscos. Historians came to know about Aljamiado literature only in the early nineteenth century. Some of the Aljamiado scrolls are kept in the Spanish National Library in Madrid.
Other uses
The word aljamiado is sometimes used for other non-Semitic language written in Arabic letters. For example, some Serbo-Croatian and AlbanianAlbanian language
Albanian is an Indo-European language spoken by approximately 7.6 million people, primarily in Albania and Kosovo but also in other areas of the Balkans in which there is an Albanian population, including western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, southern Serbia and northwestern Greece...
texts written in Arabic script during the Ottoman period have been referred to as aljamiado. However, many linguists prefer to limit the term to Romance languages, instead using arebica
Arebica
Arebica or arabica was a variant of the Perso-Arabic script used to write the Bosnian language. It was used mainly between the 15th and 19th centuries. Before WWI there were unsuccessful efforts by Muslims to officially adopt Arebica as the third alphabet for Bosnian alongside Latin and Cyrillic...
to refer to the use of Arabic script for Slavic languages.
See also
- Mozarabic languageMozarabic languageMozarabic was a continuum of closely related Romance dialects spoken in Muslim-dominated areas of the Iberian Peninsula during the early stages of the Romance languages' development in Iberia. Mozarabic descends from Late Latin and early Romance dialects spoken in the Iberian Peninsula from the 5th...
- KharjaKharjaThe kharja , also known as jarcha in Spanish, is the final refrain of a muwashshah, a lyric genre of Al-Andalus written in Classical Arabic or Hebrew....
s
:Category:Arabic alphabets
- Arabic AfrikaansArabic AfrikaansArabic Afrikaans was a form of Afrikaans that was written in Arabic script. It began in the 1830s in the madrasa in Cape Town. It is doubtful if 'Arabic Afrikaans' can be considered a language or dialect of its own.-Texts:...
- Karamanli TurkishKaramanli TurkishKaramanlı Turkish was a dialect of Turkish spoken by the Karamanlides, a community of Turkish-speaking orthodox Christians in Ottoman Turkey. While the official Ottoman Turkish was written in the Arabic script, the Anatolian Christian community used the Greek alphabet for writing its form of Turkish...
Further reading
- Los Siete Alhaicales y otras plegarias de mudéjares y moriscos by Xavier Casassas Canals published by Almuzara, Sevilla (Spain), 2007.
External links
- A bilingual Arabic-aljamiado Qur'an from the fifteenth century
- Aljamiado (Texts and Studies)
- Alhadith: Morisco Literature & Culture A website devoted to the literature and language of the Moriscos; contains a multilingual bibliography, digital texts, and a catalogue of aljamiado-morisco manuscripts.