Mozarabic language - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Mozarabic was a continuum

Dialect continuum

A dialect continuum, or dialect area, was defined by Leonard Bloomfield as a range of dialects spoken across some geographical area that differ only slightly between neighboring areas, but as one travels in any direction, these differences accumulate such that speakers from opposite ends of the...

of closely related Romance dialects

Romance languages

The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...

spoken in Muslim-dominated areas of the Iberian Peninsula

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...

during the early stages of the Romance languages' development in Iberia

Iberian Romance languages

The Iberian Romance languages or Ibero-Romance languages are the Romance languages that developed on the Iberian Peninsula, an area consisting primarily of Spain, Portugal, and Andorra....

. Mozarabic descends from Late Latin

Late Latin

Late Latin is the scholarly name for the written Latin of Late Antiquity. The English dictionary definition of Late Latin dates this period from the 3rd to the 6th centuries AD extending in Spain to the 7th. This somewhat ambiguously defined period fits between Classical Latin and Medieval Latin...

and early Romance dialects spoken in the Iberian Peninsula

Hispania

Another theory holds that the name derives from Ezpanna, the Basque word for "border" or "edge", thus meaning the farthest area or place. Isidore of Sevilla considered Hispania derived from Hispalis....

from the 5th to the 8th centuries, and was spoken until the 14th century. This set of dialects came to be called the Mozarabic language by 19th century Spanish scholars, though there was never a common standard. The word, Mozarab

Mozarab

The Mozarabs were Iberian Christians who lived under Arab Islamic rule in Al-Andalus. Their descendants remained unconverted to Islam, but did however adopt elements of Arabic language and culture...

is a loanword from Arabic

Arabic language

Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

meaning مستعرب - must`arab, i.e. "Arabized

Arabization

Arabization or Arabisation describes a growing cultural influence on a non-Arab area that gradually changes into one that speaks Arabic and/or incorporates Arab culture...

Native name

Although the name Mozarabic is today used for many Romance languages, the native name (autonym or endonym) of the language was not "muzarab" or "mozarab" but latinus or Latino. Mozarabs themselves never called their own language "mozarabic" but by the name that meant "Latin" (i.e. Romance language). They did not call themselves by the name "mozarabs".

At times Christian communities prospered in Muslim Spain; these Christians are now usually referred to as Mozárabes, although the term was not in use at the time (Hitchcock 1978)

It was only in the 19th century that Spanish historians started to use the words "mozarabs" and "mozarabic" to refer to those Christians people, and their language, who lived under Muslim rule in the Iberian Peninsula in the Middle Ages. Another very common Arab exonym for this language was al-ajamiya ("stranger/foreign") that had the meaning of Romance language in Al-Andalus

Al-Andalus

. So the words "mozarabic" or "ajamiya" are exonyms and not an autonym of the language.

Roger Wright, in his book about the evolution of early Romance languages in France and in the Iberian Peninsula Late Latin and Early Romance in Spain and Carolingian France, page 156, states that:

The Early Romance of Moslem Spain was known to its users as latinus. This word can lead to confusion; the Visigothic scholars used it to contrast with Greek or Hebrew, and Simonet (1888: XXIII-IV, XXXV-VII) established that in Moslem Spain it was used to refer to the non-Arabic vernacular (as was Arabic Al-Lathinī)

Also in the same book, page 158, the author states that:

The use of latinus to mean Latin-Romance, as opposed to Arabic, is also found north of the religious border

This means that the word latinus or Latino had the meaning of spoken romance language and it was only contrasted with classical Latin (lingua Latina) a few centuries later. To contemporary romance speakers of the Iberian Peninsula of that time their vernacular spoken language was seen as "Latin". This happens because classical Latin was seen as an educated speech not as a different language.

Another important issue referring to this old Romance language is the name that Sephardic Jews gave to their spoken Romance language in Iberia - ladino and also the name that an Alpine romance speaking people, the Ladins, give to their language - ladin.

In the Iberian Peninsula:

The word Ladino (linguistic meaning
Linguistic meaning
The nature of meaning, its definition, elements, and types, was discussed by philosophers Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas. According to them 'meaning is a relationship between two sorts of things: signs and the kinds of things they mean '. One term in the relationship of meaning necessarily...

of "Spanish written by Jews" (Roger Wright 1982, p. 158)

This is one of the main reasons why Iberian Jews (Sephardim) from central and southern regions called their everyday language ladino, because this word had the sense of spoken Romance language (Ladino is today a Romance language more closely related to Spanish, mainly to Old Spanish, spoken by some Jews of Sephardic ancestry).

In the Alps:
For the same reason, speakers of ladin

Ladin

Ladin is a language consisting of a group of dialects spoken in the Dolomite Mountains in Northern Italy in the border regions of the provinces Trentino, South Tyrol and Belluno...

, another Romance language (spoken in eastern Switzerland in two valleys in Graubünden and northern Italy in the Trentino Alto-Ádige/Südtirol and Veneto

Veneto

Veneto is one of the 20 regions of Italy. Its population is about 5 million, ranking 5th in Italy.Veneto had been for more than a millennium an independent state, the Republic of Venice, until it was eventually annexed by Italy in 1866 after brief Austrian and French rule...

regions), call their own language ladin i.e. "Latin".

This word had the sense of spoken Romance language not only in Iberian Peninsula but also in other Romance language regions in early Middle Ages.

Scripts

Because Mozarabic was not a language of high culture, it had no official script. Unlike most Romance languages, Mozarabic was primarily written in the Arabic alphabet

Arabic alphabet

The Arabic alphabet or Arabic abjad is the Arabic script as it is codified for writing the Arabic language. It is written from right to left, in a cursive style, and includes 28 letters. Because letters usually stand for consonants, it is classified as an abjad.-Consonants:The Arabic alphabet has...

rather than the Latin alphabet

Latin alphabet

The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...

, though it was also written in the Latin alphabet

Latin alphabet

and less so in the Hebrew alphabet

Hebrew alphabet

The Hebrew alphabet , known variously by scholars as the Jewish script, square script, block script, or more historically, the Assyrian script, is used in the writing of the Hebrew language, as well as other Jewish languages, most notably Yiddish, Ladino, and Judeo-Arabic. There have been two...

. Most documents were in the Arabic alphabet. Mozarab scholars wrote words of the Romance vernacular in alternative scripts in the margins or in the subtitles of Latin language texts (glosses).

The two languages of culture in Medieval Iberia were Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

in the north (although it was also used in the south by Mozarab scholars) and Arabic in the south (which was the principal literary language of Mozarab scholars). These are the languages that constitute the great majority of written documents of the Peninsula at that time.

Mozarabic is first documented in writing in the Peninsula as choruses (kharja
Kharja
The 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) (9th century) in Arabic

Arabic language

Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

lyrics called muwashshah
Muwashshah
Muwashshah or muwaššaḥ can mean:...

s. As these were written in the Arabic alphabet

Arabic alphabet

, the vowel

Vowel

In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...

s had to be reconstructed when transliterating it into Latin script.

Morphology and phonetics

The phonology of Mozarabic is more archaic than the other Romance languages

Romance languages

in Spain, fitting with the general idea that language varieties in more isolated or peripheral areas act as "islands of conservatism". Based on the written documents that are identified as Mozarabic, some examples of these more archaic features are:

The preservation of the Latin consonant clusters , , .
The lack of lenition
Lenition
In linguistics, lenition is a kind of sound change that alters consonants, making them "weaker" in some way. The word lenition itself means "softening" or "weakening" . Lenition can happen both synchronically and diachronically...

of intervocalic , , , as in the Mozarabic words lopa (she-wolf), toto (all) and formica (ant).
The representation of Latin /kt/ as /ht/ (as in /nohte/ "night" < ), thought to have been an intermediate stage in the transition /kt/ > /jt/, but represented nowhere else.
The preservation of palatalized /k(e)/, /k(i)/ as /tʃ/ (as in Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

), rather than /ts/ as elsewhere in Western Romance (except Picard
Picard language
Picard is a language closely related to French, and as such is one of the larger group of Romance languages. It is spoken in two regions in the far north of France – Nord-Pas-de-Calais and Picardy – and in parts of the Belgian region of Wallonia, the district of Tournai and a part of...

and Norman
Norman language
Norman is a Romance language and one of the Oïl languages. Norman can be classified as one of the northern Oïl languages along with Picard and Walloon...

north of the Joret line
Joret line
The Joret line is an isogloss used in the linguistics of the langues d'oïl. Dialects north of the line have preserved Vulgar Latin and before ; dialects south of the line have palatalized and before . This palatalization gave Old French and , then modern French and...

).
The preservation (at least in some areas) of original /au/, /ai/.

The morphology of some words is closer to Latin than other Iberian Romance or Romance languages in general. This Romance variety had a significant impact in the formation of Portuguese

Portuguese language

Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...

, 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...

and especially Andalusian Spanish

Andalusian Spanish

The Andalusian varieties of Spanish are spoken in Andalusia, Ceuta, Melilla and Gibraltar. They include perhaps the most distinct of the southern variants of peninsular Spanish, differing in many respects from northern varieties, and also from Standard Spanish...

, which explains why these languages have several words of Andalusi Arabic

Andalusi Arabic

Andalusian Arabic was a variety of the Arabic language spoken in Al-Andalus, the regions of the Iberian Peninsula under Muslim rule...

origin (Mozarabic was, understandably, quite influenced by Arabic and vice versa).

It was spoken by Mozarab

Mozarab

The Mozarabs were Iberian Christians who lived under Arab Islamic rule in Al-Andalus. Their descendants remained unconverted to Islam, but did however adopt elements of Arabic language and culture...

s (Christians living as dhimmi

Dhimmi

A , is a non-Muslim subject of a state governed in accordance with sharia law. Linguistically, the word means "one whose responsibility has been taken". This has to be understood in the context of the definition of state in Islam...

s), Muladi

Muladi

The Muladi were Muslims of ethnic Iberian descent or of mixed Arab, Berber and European origin, who lived in Al-Andalus during the Middle Ages. They were also called "Musalima" .-Etymology:...

s (the native Iberian population converted to Islam) and some layers of the ruling Arabs and Berbers. The cultural language of Mozarabs continued to be Latin

Latin

, but as time passed, young Mozarabs studied and even excelled at Arabic. Due to the northwards migration of Mozarabs, we can find Arabic placenames in areas where Islamic rule did not last long. With the deepening of Islamization and the advance of the Reconquista

Reconquista

The Reconquista was a period of almost 800 years in the Middle Ages during which several Christian kingdoms succeeded in retaking the Muslim-controlled areas of the Iberian Peninsula broadly known as Al-Andalus...

, Mozarabic was substituted either by Arabic or by Northern Romance varieties, depending on the area and century.

Documents in Mozarabic (Old Southern Iberian Romance)

Some texts found in manuscripts of poetry in Muslim Iberian Peninsula (Al-Andalus), although mainly written in Arabic, have however some stanzas in mozarabic (Latino) or in what seems to be Mozarabic. These are important texts because there are few examples of written Mozarabic language.

In Late Latin and Early romance Roger Wright also makes an analysis of these poetry texts known as kharjas:

Muslim Spain has acquired philological interest for a further reason: the kharjas. These are apparently bilingual (Arabic-Romance) or macaronic final stanzas of some verses in the Hispano-Arabic muwashshaha form discovered in some Arabic and Hebrew manuscripts (...). Analyses of these have been hampered in the past by the belief that we know too little about mozárabe Romance to discuss the "Romance" element on a sound basis; but this is not entirely true. (...) The detailed investigations by Galmés de Fuentes (e.g. 1977, 1980) on later documents and toponyms have established the main features of mozárabe phonology, and many features of its morphology (...). The conclusion seems to be that mozárabe Romance is not particularly different from that of other parts of Iberia.

Sample text (11th century)

Mozarabic:	Spanish:	Catalan:	Portuguese:	Latin:	Standard Arabic	Arabic transliteration	English	Old Spanish:	Old Portuguese:
Mio sîdî Sidi Sidi is a masculine title of respect, meaning "my master" in Western Arabic language and Egyptian Arabic equivalent to modern popular usage of the English Mr.... ïbrâhîm yâ tú, uemme dolge! Fente mib de nohte. In non, si non keris, irey-me tib, gari-me a ob legar-te.	Mi señor Ibrahim, ¡o tú, hombre dulce! Ven a mí de noche. Si no, si no quieres, yo me iré contigo, dime dónde encontrarte.	El meu senyor Ibrahim, oh tu, home dolç! Vine't a mi de nit. Si no, si no vols, aniré'm a tu, digues-me a on trobar-te.	Meu senhor Ibrahim, ó tu, homem doce! Vem a mim de noite. Se não, se não quiseres, ir-me-ei a ti, diz-me onde encontrar-te.	O domine mi Ibrahim, o tu, homo dulcis! Veni mihi nocte. Si non, si non vis, ibo tibi, dic mihi ubi te inveniam.	سيدي إبراهيم، يا رجلاً حلواً. تعال اليَّ بالليل. وإن كنت لا تريد، سأذهب أنا إليك. قل لي أين أجدك.	Sīdi ʾibrāhīm yā rajulan ħulwan! taʿāla ʾilay-ya bi-l-layli wa-ʾin kunta lā turīdu sa-ʾaðhabu ʾanā ilay-ka qul l-ī ʾayna ʾajidu-ka	My lord Ibrahim, O you, sweet man! Come to me at night. If not, if you do not want to come, I shall go to you, tell me where to find you.	Mi Sennor Ibrahim, o te, dolçe omber! fente a mi de nogtie. Se nonn, se nonn gieres, [something is missing here] dezeme obe incontrarete.	Meu snor Ibrahim Oh, tu, home dulse! Vem a mi de noute Ssi non, ssi non queres Hirme hey a ti Dizme u encontrarte

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