Andalusian Arabic


Andalusian Arabic, also known as Andalusi Arabic, was a variety or varieties of Arabic spoken in al-Andalus, the regions of the Iberian Peninsula under Muslim rule from the 9th century to the 17th century. It became an extinct language in Iberia after the expulsion of the Moriscos, which took place over a century after the Granada War by the Catholic Monarchs of Spain. Once widely spoken in Iberia, the expulsions and persecutions of Arabic speakers caused an abrupt end to the language's use on the peninsula. Its use continued to some degree in Africa after the expulsion, although Andalusi speakers were rapidly assimilated by the Maghrebi communities to which they fled.

Origin and history

Andalusian Arabic appears to have spread rapidly and been in general oral use in most parts of Al-Andalus between the 9th and 15th centuries. The number of speakers is estimated to have peaked at around 5–7 million speakers around the 11th and 12th centuries before dwindling as a consequence of the Reconquista, the gradual but relentless takeover by the Christians. In 1502, the Muslims of Granada were forced to choose between conversion and exile; those who converted became known as the Moriscos. In 1526, this requirement was extended to the Muslims elsewhere in Spain. In 1567, Philip II of Spain issued a royal decree in Spain forbidding Moriscos from the use of 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 a "Christian" language, after which they would have to get rid of all Arabic written material. This triggered one of the largest revolts, the Rebellion of the Alpujarras. Still, Andalusian Arabic remained in use in certain areas of Spain until the final expulsion of the Moriscos at the beginning of the 17th century.
As in every other Arabic-speaking land, native speakers of Andalusian Arabic were diglossic, that is, they spoke their local dialect in all low-register situations, but only Classical Arabic was resorted to when a high register was required and for written purposes as well.
Andalusian Arabic belongs to the pre-Hilalian dialects of the Maghrebi Arabic family, with its closest relative being Moroccan Arabic. Like other Maghrebi Arabic dialects, Andalusian does not differentiate between sedentary and bedouin varieties. By contrast, Andalusian does not show any detectable difference between religious communities, such as Muslim Muladis, Christian Mozarabs, and Jews, unlike in North Africa where Judeo-Arabic dialects were common.
The oldest evidence of Andalusian Arabic utterances can be dated from the 10th and 11th century, in isolated quotes, both in prose and stanzaic Classical Andalusi poems, and then, from the 11th century on, in stanzaic dialectal poems and dialectal proverb collections, while its last documents are a few business records and one letter written at the beginning of the 17th century in Valencia.
Andalusi Arabic is still used in Andalusian classical music and has significantly influenced the dialects of such towns as Sfax in Tunisia, Tétouan and Tangier in Morocco, Nedroma, Tlemcen, Blida, and Cherchell in Algeria, and Alexandria in Egypt. Modern Spanish converts to Islam have tried to revive the language.
The language also exerted some influence on Mozarabic, Spanish, Ladino, Catalan-Valencian-Balearic, Portuguese, Classical Arabic and Moroccan, Tunisian, Egyptian, Hassani and Algerian Arabics.

Features of Andalusian Arabic

Many features of Andalusian Arabic have been reconstructed by Arabists using Hispano-Arabic texts composed in Arabic with varying degrees of deviation from classical norms, augmented by further information from the manner in which the Arabic script was used to transliterate Romance words.

Phonology

The phoneme represented by the letter ق in texts is a point of contention. The letter, which in Classical Arabic represented either a voiceless pharyngealized velar stop or a voiceless uvular stop, most likely represented some kind of post-alveolar affricate or velar plosive in Andalusian Arabic.
The vowel system was subject to a heavy amount of fronting and raising, a phenomenon known as imāla, causing to be raised, probably to or and, particularly with short vowels, in certain circumstances, particularly when i-mutation was possible.
Contact with native Romance speakers led to the introduction of the phonemes, and, possibly, the affricate from loanwordss.
Monophthongization led to the disappearance of certain diphthongs such as and which were leveled to and, respectively, though Colin hypothesizes that these diphthongs remained in the more mesolectal registers influenced by the Classical language.
There was a fair amount of compensatory lengthening involved where a loss of consonantal gemination lengthened the preceding vowel, whence the transformation of عشّ into عوش.

Syntax and morphology

The -an which, in Classical Arabic, marked a noun as indefinite accusative case, became an indeclinable conjunctive particle, as in ibn Quzmān's expression rajul-an 'ashīq.
The unconjugated prepositive negative particle lis developed out of the classical verb lays-a.
The derivational morphology of the verbal system was substantially altered. Whence the initial n- on verbs in the first person singular, a feature shared by many Maghrebi varieties. Likewise the form V pattern of tafaʻʻal-a was altered by epenthesis to atfa``al.
Andalusi Arabic developed a contingent/subjunctive tense consisting of the imperfect form of a verb, preceded by either kān or kīn, of which the final -n was normally assimilated by preformatives y- and t-. An example drawn from Ibn Quzmān will illustrate this:
ExampleTransliterationEnglish translation
lis ki-ttarānī
You would not see me
if I were not still moaning''