ayearinlanguage: A Year in Language, Day 28: Mozarabic Mozarabic is not, as the name might imply, an
ayearinlanguage: A Year in Language, Day 28: Mozarabic Mozarabic is not, as the name might imply, any kind of Arabic or any Semitic or Afro-Asiatic language. It is, in fact, a medieval variety of Spanish. The word Mozarabic is derived from Arabic “مُسْتَعْرِب, mustarib” which means something like “one who has adopted Arabic culture”. It refers to the Hispanic Christians who lived under Moorish rule in Southern Spain, most specifically those living in the region now know as Andalusia, then Al-Andalus. Mozarabics did not call themselves or the language by that name. As far as they were concerned they were still speaking Latin, though they often wrote it with Arabic or even Hebrew script. It lacked many of the sound changes typical of other Iberian dialects at the time, including Castilian which is what most of us know as Spanish, meaning that at least in some ways it was more like the Latin of the Roman Empire. Andalusian Spanish is one of the primary sources of the introduction of the language to South America. As such many South American varieties of the languages have features, both phonologic (sound related) and lexical (vocabulary), that ultimately descend from Mozarabic influence. -- source link