Content deleted Content added
wikify lead |
No edit summary |
||
Line 3:
Modern day Spanish (or Castilian) first appeared in the small Christian [[Kingdom of Castile]] in Northern Spain during this period of Islamic domination over most of the Iberian peninsula. As a result, the language was influenced by [[Andalusi Arabic]] practically from its inception. Nevertheless, Arabic imprint on the language increased as it expanded into Muslim lands where the Castilian language had never been spoken and as Christians from [[Al Andalus]] emmigrated to Castile during times of sectarian violence in Muslim lands. In most of Al Andalus, Arabic was used among the local élites and local Arabic-influenced Romance dialects, known collectively as [[Mozarabic]] were generally used as the vernacular language. Only the [[kingdom of Granada]], under the [[Nasrid dynasty]] was totally arabized after many centuries of Muslim rule.
Modern Spanish is thus a mixture of Old Castilian and the Mozarabic dialects which it absorbed. This fusion explains why Spanish has, in many cases, both Latin and Arabic derived words of the same meaning. For example, ''Aceituna'' and ''Oliva'', ''Alacrán'' and ''Escorpión'', ''Jaqueca'' and ''Migraña'' or ''Alcancía'' and ''Hucha''. The imprint of Mozarabic and Arabic is evidently more noticeable in the dialects of Castilian Spanish spoken in southern Spain, particularly Murcian and Andalusian Spanish, than in northern Spain.
Although the influence of Arabic on Spanish is fundamentally lexical, other influences are also examined in this article.
| |||