Wiktionary:About Mozarabic

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Mozarabic is a blanket term for indigenous Romance varieties that developed in the parts of Iberia under Islamic rule from 711 CE onward.

Direct attestations are only found in Arabic or Hebrew script. They include the famous kharjas and two Arabic glossaries from Al-Andalus that mention Romance vocabulary, Vocabulista in arabico from the thirteenth century and ʿUmda from the twelfth century (كتاب عمدة الطبيب في معرفة النبات لكل لبيب, before its publication extracted as Botánico anónimo). Indirect attestations of Mozarabic include apparent borrowings into other languages of Iberia, including Andalusi Arabic.

Mozarabic lemmas should only be added if they are attested in one of the above sources, and they should be provided in the precise Arabic or Hebrew spelling that is attested. In addition, every entry must include a quotation to support it. (The only exception to these two rules are reconstructed forms, which should only be taken from a reliable source.)

It is advised to cite cognates in other Ibero-Romance languages to provide some idea of the vowels that one might expect in Mozarabic.

Kharjas[edit]

Data module[edit]

The kharjas, along with their transliterations and translations, have been centralized to this module. (More detailed information, including citations, is kept at the appendix.) For an example of how to invoke this module, see the entry פראיו (frʔyw).

Only the portions of the kharjas whose interpretation is fairly secure should be quoted as evidence for the existence of Mozarabic words. For this, see the sections of the appendix dedicated to 'convincing Romance words'. There is also an index at the end.

Arabic terms[edit]

The Mozarabic kharjas—including those written in Hebrew script—are characterized by frequent code-switching between Romance and Arabic, by far the dominant language of the genre. (Even some of the 'Mozarabic' kharjas are nearly entirely in Arabic.) This makes it difficult to decide which, if any, of the Arabic terms found in them truly represent borrowings into Mozarabic. For that reason, it is advisable to have such words lemmatized as either Arabic or Andalusian Arabic, at the discretion of the respective editing communities.

Further reading[edit]