Some notes on Mozarabic (and some reading practice)

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dva_arla
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Some notes on Mozarabic (and some reading practice)

Post by dva_arla »

Orthography ارتوغرفیة

Code: Select all

ا	a
ب	b
پ*	p
ت	t
ث**	t ~ s
ج	j /ʒ/
چ*	ch /tʃ/
ح	h
خ	h
د	d
ذ**	[s]d ~[/s] z
ر	r
ز	[s]z[/s] /(d)ʒ/
س	ç /s/
ش	s /s̪ ~ ʃ/
ص	s or ts
ض	d
ط	t
ظ	d
ع	h
غ	g
ف	f
ق	c ~ g
ك	c
ل	l
م	m
ہ	ø ~ h
و	o, u, gu
ي	i, y

certain mergers:
ت ط /t/
ج ذ ز /z/
س ص /s/

Notes:
*two additions seldom (if at all) used in historical Mozarabic to transcribe sounds which are more frequently written by the letter immediately preceding each in the table (ج for both /(d)ʒ/ and /tʃ/, ب for /b~β/ and /p/. Spanish Wikipedia asserts a certain "Lenición de la P- latina en B-"; this I, however, think was quite unlikely.
**pronounciation of the letters corresponding to Arabic dental fricatives is yet to be ascertained; they are, however, unlikely to be pronounced as such -- dental fricatives in Spanish only began to appear ca. the 15th century. Further research is wanting.

The title of this thread written in Mozarabic:

الغونش نوطش شوبرا اندلسي
Last edited by dva_arla on 08 Dec 2021 23:33, edited 1 time in total.
Conlangs in progress:
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Re: Some notes on Mozarabic (and some reading practice)

Post by dva_arla »

Features: Old Andalusian outcomes of Romance vowels & consonants

Vowels
  • More general diphthongisation O > ue, E > ie "more developed in the north of Al-Andalus and almost non-existent in the South. (would have to look this up) As in Asturleonian it seems that the diphthong did not develop before N"
  • O > ue, E > ie _(y, ll)
  • Latin AU preserved (with some exceptions), also AI from loans (Basque, Arabic)
  • AL > au / _C (Castillian > o)
  • /rj/ > IR / _V (Castillian > ei, e)
  • Final vowels tend to drop especially in words with endings:
    - -CEUM, -CIUM : /kju/ > /tʃu/ > /tʃ/
    - -(A,E,O,U)TUM
  • pl. f. ending -AS > /eʃ/
Consonants
  • Latin F, CL-, PL-, FL- preserved (Castilian > h, ll)
  • GE- > ye-
  • Elision of intervocalic -G-
  • C,T _e,i > /tʃ/, /ʃ/, or /ts/ (dialectal or diachronical variation? Would have to look this up)
    edit: perhaps dialectal; /tʃ/ characteristic of Andalus, and /ts/ to the north. Note that documents written in Aljamiado are not only found in Andalus; some are of Castilian and Valencian provenance and may therefore reflect the local tongues.
  • /s/ ~ /ʃ/ in free (or dialectal?) variation
  • -D- always preserved (in Castilian sometimes elided)
  • intervocalic voiceless stops -P-, -T-, -C- preserved
  • intervocalic geminated stops preserved
  • intervocalic clusters -MB-, -ND-, -MN- preserved
  • distinction between -B- and -V- maintained? (contentious), but
  • initial V- > b- as in Castilian
  • NJ, GN, NN, -NI- > /ɲ/, LL, -LI- > /ʎ/ (as in Castilian)
  • intervocalic -C'L-, -T'L-, -C'C-, -T'C- > /ʎ/ > /tʃ/ (' representing an elided Latin unstressed vowel)
  • CT > /ht/ ~ /xt/
Last edited by dva_arla on 08 Dec 2021 23:53, edited 2 times in total.
Conlangs in progress:
Modern Khotanese
Modern Gandhari
?? - Japonic language in the Mekong Delta
Locna - Indo-European language in N. Syria
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A British romlang, &c.
dva_arla
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Re: Some notes on Mozarabic (and some reading practice)

Post by dva_arla »

Features: Grammar

Conjugation:

present indicative
3 sg. -d

past perfect in
1 sg. -áy ( < -avi)

future
1 sg. -áy(o) ( < habeo)
2 sg. -ás
3 sg. -ád

past perfect
3 pl. -eron (infix -er-, also in the rest of the conjugation?)

imperfect
2 sg. without -r : vení, probably amá
2 pl. -ti ~ -di ('castilismo?') : amati

Particles:

particle en (function similar to the French particle written in the exact same manner?)
adverbs ob, dón, adún, cand, labas
conjunction ed
prepositions ad, so, por
accented pronouns mibi, tibi (probably also sibi)
possessive pronouns meu, teu, seu
postverbal complements: quered lo, vaise vs. Castilian lo quiere, se va

Syntax: absence of compound verbal forms
Conlangs in progress:
Modern Khotanese
Modern Gandhari
?? - Japonic language in the Mekong Delta
Locna - Indo-European language in N. Syria
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Sequor
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Re: Some notes on Mozarabic (and some reading practice)

Post by Sequor »

I find the Mozarabic material on Wikipedia and Wiktionary highly untrustworthy btw. It seems a conlanger or two who passes an expansion/conlang of Mozarabic as the real thing have done much of the damage...
dva_arla wrote: 08 Dec 2021 15:48Orthography ارتوغرفیة
ارتوغرفیة ortoġrafiyya... Again, please don't pass a conlang as the real thing. Why include this unattested Greek-derived word, creating it back from Spanish?

People looking at this thread may benefit from reading Alan Jones' Romance kharjas in Andalusian Arabic Muwaššaḥ poetry: A palaeographical analysis (1988, libgenable), which really brings home the great difficulties involved in the decipherment of Mozarabic, and even the high number of blunders and indolent mistakes that exist in quite a bit of the available research literature.
hīc sunt linguificēs. hēr bēoþ tungemakeras.
dva_arla
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Re: Some notes on Mozarabic (and some reading practice)

Post by dva_arla »

Sequor wrote: 09 Dec 2021 20:54 I find the Mozarabic material on Wikipedia and Wiktionary highly untrustworthy btw. It seems a conlanger or two who passes an expansion/conlang of Mozarabic as the real thing have done much of the damage...
Modern "reconstructions" of extinct languages are bound to contain such 'expansions'; occasionally vocabulary, grammatical constructions, etc. needed to be expressed are simply lacking in the materials attested hitherto; this is one of the things that are most certainly bound to happen in using an extinct language in a modern context.
Sequor wrote: 09 Dec 2021 20:54Why include this unattested Greek-derived word, creating it back from Spanish?
I doubt that a Mozarabic word for 'orthography' is going to be found in the attested material, and a hunch tells me that Mozarabic would have been unlikely to loan the word from Arabic (imlé?) But my knowledge of Mozarabic at this point is not sufficiently mature; I am merely sharing what I know of the language. Hope to make more informed decision in the future.
Sequor wrote: 09 Dec 2021 20:54 I find the Mozarabic material on Wikipedia and Wiktionary highly untrustworthy btw.

People looking at this thread may benefit from reading Alan Jones' Romance kharjas in Andalusian Arabic Muwaššaḥ poetry: A palaeographical analysis (1988, libgenable), which really brings home the great difficulties involved in the decipherment of Mozarabic, and even the high number of blunders and indolent mistakes that exist in quite a bit of the available research literature.
Would you be so kind as to share more titles with us? (Spanish) Wikipedia is as good as a first stepping stone, but I shall be glad to augment it with more authoritative material. Galmes de Fuentes Dialectologia mozarabe is the only one I have in my repertoire so far; it will take some time for me to grasp its contents, for I do not read much Spanish...
Conlangs in progress:
Modern Khotanese
Modern Gandhari
?? - Japonic language in the Mekong Delta
Locna - Indo-European language in N. Syria
Wexford Norse
A British romlang, &c.
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