Historical dialect of Arabic spoken in Sicily following the Muslim conquest in the 9th century
Siculo-Arabic
or
Sicilian Arabic
(
Arabic
:
?????????? ????????????? ??????????????
,
romanized
:
al-lahja l-?arabiyya ?-?iqilliyya
) is the term used for varieties of
Arabic
that were spoken in the
Emirate of Sicily
(which included
Malta
) from the 9th century, persisting under the subsequent
Norman rule
until the 13th century.
[3]
It was derived from Arabic following the
Abbasid conquest
of Sicily in the 9th century and gradually marginalized following the
Norman conquest
in the 11th century.
Siculo-Arabic is extinct and is designated as a historical language that is attested only in writings from the 9th?13th centuries in Sicily.
[4]
[5]
However, present-day
Maltese
is considered to be its sole surviving descendant, it being in foundation a
Semitic language
that evolved from one of the dialects of Siculo-Arabic over the past 800 years, though in a gradual process of
Latinisation
that gave Maltese a significant
Romance
superstrate
influence.
[6]
[7]
[8]
By contrast, present-day
Sicilian
, which is an
Italo-Dalmatian
Romance language, retains very little Siculo-Arabic, with its influence being limited to some 300 words.
[9]
History
[
edit
]
Introduction to Sicily
[
edit
]
During the 7th and 8th centuries, Sicily was raided from
Tunis
. The eventual Muslim Arab conquest of Byzantine Sicily was piecemeal and slow. The region was a frontier zone, even after the
fall of Taormina
in 962, which completed the invasion. Romance languages, such as
African Romance
, and
Byzantine Greek
continued to be used in the island well after the Arabic conquest.
[10]
Its speakers were largely made up of Sicilian Muslims. However, based on the foundation charter on the
Church of Santa Maria dell'Ammiraglio
(written in both Greek and Arabic), it can be speculated that Siculo-Arabic was also the mother tongue for many Sicilian, in this case Palermo’s,
Orthodox Christians
.
[11]
Norman kingdom of Sicily
[
edit
]
When the Normans entered Sicily, the island was divided into two main non-Latin linguistic groups:
In 1086, the Normans managed to secure the conversion of the last important
Kalbid
ruler of
Enna
Ibn Hamud.
[12]
This conversion along with the Norman adoption of many Arab governing customs resulted in the emergence of a Christian Siculo-Arabic language. During the Norman era the
chancery
office operated in Arabic, Greek and Latin.
[13]
The
Nuzhat al-musht?q fi'khtir?q al-?f?q
(
Arabic
:
???? ??????? ?? ?????? ??????
, lit. "the book of pleasant journeys into faraway lands"), most often known as the
Tabula Rogeriana
(lit.
The Book of Roger
in
Latin
) is a description of the world and
world map
created by the Palermo-based
Arab geographer
Muhammad al-Idrisi
in 1154. Al-Idrisi worked on the commentaries and illustrations of the map for fifteen years at the court of the
Norman
King
Roger II of Sicily
, who commissioned the work around 1138.
[14]
[15]
[
clarification needed
]
Decline after 1200
[
edit
]
In the post-conquest period, both Arabic and Greek were sometimes used by the new rulers and subsequently used in the king's fiscal administration, which managed royal lands and men in Sicily and
Calabria
.
[16]
The many documents that it issued are among the main and most important sources for Arabic in Sicily. However, when the
Hohenstaufen
replaced the Normans, Arabic was dropped as a language of government in 1194
[17]
and the Hohenstaufen expelled the remaining Muslims to
Lucera
and North Africa in the 13th century. Due to the expulsions, the only remaining Siculo-Arabic speakers were Christians.
[18]
When the
Aragonese
took Sicily, they introduced Catalan nobility, made Latin the only official language; Greek and Arabic official records in Sicily ceased to exist by the 14th century.
[19]
Arabic influence
continued in a number of
Sicilian
words. Most of these terms relate to
agriculture
and related activities.
Maltese language
[
edit
]
The modern language derived from the Siculo-Arabic spoken in
Malta
is known as
Maltese
. While "Siculo-Arabic" refers to the language spoken before 1300, hardly any records exist from the 14th century, and the earliest record in the Maltese language is
Il-Kantilena
(
Xidew il-Qada
) by
Pietru Caxaro
(late 15th century), which is written in the Latin script.
Maltese evolved from Siculo-Arabic through a gradual process of Latinisation following the re-Christianisation of Malta (which was complete by 1250).
[20]
Some items of Siculo-Arabic vocabulary are comparable with later items found in Maltese. Although Siculo-Arabic has had a relatively minor influence on modern-day
Sicilian
, this language shares many words of Arabic etymology, which may originate either in Spanish or Siculo-Arabic itself. Some examples are shown in the table a small sample:
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
"ISO 639-3 Registration Authority Request for Change to ISO 639-3 Language Code"
(PDF)
. Retrieved
18 April
2024
.
Siculo Arabic is the term used for the variety (or varieties) of Arabic spoken in Sicily under the Arabs and then the Normans from the 9th to 13th centuries.
- ^
Martine Vanhove,
≪ De quelques traits prehilaliens en maltais ≫
, in:
Peuplement et arabisation au Maghreb cccidental : dialectologie et histoire
, Casa Velazquez - Universidad de Zaragoza (1998), pp.97-108
- ^
"ISO 639-3 Registration Authority Request for Change to ISO 639-3 Language Code"
(PDF)
.
- ^
"639 Identifier Documentation: sqr"
.
- ^
"ISO 639-3 Registration Authority Request for New Language Code Element in ISO 639-3"
(PDF)
.
- ^
"ISO 639-3 Registration Authority Request for New Language Code Element in ISO 639-3"
(PDF)
.
- ^
So who are the 'real' Maltese
. 14 September 2014.
Archived
from the original on 2016-03-12.
The kind of Arabic used in the Maltese language is most likely derived from the language spoken by those that repopulated the island from Sicily in the early second millennium; it is known as Siculo-Arab. The Maltese are mostly descendants of these people.
- ^
Brincat, 2005.
Maltese ? an unusual formula
.
Originally Maltese was an Arabic dialect but it was immediately exposed to Latinisation because the Normans conquered the islands in 1090, while Christianisation, which was complete by 1250, cut off the dialect from contact with Classical Arabic. Consequently Maltese developed on its own, slowly but steadily absorbing new words from Sicilian and Italian according to the needs of the developing community.
{{
cite book
}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (
link
)
- ^
Ruffino, Giovanni (2001).
Sicilia
. Editori Laterza, Bari. pp. 18?20.
- ^
Martin Haspelmath; Uri Tadmor (22 December 2009).
Loanwords in the World's Languages: A Comparative Handbook
. Walter de Gruyter. p. 195.
ISBN
978-3-11-021844-2
.
- ^
Nicklies, Charles Edward (1992).
The architecture of the church of SS. Pietro e Paolo d'Agro, Sicily
.
Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship
(Thesis). University of Illinois
. Retrieved
7 February
2017
.
- ^
The Age of Robert Guiscard, 2000, Page 171
- ^
Siculo Arabic, Dionisius Agius, 1996, pp. 79?88.
- ^
Houben, 2002, pp. 102?104.
- ^
Harley & Woodward, 1992, pp. 156?161.
- ^
Paolo Collura, Le Piu antiche carte dell'Archivio capitolare di Agrigento (1092?1282), 1961, pp. 120?126
- ^
Metcalfe, Alex (2018).
"Language and the Written Record: Loss, Survival and Revival in Early Norman Sicily"
. In Mandala, Giuseppe; Martin, Inmaculada Perez (eds.).
Multilingual and Multigraphic Documents and Manuscripts of East and West
. pp. 1?32.
doi
:
10.31826/9781463240004-002
.
ISBN
9781463240004
.
S2CID
198864444
.
- ^
S. Gleixner, Sprachrohr kaiserlichen Willens, 2006, pp. 412?413
- ^
"Kingdoms of Italy ? Sicily"
.
- ^
Brincat, 2005.
Maltese ? an unusual formula
.
Archived
from the original on 2015-12-08.
Originally Maltese was an Arabic dialect but it was immediately exposed to Latinisation because the Normans conquered the islands in 1090, while Christianisation, which was complete by 1250, cut off the dialect from contact with Classical Arabic. Consequently Maltese developed on its own, slowly but steadily absorbing new words from Sicilian and Italian according to the needs of the developing community.
{{
cite book
}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (
link
)
Sources
[
edit
]
External links
[
edit
]
- Agius, Dionisius A.
"Who Spoke Siculo Arabic?"
,
XII Incontro Italiano di Linguistica Camitio-semitica (Afroasiatica), ATTI a cura di Marco Moriggi
, Rubbettino 2007. 25?33.
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