Mozarabic culture

Spanish natives who converted to Islam were known as Muladi; those who remained Christians or Jews but just dressed and talked in an Arabic manner were Mozarabs. Mozarabic culture left a huge imprint on Spain; it was the majority culture for about 500 years.

In the last entry, I talked about irrigation and imported plants, like artichokes, spinach, and oranges. Arabic words were in everyday use for all of these things; their word for a water-mill is still at root an Arabic word: Noria. (The noria is particularly a wheel that lifts and moves water, instead of using water for power.) Many more Arabic words were adopted for plants, and some have come into English: jasmine, sandalwood, and camphor.

Many Spanish words for parts of government and the legal system are also Arabic. This isn’t surprising; the same thing happened in English when the Normans ruled as foreign invaders. A lot of our words relating to law and prison are of not only Latin, but specifically French origin. (“Prison” refers to being “taken,” from the French verb prendre.) So the same thing happened in Spanish: words for notary, will, invoice, judge and jailor were all Arabic. One of the words, tariff, came into English. They also kept some terms of abuse and insult, and a few of these came into English via Spanish: loco, mulatto and marrano. (There are lots more, mostly curses shouted at lazy workers.) It’s possible that the famous cry of “Olé!” came from Arabic “Wallah!” If a Spaniard says, “oh, I wish!” with the term “Ojalá,” it may be a relic of Inshallah.

Arabic gave Spanish most of its words for horses. Spain had some Latin words, but the Arabic rulers were horse specialists who needed particular words for parts of horse anatomy, gear, and stabling. Two Spanish color words, used only for horses and cows, came from Arabic.

As we’ll see in a soon-coming entry on the city of Cordoba, the Arabic rulers were ambitious builders. Spain until this time had been more of a farming society with fishing and shipping towns on the coast. The Umayyad line established by Abd al-Rahman was intent on creating an Andalusia that was not only independent of Damascus and Baghdad, but just as splendid or better. Nearly all Spanish words for construction methods, architecture and urban planning (neighborhood, sewer) are from Arabic.

A few of these words came into English, for example “alcove,” which came from Arabic al-qubba, an arch. Adobe is not only from Arabic, it’s originally Coptic (true Egyptian): al-tobe, clay. Al-makhzan, a storage area, came to us as French magasin (a store) and English magazine (storage of weapons, then storage of literary items). Arsenal meant in Arabic a factory; its name came into European use first as the name of the shipbuilding yard in Venice. Most of the Arabic borrowings start with “a,” because their word for “the” was “al,” and it often got blended into the word itself when borrowed. But some of the city and building words don’t start with A. We have both divan and sofa from Arabic, although divan came later and via Turkish. It’s actually a Persian word for a book; the divans sold by Turkey were like the padded benches used in reading rooms in Baghdad.

Some other ordinary daily words came from Mozarab culture. Lacquer is from al-lacca, a resin they imported from India. Kohl, a word for early eyeshadow, is Arabic. So is talc, and the rook in chess. Most surprising to me was Jar. Yes, the ordinary jar. Most of our stubby little words are from Anglo-Saxon or Danish, but this one was borrowed from al-jarrah, a clay container. Spanish also used al-tazzah, a cup, which we see (via French) in the word “demitasse.”

More Mozarab culture and words in the next entry!

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