Mozarabic language

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Mozarabic مُزَرَب muzarab
Spoken in:	Iberia
Language extinction:	by the Late Middle Ages
Language family:	Indo-European Italic Romance Italo-Western Pyrenean-Mozarabic Mozarabic
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	none
ISO 639-2:	`roa`
ISO/FDIS 639-3:	`mxi`
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-based pronunciation key.

Mozarabic was a continuum of closely related Romance dialects spoken in Muslim dominated areas of the Iberian Peninsula during the early stages of the Romance languages' development in Iberia. This set of dialects came to be known as the Mozarabic language, though there was never a common standard. Unlike most Romance languages, Mozarabic was written in the Arabic alphabet rather than the Latin alphabet.

This variety of Romance is the first documented in writing in the Peninsula as choruses (kharjas) (9th century) in Arabic lyrics called muwashshahs. As they were written in Arabic alphabet, the vowels had to be reconstructed. In some aspects, it is more archaic than the other Romance languages.

This Romance variety had a significant impact in the formation of Portuguese, Spanish and especially the Valencian, which explains why these languages have so many words of Andalusi Arabic origin (Mozarabic was, understandably, quite influenced by Arabic and vice versa). In Portugal, the local Mozarabic dialects are known today as Lusitanian-Mozarabic (Lusitano-moçárabe).

The cultural language of Mozarabs continued to be Latin, but as time passed, young Mozarabs studied and even excelled at Arabic.

[edit] Sample text (11th century)

Mozarabic:	Spanish:	Valencian:	Portuguese:	English:
Mio sîdî ïbrâhîm yâ tú uemme dolge fente mib de nohte in non si non keris irey-me tib gari-me a ob legar-te	Mi señor Ibrahim, ¡oh tú, hombre dulce! vente a mí de noche. Si no, si no quieres, iréme a ti, dime a dónde encontrarte.	El meu senyor Ibrahim, oh tu, home dolç! vine't a mi de nit. Si no, si no vols, aniré'm a tu, digues-me a on trobar-te.	Meu senhor Ibrâhim, ó tu, homem doce! vem a mim de noite. Senão, se não quiseres, ir-me-ei a ti, diz-me onde te encontro.	My lord Abraham oh you sweet man Come to me at night. If not, if you don't want to, I will go to you, tell me where to meet you.