Andalusi Arabic

Andalusi Arabic, also known as Andalusian Arabic, is the variety or varieties of the Arabic language spoken in the Iberian peninsula between the 9th and 17th centuries. Andalusi Arabic was a widely used language in Iberia not only among the indigenous Muslim populations, but among the Christian and Jewish communities as well. Well known examples of Christian and Jewish authors using Andalusian Arabic as a medium include the Christian theologian Hafs ibn Albar al-Quti, and the Jewish rabbi Musa ibn Maymun (also known as Maimonides). Andalusi Arabic flourished for centuries until its use was brought to an end by Christian conquest of Muslim territories of the Iberian peninsula, the process known as the Reconquista. Andalusi Arabic was initially criminalized under Phillip II in 1567, although it continued to be used as a community language by crypto-Muslims. The language became effectively extinct in 1609 with the expulsion of the former Hispanic Muslims from the peninsula. While Andalusi Arabic had effectively ceased to be used, it continued to exert influence upon the dialects of areas of North Africa where the Moriscos and Mudejars settled.

Phonology of Andalusi Arabic

The vowel system of Andalusi Arabic was subject to a heavy amount of fronting and raising, a phenomenon known as imāla, causing /a(ː)/ to be raised, probably to [ɛ] or [e] and, particularly with short vowels, [i] in certain circumstances, particularly when i-mutation was possible.
Imāla occurs if alif follows /j/ immediately or is separated by only one letter. It occurs as well if they are two letters apart if the second letter is hāʾ. Imāla is generally tenser before a long yāʾ than before a short yāʾ: صيام ([sˤijeːm], "fasting") Similarly, imāla occurs if alif is preceded by a letter that is itself preceded by an /i/ sound: إناث ([ʔineːθ], "females"). A non-pharyngealized letter, followed by /i/, can also induce imāla in an alif directly before it. As is the case with /j/, a consonant, if alone or followed byʾ hāʾ, does not stop the process: كافر ([keːfir], "nonbeliever").

Andalusi Arabic was subject to a great deal of vocalic allophony. /i/ and /u/ posessed the allophones [e] and [o] when placed into velar or pharyngeal contours. /i/ was realized as [u] when found in labiovelar contours. /u/ was also realized as [o] when found in closed syllables.
Monophthongization led to the disappearance of certain diphthongs such as /aw/ and /aj/ which were leveled to /oː/ and /eː/, respectively, though Colin hypothesizes that these diphthongs remained in the more mesolectal registers influenced by the Classical language. Alternatively in higher registers, [e] and [o] were only allophones of /i/ and /u/ respectively, while diphthongs were mostly resistant to monophthongization. However, /a/ could turn into [e] or [i] via imāla. In the presence of velar or pharyngeal contour, /a/ was backed into [ɑ] and sometimes even rounded into [o] or [u], or even [ɒ]. This is evidenced by occasional Romance or even local Arabic transcription of /a/ as [o] or [u]. There was a fair amount of compensatory lengthening involved where a loss of consonantal gemination lengthened the preceding vowel, whence the transformation of عشّ /ʕuʃ(ʃ)/ ("nest") into عوش /ʕuːʃ/.
Phillipi's Law stipulates that a stressed /i/ positioned in a closed syllable shifts into an /a/. (i.e AA bant for CA bint).

[p] was at the very least, a marginal phoneme, but a phoneme nonetheless. /p/ "behaved most of the time as an "emphaticised" phoneme, resistant to imālah or palatalisation" thus possibly being pronounced as [pˤ]

[t͡ʃ] was a marginal phoneme used mainly in Romance loanwords. In the Granadan dialect, /t͡ʃ/ represented the evolution of the cluster /st/. In lower registers, [t͡ʃ] was occasionally an allophone of /d͡ʒ/ in word-final position by speakers of Hispanic origin.

The standard pronunciation of ق was most likely [q]. Though it merged with [k] in at least some words.

[ʔ] only survived in word-initial position, while turning into [j] or [w] intravocalically, or sometimes in other positions. Rarely, [ʔ] would turn into [ʕ]. In most other instances, [ʔ] would cause an adjacent vowel to be stressed or would disappear altogether, leaving no trace.

ج was variously realized as [d͡ʒ] or [ʒ]

ق had an alternate and substandard pronunciation of [g] amongst speakers of Hispanic origin, especially bilingual Romance speakers. ج was also alternatively pronounced as [g] by some speakers, although this was marginal.

Under Berber and Romance influence, [b] would sometimes turn into a bilabial spirant (fricative) [β], especially intravocalically. This fricative could turn into [f] via devoicing, thus presumably being realized as [v] before devoicing took place. Sometimes, it further evolved into [w]. Either way, a voiced bilabial or labiodental fricative was "substandard and repressed".

By the time of the Cordoban Caliphate, [dˤ] and [ðˤ] had merged. Thus, ض and ظ would have been pronounced the same.

Grammar of Andalusi Arabic

Morphology

Andalusi Arabic made use of a dual marker (-ayn; sometimes as a variant -īn). Unlike in Classical Arabic, the final nasal is not dropped in suffixation, save for before pronomial suffixes; i.e. شُفَّتَين النّاس 'the people's lips' but في اُذْنَيَّ 'in my ears'.

The regular masculine plural marker for Andalusian Arabic is ين (-in), which following the prevaling trends of Post-Classical Arabic dialects, is indeclinable for case and does not loose its nasal in annexation. The regular plural had begun to encroach on areas formerly dominated by the broken plural, as in the case of adjectives.

The regular feminine plural marker for Andalusian Arabic is ات (-āt), with imālah in the appropriate positions.

Andalusi Arabic exibits the pattern {1u2áyya3}. بَيت > بُوَيّتٌ 'house vs little house'. However, the shape remains unchanged from the Classical Arabic {1u2ay3} for feminine nouns ending in the feminine suffix, and for weak roots (i.e. √12y/w)

In addition to the method above, Andalusi Arabic has borrowed the suffix ل (-él) from Romance, which functions as a diminutive suffix. In addition, Andalusi Arabic borrows and augmentative suffix from Romance as well, represented as ون (-ūn) (غُرّون 'a large jar' from غَرَّ 'jar').

Case inflection no longer exists in Andalusi Arabic. Case endings have either dropped completely or turned into infixes to break up impermissible consonant clusters. Case endings only appear in fossilized forms in Andalusi Arabic.

For gender, the only productive feminine marker is -a(t), in which /t/ is only realized before dual or in annexation.

{fa3V́l} - plain triconsonantal root (1)
{fa3lál} - triconsonantal root with gemination of 2nd consonant, usually has intensitive or causative connotations (2)
{fá3al} - triconsonantal root with lengthening of 1st vowel (3)
{'af3al} - triconsonantal root with prefix 'a-; uncommon in Neo-Arabic, mostly replaced by form 2 (4)
{'atfa3lal} - triconsonantal root with gemination of the 2nd consonant or quadriliteral root and prefix 'at-' (5)
{'atfá3al} - triconsonantal root with the prefix 'at-' and lengthening of the first vowel. Has a reciprocal quality mostly transfered over to 3 (6)
{anfa3ál} - triconsonantal root with prefix 'an-', with a passive connotation more commmon in Neo-Arabic (7)

These basic stems provide the basis of inflection in the perfective aspect.

شَرَب - he drank

Imperfective The stems take on modified forms for inflection in the imperfective. These also take on personal affixes, with 'y-' for the third person, 't-' for the second, and 'n-' for the first person. The matching plurals receive the suffix '-u'. Unlike Classical Arabic, Andalusi Arabic makes no gender distinctions in verbal agreement.

Root 1: {Caf3á/úl}
Root 2: {Cifa33ál}
Root 3: {Cifá3al}
Root 4: {Caf3í/ál}
Root 5: {Catfa33ál}

Subjunctive

Andalusi Arabic developed a contingent/subjunctive mood (after a protasis with the conditional particle law) consisting of the imperfect form of a verb, preceded by either kān or kīn (depending on the register of the speech in question), of which the final -n was normally assimilated by preformatives y- and t-.