Siculo Arabic

This book re-examines the socio-linguistic situation in Sicily during both the Islamic (213-485/827-1091) and the Norman (485-681/1091-1282) rules. Together with Islam and Christianity, the customs of the local people mixed with those of the Arabs, Berbers, Normans, Lombards and others. This assimilation is called Siculo Arabic. It became cemented with linguistic features fusing Arabic and Romance elements. It is evident from this study that three linguistic communities emerged during the Islamic and Norman periods. One was isolated culturally and linguistically from Islam and Arabic, the second had a common cultural affiliation into which Muslims were brought up with a common language, i.e. Arabic, and the third commonly accultured to Islam and spoke a pidginized and later creolized form of Arabic but remained affiliated to Christianity. The data collected in these varieties facilitates the reconstruction of a phonological and, to some extent, morphological patterning that will allow future researchers to compare the results given here with other collateral material.

First Published in 1996. Within a span of three hundred years Sicily underwent two processes of ethnic, cultural and linguistic transformation. Under the Arab rule it witnessed a period of change from Hellenization and Christianization to Arabization and Islamization. This study looks at Arabization and Arabicization with Arabization means the process of conforming to a culture and an ethnic community, in this case Arab, while Arabicization a process of adopting Arabic as a language or dialect which was socially and economically advantageous at the time.

1 Introduction Chapter One The Land of the Siculans Chapter Two The Siculo Arabic: Ethnic and Social Features Chapter Three The Socio-Linguistic Scene of Islamic and Post-Islamic Sicily Chapter Four The Role of Ibn Makki in Siculo Arabic Chapter Five Siculo-Latin Arabic: Phonological Correspondences Chapter Six Siculo-Arabic: Phonological Correspondences Chapter Seven Romance and Greek Interferences in Siculo-Arabic Chapter Eight Siculo-Middle Arabic

Dionisius A. Agius