From early middle to late middle Judezmo: the Ottoman component as a demarcating factor

Abstract

In Spain of the Middle Ages, the distinct religious and cultural traditions of the country’s Christian, Muslim and Jewish inhabitants led to the rise of three distinctive co-territorial and contemporaneous varieties of Castilian. In original writing composed by members of these three speech communities, most of the grammatical features were shared. But in vernacular translations of their sacred texts, and even in the original writing, certain other linguistic features were unique to each religious group. For one thing, each group wrote its vernacular in the alphabet taught in its religious schools and used in its most sacred religious texts: Christians, in the Roman alphabet of the Latin Bible and Catholic liturgy; Muslims, in the Arabic script of the Quran; and Jews, in the Hebrew letters of the Bible and Talmud. In translations of their sacred works, the Jews and Muslims employed calques and other syntactic constructions mirror-imaging the original Hebrew or Arabic sources, as well as archaizing grammatical forms lending an antique flavour. During the period of Jewish residence in Spain, the Spanish Catholic Church frowned upon translating the Bible into the vernacular; but the Jews cultivated a literal translation language, incorporating some rabbinical exegesis, into which boys were taught to translate sections of the Bible as part of their elementary education. The translations were also used to a certain extent in the synagogue. Muslims lost their knowledge of Arabic and adopted Ibero-Romance, they too began to translate their sacred texts into a distinctive Castilian...

U srednjovekovnoj Španiji, različite verske i kulturne tradicije hrišćanskih, muslimanskih i jevrejskih stanovnika ove zemlje dovele su do uspona tri karakteristične koteritorijalne i istovremene varijante kastiljanskog jezika. U originalnom pisanju sastavljenom od članova ove tri govorne zajednice, većina gramatičkih obeležja bila su podeljena. Ali u narodnim prevodima njihovih svetih tekstova, pa čak i u originalnom pisanju, neke druge jezičke karakteristike bile su jedinstvene za svaku versku grupu. Kao prvo, svaka grupa je pisala svoj narodni jezik alfabetom koji se učio u njenim verskim školama i koristio u njenim najsvetijim verskim tekstovima: hrišćani, rimskim pismom latinske Biblije i katoličke liturgije; muslimani, na arapskom pismu Kurana; i Jevreji, hebrejskim slovima Biblije i Talmuda. U prevodima svojih svetih dela, Jevreji i muslimani su koristili kalkove i druge sintaksičke konstrukcije koje odražavaju originalne hebrejske ili arapske izvore, kao i arhaizirajući gramatičke forme dajući antički prizvuk. Tokom perioda boravka Jevreja u Španiji, španska katolička crkva nije blagonaklono gledala na prevođenje Biblije na narodni jezik; ali Jevreji su negovali jezik doslovnog prevoda, uključujući neke rabinske egzegeze, pomoću kojih su dečaci učili da prevode delove Biblije kao deo svog osnovnog obrazovanja. Prevodi su u izvesnoj meri korišćeni i u sinagogi. Muslimani su izgubili znanje arapskog i usvojili iberoromanski jezik, pa su i oni počeli da prevode svoje svete tekstove na prepoznatljiv kastiljanski jezik...