Siculo-Arabic
Historical dialect of Arabic spoken in Sicily following the Muslim conquest in the 9th century / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Siculo-Arabic or Sicilian Arabic (Arabic: اللَّهْجَة الْعَرَبِيَّة الصِّقِلِّيَّة, romanized: al-lahja l-ʿarabiyya ṣ-ṣiqilliyya) is the term used for varieties of Arabic that were spoken in the Emirate of Sicily (which included Malta) from the 9th century, persisting under the subsequent Norman rule until the 13th century.[3] It was derived from Arabic following the Abbasid conquest of Sicily in the 9th century and gradually marginalized following the Norman conquest in the 11th century.
Siculo-Arabic | |
---|---|
Sicilian Arabic | |
العربية الصقلية | |
Native to | Emirate of Sicily |
Era | 9th–13th centuries[1] |
Arabic alphabet | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | sqr |
Glottolog | None |
Siculo-Arabic is extinct and is designated as a historical language that is attested only in writings from the 9th–13th centuries in Sicily.[4][5] However, present-day Maltese is considered to be its sole surviving descendant. Maltese evolved from one of the dialects of Siculo-Arabic over the past 800 years and a gradual process of Latinisation that gave Maltese a significant superstrate influence from Romance languages.[6][7][8] By contrast, present-day Sicilian, which is an Italo-Dalmatian language, retains relatively little Siculo-Arabic vocabulary; its influence is limited to some 300 words.[9]