Mozarabic language

Mozarabic was a continuum of closely related Iberian Romance dialects spoken in Muslim dominated areas of the Iberian Peninsula during the early stages of 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 muwashahas. 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 Catalan (especially the Valencian variety), which explains why these languages have so many words of Arabic origin (Mozarabic was, understandably, quite influenced by Arabic and vice versa).

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

See also Mozarab, aljamiado, Andalusi Arabic, Ladino.