Comparative Orthography of Spanish Texts in Arabic and Hebrew Script

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to analyze the basic common and distinctive features of the orthography of Alhamiado and Judesmo.Spanish manuscripts in Arabic and Hebrew scripts are known as the Aljamiado and Judesmo texts. The former were written by the Spanish Muslims during and after the Reconquista, while the Judesmo texts were written by Spanish Jews, for the most part, after the expulsion in 1492. Both types of texts are written in Semitic alphabets, but their orthography differs significantly.In both systems, special notations were developed to indicate Spanish consonants which do not exist in Arabic and Hebrew, using the signs tashdid (ω) in Alhamiado and rafa (ﬞ) in Judesmo. The latter also used combinations with double yod ( י ) to represent Spanish palatal consonants.However, in the vowel sound transmission system, the discrepancies are much greater in Alhamiado and Judesmo. These differences are primarily due to the different ways in which vowels are rendered in the two systems. Alhamiado is based on the vowel system developed in the Arabic Qur’anic literature. While in Judesmo, for this purpose the letters of the Hebrew alphabet were adapted, so they denoted semi-consonant sounds as in the Yiddish spelling system.In addition, a special notation was developed in Alhamiado for the sound denoted by the Latin ‘e’. However, both Alhamiado and Judesmo use a semiconsonant at the beginning of a word with the frontal vowel ʼalif (|) in Alhamiado and aleph (ʪ) in Judesmo. Diphthongs and gapes also use the dividing vowel. In general, the vowel transmission system in Alhamiado is more precise than in Judesmo.