Is Arabic a Spanish language?

Alternate Titles

• Uses of Arabic in early modern Spain

Description

"Starting in the sixteenth century, a new interest in Oriental languages arose in Europe, and in particular an interest in Arabic. This interest in Arabic stemmed from the textual study of the Bible, which so absorbed European scholars in the age of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. This is, then, an early "Orientalism" that has little to do with colonial enterprises, and follows different paths than those outlined by Said in his famous book Orientalism. It has traditionally been argued that Spain played no part in forming this Orientalist knowledge. In fact, from its European contemporaries of the sixteenth century down to the historiography of the twentieth century, Spain was essentially held to be an Oriental country itself, and therefore more of an object of "Orientalism" than an actual producer of Orientalist learning. This paper focuses on these two assumptions by examining the situation of the study of Arabic in Spain, and showing how in Spain Arabic scholars were immersed in a very specific context and in an ideological debate in which the role of the Arabic language was a crucial one. Throughout the sixteenth century there were significant populations of Arabic speakers living in Spanish territory. Spain's relationship with these minorities, known as Moriscos or converted Muslims, was highly conflictive, and eventually lead to an identification of Arabic with Islam. The central aim of this paper is to examine the complexity of the relationship between early modern Spain and the Arabic language, including the language's ambiguous standing, the need to de-Islam it, and the different purposes for which it was employed. In particular, this talk will highlight the tension between impure origins (those of the converts from Judaism and Islam) versus sacred origins, and the efforts that were made to write an account of the sacred origins of Spain that would allow Jews and Muslims to be incorporated into the nation's past. I will be dealing here with the different and complex ways in which Spanish early modern Christian society used Arabic as a tool to think about itself"--[page 1]

Subjects

Series Statement

• James K. Binder lectureship in literature -- number ten
• James K. Binder lectureship in literature -- no. 10.