Adstrate

Adstratus is the term that designates the influence between two languages that, after having lived together for some time in the same territory, later live in neighboring territories. It stands for parastratum. The same term is also applied by many linguists to designate the mutual influence of two neighboring languages or dialects (for example, in Spain, the influence that occurs between Castilian and Catalan, Galician and Asturian). It can also be defined as a language or dialect that exerts a partial influence, due to geographic contiguity or coexistence or coincidence in time, on another language or dialect: Arabic was an astratum of Spanish. That is, an astratus situation occurs when an indigenous language survives and coexists with the language of the invaders, and while both languages influence the other, neither disappears. For example, all these languages coexist without disappearing, while each one influences all the others.

The Story

The disappearance of the primitive peninsular languages had to be preceded by a period of bilingualism. At first, Latin would be used to understand each other with the Romans, later Latin would become the instrument of intercommunication for all the inhabitants of the different languages, already politically unified. Only one indigenous language was preserved, Basque, since the territories of the Basque language and culture were very far from the main communication routes. The inhabitants did not forget their language, but they learned to speak Latin and developed a language with more than fifty percent of its lexicon indicating a Latin origin and demonstrating the impossibility of escaping from the culture that Rome brought.

The arrival of the Arabs broke with the previous historical development. With the Arabs came, among other things, a language of a very different nature from the Romance ones: Arabic, with its different written and oral manifestations, which became the official and cultural language. This language, Arabic, acted as a substrate for the other peninsular romances. Many were fluent in both linguistic forms: Al-Andalus was a bilingual society at least until the XI or century. ="font-variant:small-caps;text-transform:lowercase">XII. This is an example of the adstratum's most influential outcome: bilingualism.

The results

As mentioned before, the adstratum has influence, especially when it develops in a situation of bilingualism. Adstrate effects are found in the lexicon rather than in phonology and morphology. Al-Andalus was immersed in a new cultural process and, together with colloquial or written Arabic, the Hispanic Romance continued in the conquered area: Mozarabic, the Romance linguistic variety spoken in Al-Andalus. This should not have meant the disappearance of that romance but it created a big change: in the cities reconquered in the XIII century it does not seem to exist no nucleus of Mozarabic speakers. Despite this, the existence of this bilingual period is undeniable, not only because of the large number of Arabisms in Romance but also because of the constant Romance interferences that appear in Arabic compositions: moaxajas and jarchas.

An example of Arabic influence on Spanish in the adstratus situation includes vocalism. For example, the vowel system of Arabic, with three phonemes /i, a, u/, two degrees of opening and distinction of quantity, was adapted to that of Romance, with three degrees of opening and losing the distinctive function of quantity.

Here are two examples of this change:

• The diptongo ai  e = mais  almez, baitar  albéitar.
• The diptongo au  o = hauz  alfoz, as-saut  azote.

Fonts

• The Arab invasion. Arabs and the Arab element in Spanish