Old Spanish (, , ;
), also known as Old Castilian or Medieval Spanish, refers to the varieties of
Ibero-Romance
The Iberian Romance, Ibero-Romance or sometimes Iberian languages Iberian languages is also used as a more inclusive term for all languages spoken on the Iberian Peninsula, which in antiquity included the non-Indo-European Iberian language. are ...
spoken predominantly in
Castile and environs during the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...
. The earliest, longest, and most famous literary composition in Old Spanish is the (c. 1140–1207).
Phonology
Vowels
Monophthongs
Diphthongs
Consonants
( and were
apico-alveolar.)
and
These were still distinct
phonemes in Old Spanish, judging by the consistency with which the
graphemes and were distinguished. Nevertheless, the two could be
confused in consonant clusters (as in ~ “dawn”) or in word-initial position, perhaps after or a pause. and appear to have merged in word-initial position by about 1400 and in all other environments by the mid–late 16th century at the latest.
At an archaic stage, the realizations of (from Latin ) would have been approximately as follows:
* before or
* before or
* or before
By early Old Spanish, had been replaced with before all vowels and possibly before as well.
In later Old Spanish, surviving and / were modified to in urban speech, likely due to the influx of numerous
French and
Occitan speakers (and their particular pronunciation of Latin) beginning in the twelfth century. Various words with were then borrowed into Spanish, leading to
minimal pairs like “form” (a borrowing) and “shoemaker's last” (inherited from Latin ). The result was a new phoneme , distinct from .
Possibly realized as after pauses or certain consonants (judging by outcomes in
Judeo-Spanish).
Development of sibilants to modern Spanish
# deaffricated to .
# devoiced and merged into .
# was retracted to .
# (depending on dialect) merged into or fronted to .
Orthography
Scripts
Old Spanish was generally written in some variation of the
Latin script
The Latin script, also known as the Roman script, is a writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae in Magna Graecia. The Gree ...
. It was also sometimes written in
Arabic script
The Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic (Arabic alphabet) and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world (after the Latin script), the second-most widel ...
in a practice called
Aljamiado.
These sounds were spelt and respectively. was often
abbreviated to , which went on to become the normal spelling of in Modern Spanish.
Graeco-Latin diagraphs
Old Spanish featured the digraphs , , , and which were simplified to , , , in Modern Spanish. Examples include:
* (modern )
* (modern )
* (modern )
* (modern )
⟨y⟩
often stood for in word-initial position. In this context it has since been respelt to in Modern Spanish.
Sibilants
(The following table does not account for
sandhi contexts.)
Morphology
In Old Spanish,
perfect constructions of movement verbs, such as ('(to) go') and ('(to) come'), were formed using the auxiliary verb ('(to) be'), as in Italian and French: was used instead of ('The women have arrived in Castile').
Possession was expressed with the verb (Modern Spanish , '(to) have'), rather than : was used instead of ('Pedro has two daughters').
In the
perfect tenses, the
past participle
In linguistics, a participle (; abbr. ) is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from a verb and used as an adject ...
often agreed with the
gender
Gender is the range of social, psychological, cultural, and behavioral aspects of being a man (or boy), woman (or girl), or third gender. Although gender often corresponds to sex, a transgender person may identify with a gender other tha ...
and
number
A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The most basic examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can ...
of the
direct object: was used instead of Modern Spanish ('María has sung two songs'). However, that was inconsistent even in the earliest texts.
The prospective aspect was formed with the verb ('(to) go') along with the verb in infinitive, with the difference that Modern Spanish includes the preposition :
: (''
Cantar de mio Cid'', 691)
: (Modern Spanish equivalent)
Personal pronoun
Personal pronouns are pronouns that are associated primarily with a particular grammatical person – first person (as ''I''), second person (as ''you''), or third person (as ''he'', ''she'', ''it''). Personal pronouns may also take different f ...
s and
substantives were placed after the verb in any tense or
mood unless a stressed word was before the verb.
The future and the conditional tenses were not yet fully
grammaticalised as inflections; rather, they were still periphrastic formations of the verb in the present or imperfect indicative followed by the infinitive of a main verb. Pronouns, therefore, by the general placement rules, could be inserted between the main verb and the auxiliary in these periphrastic tenses, as still occurs with
Portuguese (
mesoclisis):
: (''
Fazienda de Ultra Mar'', 194)
: (literal translation into Modern Spanish)
: (literal translation into Portuguese)
: And he said: "I will return to Jerusalem." (English translation)
: (''
Cantar de mio Cid'', 92)
: (Modern Spanish equivalent)
: (Portuguese equivalent)
: I will pawn them it for whatever it be reasonable (English translation)
When there was a stressed word before the verb, the pronouns would go before the verb: .
Generally, an unstressed pronoun and a verb in
simple sentences combined into one word. In a
compound sentence, the pronoun was found in the beginning of the
clause
In language, a clause is a Constituent (linguistics), constituent or Phrase (grammar), phrase that comprises a semantic predicand (expressed or not) and a semantic Predicate (grammar), predicate. A typical clause consists of a subject (grammar), ...
: = .
The
future subjunctive was in common use ( in the second example above) but it is generally now found only in legal or solemn discourse and in the spoken language in some dialects, particularly in areas of
Venezuela
Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many Federal Dependencies of Venezuela, islands and islets in the Caribbean Sea. It com ...
, to replace the imperfect subjunctive. It was used similarly to its Modern Portuguese counterpart, in place of the modern present subjunctive in a subordinate clause after , etc., when an event in the future is referenced:
:
: (''Cantar de mio Cid'', 223–224)
:
: (Modern Spanish equivalent)
:
: (Portuguese equivalent.)
: If you do so and fortune is favourable toward me,
: I will send to your altar fine and rich offerings (English translation)
Vocabulary
Sample text
The following is a sample from (lines 330–365), with
abbreviations resolved, punctuation (the original has none), and some modernized letters.
[A recording with reconstructed mediaeval pronunciation can be accesse]
here
reconstructed according to contemporary phonetics (by Jabier Elorrieta). Below is the original Old Spanish text in the first column, along with the same text in Modern Spanish in the second column and an English translation in the third column.
The poem
See also
*
History of the Spanish language
*
Early Modern Spanish (Middle Spanish)
*
Judeo-Spanish preserves some of the sounds and terms of Old Spanish that have been lost in Modern Spanish.
Notes
References
Bibliography
*
*
*
*
*
External links
An explanation of the development of Mediaeval Spanish sibilants in Castile and Andalusia.
(part of Dictionary of the Old Spanish Language)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Old Spanish Language
History of the Spanish language
Spanish language, Old
Languages attested from the 12th century