La cultura medio-oriental, nuestra asignatura pendiente

Traditional studies of Arabic loanwords in Castilian and other Hispanic Romance languages, such as the excellent works of Dozy/Engelmann and Eguilaz y Yanguas, down to the last significant and relatively recent contribution outside Spain by Kiesler, have most of the time dealt with items recorded in writings of medieval and modern times, and paid little or none attention to oral heritage. However, the studies of Andalusi Arabic and the few remaining witnesses of its folklore, in connection with renewed efforts in the last decades to gauge the extent of its influence upon its Spanish counterparts, in Castilian, Catalan, Galician and Portuguese, have allowed the detection and attribution to its etymological Arabic origins of a large number of lexical items and expressions and parts of some songs, used by everybody every day in colloquial speech, but dark or thoroughly inexplicable, as far as their original meaning and linguistic background are concerned. The main goal of this paper is to explain those cases and attribute them, at least partially, to the role of Moorish nurses and mule-drivers, who transmitted their peculiar jargons to their Christian neighbours.