UCLA

After 1492 and especially after 1571, many Arabic speakers in Spain were subject to imprisonment, forced removal, appropriation of property, and finally expulsion, explained by their persecutors in large part by their language use. Nonetheless, certain individuals, and in some cases, families, were able to use this linguistic skill and identity to protect themselves. As I analyze the hardening ideologies about Arabic and the ways these ideologies were perpetuated, I document the rising status and potential power of translators and interpreters, that is, professional Arabic speakers, readers, and writers. My analysis of how multilingual agents shaped information networks across the Mediterranean begins in the 1490s, following established practices and networks which would continue to be used for the next centuries. My dissertation begins with a study of these practices in a comparative frame between Granada and Oran, and the representations of multilingual figures and their activities in their own texts as well as texts about them or which they handled. Between the 1550s and 1570s the practices and representations of multilingual agents were affected by the tension over language use and religious identity arriving from Trent and written into the decisions of ecclesiastical and royal councils throughout Spain and especially in Granada. The arguments for and against the use of Arabic that sparked the Alpujarras revolt in 1568 would be repeated as the "morisco question," which was ultimately answered with expulsion (1609-1614). Meanwhile, Spain's Arabic speakers became ever more successful in the Mediterranean sphere. After the 1580s, an "Atlantic Mediterranean" became the staging ground for imperial, commercial, and religious rivalries between Spain, England, the United Provinces, France, the Ottomans, and the Moroccan Sa'adiens, and Spanish and Arabic were the primary languages used in this polyglot space. Despite the uninterrupted contact between Arabic and Spanish speakers in diplomatic and commercial circles, the idea of Arabic did not regain prestige or acceptance as a language of history, literature, or science in Spain until much later except through a highly ambivalent process.