Abstract:

The Christian conquest of Murcian lands in the 13th century—at that time under the Moslem dominance—, started by Jaime the First of Aragón culminated by Alfonso the Tenth of Castile, meant the settlement in this territory of a quite important mass of settlers that spoke different romanic varieties. Departing from the analysis of the play Libros de Repartimiento of Murcia, Orihuela and Lorca, it can be fancied how the sociolinguistic situation of the Murcian area was during the Late Middle Age. It appears as unquestionable that the present Murcian dialect must be considered as a result of the contact between Catalan and Castilian during the 13th and 14th centuries. Colomina (1997) studied the Catalan influence in Murcian texts from the 13th to the 17th century. Catalanisms abound in the agriculture and fishing sector but also in urban activities as the building sector or the textile industry. In this work, the previous studies will be completed with the analysis of Murcian Catalanisms, departing from the dialectal vocabularies and the popular literature from the 19th and 20th centuries.

Author: Jordi Colomina i Castanyer