A detailed scientific description of the Andalusi Arabic dialect bundle did not exist until recent times, although the correct understanding of some of its texts bears heavily on many momentous conclusions drawn by contemporary scholars about the extent and depth of cultural interaction between the Arabs and the West. After many years of work on the grammar of this variety of Neo-Arabic, and having produced accurate editions of its materials, the author now undertakes the task of establishing its lexicon, both synchronically and diachronically, by listing words and idioms and trying to provide the etyma of most items. This volume will be useful to students of Arabic dialectology and also to those concerned with any kind of literature produced in Al-Andalus, as well as to Romance scholars who may find the solution to many an etymological riddle here.

Andalusi Arabic is a close-knit bundle of neo-Arabic dialects resulting from interference by Ibero-Romance stock and interaction of some Arabic dialects. This book provides a descriptive and comparative grammar of Andalusi Arabic.

One of the main cultural consequences of the contacts between Islam and the West has been the borrowing of hundreds of words, mostly of Arabic but also of other important languages of the Islamic world, such as Persian, Turkish, Berber, etc. by Western languages. Such loanwords are particularly abundant and relevant in the case of the Iberian Peninsula because of the presence of Islamic states in it for many centuries; their study is very revealing when it comes to assess the impact of those states in the emergence and shaping of Western civilization. Some famous Arabic scholars, above all R. Dozy, have tackled this task in the past, followed by other attempts at increasing and improving his pioneering work; however, the progresses achieved during the last quarter of the 20th c., in such fields as Andalusi and Andalusi Romance dialectology and lexicology made it necessary to update all the available information on this topic and to offer it in English.

This volume divides into 3 sections: I. Arabic in Contact: the Hispano-Arabic Connection; II. Arabic in Contact: Other Connections; III. Phonological Perspectives.