One of the most striking developments in the history of medieval and early modern Iberia is
that of its linguistic transformation from being a predominantly Romance speaking
community to being thoroughly monolingual in Arabic in most territories under Islamic rule,
only to become again an almost exclusively Romance speaking society after the expulsion
of the Moriscos in 1609. This linguistic development can be arguably related to the political
and social transformations due, in the first place, to the Islamic conquest and rule of most of …

[EN] Analysis of language use in medieval and early modern Iberia has been carried out in
different studies with a focus on either Muslim Iberia or Christian Iberia but we still lack more
comprehensive comparative studies. In this article, the authors will approach the specific
question of linguistic policies and linguistic attitudes in these two historical contexts from the
vantage point of the interaction between language and religion. The association of Arabic
with Islam and that of Romance with Christianity will be examined in these two historical …