Granadan Arabic borrowed the Castilian word ‘moriscos’ by 1587

Evidence

Whether the Arabic of the Muslims of Spain in this final period itself adopted the word morisco (2) as a loanword is an interesting question. A Granadan Arabic text dateable from 1587 has the unmodified Castilian morphology of the word moriscos ([sic], with a Castilian plural termination) in the middle of an Arabic sentence, but the context is an unusual one (the word is there as a necessary component in a racist joke—see appendix II). — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 63

Categorization

• QUESTION: The ‘racist joke’ context is intriguing — who was the butt of the joke, and what does the joke reveal about how the word was used among the Muslims themselves?
• SHARE: For anyone interested in Arabic loanword morphology or Hispano-Arabic contact — the unmodified Castilian plural in an Arabic sentence is a specificly nerdy data point.