Introduction

The linguistic map of the Middle East, North Africa and Spain began to change to the advantage of Arabic, following the Arabo-Islamic conquests, beginning in the seventh century CE. The result of the linguistic shift, which took place within almost every ethnic and religious group that adopted Arabic, was the birth of new Arabic varieties, such as Medieval Middle Arabic and its various ethnolects: Medieval Judaeo-Arabic, Christian Middle Arabic, Samaritan Middle Arabic and Muslim Middle Arabic. The linguistic make-up of the texts and the use of the Arabic script in biblical texts are subjected to a two-fold analysis: a theoretical discussion of Middle Arabic and Judaeo-Arabic and a brief textual and linguistic analysis of the edited text. A scriptolect’s linguistic structure would be a blend of Classical Arabic and New Arabic as well as of linguistic forms that belong to neither. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.