Linguistic variation in the Sephardic community of Pisa (17th century)

CHAPTER Linguistic variation in the Sephardic community of Pisa (17th century) José Javier Rodríguez Toro Universidad de Sevilla (Spain) Introduction Volume number 1286 of the Archivio Storico della Comunità Ebrea of Pisa (Italy) —the oldest of the tomes that gather atti civili of the aforementioned Kahal Kadosh [heb. ‘holy community’]— contains 1079 handwritten pages, the majority written on both sides 1 . The paper used has different dimensions and its state of conservation varies considerably; this does not however alter the interpretation of the texts to any significant extent, given that the most deteriorated parts are on the external margins. Given the extraordinary thickness of the volume, the binding does on occasions make the reading of the end of the lines difficult. The content of the volume is organised into 79 independent records dated between 1660 and 1691, all referring to legal disputes between members of the community and tried by the court formed by its parnasim [plural form of parnas, heb. ‘elected head of the community’]. An index in Italian, which occupies the first pages and was added once the volume had been bound, permits the approximate location of the documents. The languages in which the texts are written are Italian, Portuguese and Spanish, although the separation between them is not always straightforward, due to the abundance of linguistic hybridity. Here, as is obvious, only those texts written mainly in Spanish will be of interest. 1 This research has been financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and by the Junta de Andalucia (Economy, Knowledge, Business and University), within the framework of the ERDF Andalucia 2014-2020 program. Specific objective 1.2.3 (“Promotion and Generation of Frontier Knowledge oriented to the Challeges of Society, Development of Emerging Technologies”) within the framework of the reference research project University Pablo de Olavide (Seville) 1381349 (“Linguistic variation in the Sephardic sphere: the discursive construction of the (Judeo) Spanish text of the Pisa community in the 17th century”. Percentage of ERDF co-financing 80%. LINGUISTIC VARIATION IN THE SEPHARDIC COMMUNITY OF PISA (17TH CENTURY) 2 In short, it involves a factitious volume created ex professo in order to compile documents whose conservation was considered important for community life. In 2008, part of the tome was the object of a transcription and a brief linguistic study in the tesi di laurea by Giulia Falchi, defended in the University of Pisa under the direction of Blanca Periñán. As chance would have it, Manuel Ariza Viguera, professor of the University of Seville on a research trip in the Italian city, discovered first-hand the work of Falchi and took a copy back with him to Spain. The analysis of a number of documents transcribed by Falchi focused on the communication of Ariza Viguera to the 9th International Conference on the History of Spanish Language, held in Cadiz in September 2012. In this first approach to the corpus, the professor from Seville studied the letters and their possible phonetic implications, along with the lexicon, in particular the Italianisms contained in the documentation 2 . In contrast to the aforementioned work of Ariza Viguera, which considered the linguistic features of the Pisa book in overall terms, this contribution focuses on the study of the letters from the comparison of different documents once their authors have been identified, given that, as is easy to comprehend, the variety of said texts collected in the volume could be explained, initially, by the diversity of their creators. Accordingly, the study is structured into seven sections corresponding to the same number of people, namely, two merchants (Isaac Gomez Salcedo and Abraham Rodriguez Mercado), a chancellor (Moises de Jose Navarro), a vice-chancellor (Isaac Israel Machado), a parnas (Jacob Henriques Miranda), a beadle [heb. ‘shammash’] 3 (Rafael Isquiau Safrana) and, lastly, a woman (Ester de Paz or de Caceres); in short, a sample representative of the social spectrum of the human group in question 4 . The aim pursued is to explain to what extent the preserved texts reflect the phonetic variation of the Hebrew community of Pisa in the second half of the 17th century 5 . 2 See Ariza Viguera (2015), paper following which Cuadros Muñoz (2016) has edited and studied various inventories of assets contained in the tome. 3 In the Pisan documents as samas. 4 Section 9 of the study contains the critical presentation of three of the texts analysed: 1 Salcedo, 2. Mercado and 3. de Paz (or de Caceres). See section 9 and foodnote 38. 5 The Sephardic community of Pisa is not exactly counted as among the most noteworthy of the Early modern period, eclipsed from the 1600s by the one settled in the neighbouring city of Livorno (see Bunis 2008). The 1642 census registers 341 inhabitants and that of 1689, just 205. See, amongst others, Frattarelli Fischer (1987, 1998, 2008), Luzzati (1985, 2005) and Toaff (1990). LINGUISTIC VARIATION IN THE SEPHARDIC COMMUNITY OF PISA (17TH CENTURY) 3 1 Isaac Gomez Salcedo Isaac Gomez Salcedo is the first of the two merchants recognised as an author of a number of the texts of the tome analysed (record no. 21). In effect, Salcedo wrote five documents on 7 and 24 July, and 17, 21 and 31 August 1674, thanks to which we know he appeared before the tribunal of the community of Pisa to denounce his brother Abraham for non-payment of 19 and a half pieces of eight [“reales de a 8”] (see Text 1 in Section 9). Salcedo would have lent this money between September and November 1669 to offset the expenditure of Abraham on his journey [“el camino” and “el coarto en que estubo apozentado”] between Genoa and Pisa with a stopover in Livorno. If in principle Abraham did not recognise the debt, when he admitted it, this was justified by the large amounts [“grandes cantidades”] of money he had lent to Salcedo since 1642, which the latter —in the text dated 31 August— takes for a figment of his imagination and unfounded [“imaxinativa fantástica suya y sin fundamento ninguno”]. Together with the financial claim, the largest part of the process was related to the legal dispute due to their relationship: as they were brothers, they should not be involved in legal disputes [“no se puede pleitear por justicia pública”], according to that established by —states Salcedo in the text of 24 July— the statute of the Sephardic community of Pisa [“el estatuto y consueto de este caal”], to which each of them was obliged to appoint a representative in the legal action. The features the texts by Salcedo show are, in the vowel system, the transformation of the diphthong [wa] into a hiatus [oa] via the opening of the glide —coarto for cuarto— and the instability of the unstressed vowels —vereficar for verificar—, the latter is a phenomenon that takes place in learned words 6 . Regarding consonantism, there are no traces of the aspiration of FLatin initial —ago, azer, asta—, according to that deduced from the complete absence of the letter h 7 . The appearance of b in examples 6 Not forgetting that the vacillation in the unstressed vowels was still normal in literary language. Minervini (1994: 171) has pointed to the influence of Portuguese in both vocalic features. Quintana (2006: 159) places the second in “variedades judeoespañolas del Adriático, Bosnia, Serbia y este de Macedonia, más tarde de Bulgaria y de Rumanía” coinciding with Minervini in that it “tiene su origen en el contacto del judeoespañol con el adstrato portugués durante los siglos XVII y XVIII”. For his part, Penny (2000: 190-191) considers it as one of the “features retained in Judeo-Spanish but rejected by the Peninsular standard”. 7 It is widely known that the variety of Northern Castilian Spanish lacked aspirate and that this dialect became the norm following the moving of the royal court to Madrid. The texts studied by Minervini (1994: 173) also coincide on this point. According to Quintana (2006: 164), at the end of the 17th century Sephardic printing presses no LINGUISTIC VARIATION IN THE SEPHARDIC COMMUNITY OF PISA (17TH CENTURY) 4 such as berificasion and estubo, that is, both in terms of initial position and internal intervocalic position, must be evidence of the merger of the voiced bilabials /b/ and /β/ 8 . All of the other examples are related to the presumed confusion of the point of articulation between the apico-alveolar sibilant and the dorsodental sibilant (that the northern [“norteña”] standard keeps clearly differentiated): on the one hand, the words berificasión, dies, nesesario, piesas are written with s whereas c is used for pretención, pretenciones. Furthermore, Salcedo employs the z for the apico-alveolar, a feature that could be due to the conservation of the voice in the sibilants: apozentado, cauza, cazo, coza 9 . 2 Abraham Rodriguez Mercado Abraham Rodriguez Mercado, another merchant, is the author of three texts, two ones extremely brief, dated 14 July and 1 September 1659, and the most extensive being from 29 August 1660 (record no. 10; see Text 2 in Section 9). From what can be inferred by these documents, Mercado lived in Siena but did business with Isaac Sacuto and Samuel Sadique de León, two important members of the Pisan community 10 . In this long text, longer employed the letter equivalent to h in aljamiado texts. The competition between maintaining F-, its aspiration and loss is, in any case, “complex” (Penny 2000: 183). 8 Another feature of Northern Spanish that, for its dissemination, relied on the establishment of the royal court in Madrid. Minervini (1994: 173) points to the loss of the distinction in the initial position and Quintana (2006: 161) establishes a chronological difference between the intervocalic and initial context. In the maintaining of the distinction in initial word position (in contrast to the inner word lenition), Hualde (2013: 259) has underlined the contact of Judaeo-Spanish with languages in which /b/ y /v/ are contrastive elements. 9 In the words of Minervini (1994: 173), “è affermato il seseo, con tendeziale distinzione di sonorità”. It is a “fenómeno que se consolidó ya en las primeras décadas del siglo XVII” (Quintana 2006: 163). In accordance with Penny (2000: 181-182), the maintaining of this opposition in the sibilants would be another of the “retentions” that characterise Judaeo-Spanish. Alvar (2000: 116) believed that the letter z “no es española”, to which “hay […] que pensar en una tradición gráfica portuguesa que los impresores de Ámsterdam hicieron pasar al español”, and —he goes on— “la tradición castellana, que había llegado ya a la igualación, pugnó con el dialecto judeoespañol, que la conservaba […] como, además, el portugués, que distinguía como ellos, empleaba z para la pronunciación sonora, aceptaron ese grafema”. But one has to consider the fact that in Hebrew aljamiado zayin has been used since the 16th century for the voiced sibilant /z/. 10 The Sadique de León family was native to the Spanish city of the same name: Samuel was parnas in 1681 and 1685. The Sacutos were Portuguese marranos (Toaff 1990: LINGUISTIC VARIATION IN THE SEPHARDIC COMMUNITY OF PISA (17TH CENTURY) 5 where he introduces himself as an supplier of soda to the Grand Duke of Tuscany ["aportador de su Alteza Serenísima”] ―soda for the manufacture of glass―, he complains of the detriment caused by his wrongful imprisonment [“prisión injusta”], as although he had been summonsed in Pisa by order of the parnas president of the court at the behest of Sadique, he decided to continue on his journey to Livorno where he was arrested and imprisoned [“detenido y preso en la cársel pública de esta ciudad”]. The features affecting the vocalism in Mercado’s texts are amongst the most varied, which makes him one of the most interesting subjects analysed: next to cases such as deligencias and resebí with /e/ for /i/ in an unstressed position, due, possibly, to the assimilation and dissimilation of the stressed vowel —already apparent in Salcedo—, we find examples of resistance to diphthongization such as bidro, a variant widely documented in Spanish 11 , consensia o pedimento 12 . Priesa, with diphthong (<stressed Latin Ĕ), is still the normal form in the Spanish of the era 13 ; neither were interese conserving the final –e 14 or duana with aphaeresis of auncommon at the time (they coincide with Italian forms interesse and dogana). The voices beginning with aand which are feminine, as is well known, are susceptible to an external sandhi if they appear preceded by a definite article, which is an explanation that would not be valid in the example in question as “en” appears before the word 15 . Against the cases of loss of sounds, Isarael (for Israel) and poronto (for pronto) represent the opposite trend, as an epenthetic vowel is inserted inside the word 16 . Regarding consonantism, there are three phenomena well reflected and already considered in Salcedo: the loss of /h/ in ablar and echo, the merger in the voiced bilabials —in all possible contexts— (beo, abisa abise, bendió, baya, aber, bolbió, llebo llebar, bigor, beré, benir, bezes, resolbí, 57): Isaac appears in the 1642 census aged 19 (Frattarelli 2008: 344). 11 As well as the information from CORDE, s. v. bidro, see the Vocabulario of Nebrija “vidrio o vidro”, s.v. vidrio; Autoridades “algunos le llaman vidro”, s. v. vidrio. Vidro is a form that is widely attested to in the inventories of assets of the 17th century studied by Morala Rodríguez (2010: 440). It also coincides with the Italian form vetro. 12 According to Minervini (1994: 172), there are numerous forms that, perhaps due to the analogous pressure of Portuguese and Italian, do not present the regular dipthong. 13 “Dícese igualmente prissa”, Autoridades s.v. priessa. 14 Thus in the Tesoro of Covarrubias; “lo mismo que interés”, Autoridades, s.v. interesse. The possibility of it being an Italianism should not be ruled out. 15 Minervini sets it out thus (1994: 173). Further details in the CORDE, s.v. interese. 16 The examples adduced by Minervini (1994: 173) are vezinidad, zividad, poderá and podarán. Putting an epenthetic vowel between muta cum liquida sequences (doubling the following vowel) is very common in aljamadio text (flor>folor). LINGUISTIC VARIATION IN THE SEPHARDIC COMMUNITY OF PISA (17TH CENTURY) 6 bidro), with a graphic predominance of b, and the lack of distinction between /s/ and /θ/ [i. e. seseo] (disiéndole, desir, dise, aser, paresiéndome, carsel, justisia, tresientos, resebí, asúcar, resibido, ofresiendo, sierto, sierta, satisfasiéndole, carrosero). In addition, however, Mercado is an author of muncho with epenthesis of n 17 and lla, the only example of the confusion between /ʝ/ and /λ/ [i.e. yeísmo] found in Pisan texts 18 . 3 Moises de Jose Navarro The most widely known author of all those studied in this paper is, undoubtedly, Moises de Jose Navarro. This is because, apart from his appearance in the tome analysed here, Navarro wrote the 16 agreements added to the Libro Nuevo in the synagogue of Pisa 19 , he was, indeed, the sofer 20 of the community from 1657 21 . His appearance in the 1642 census also allows us to know he would have been aged 44 or 45 22 . In the volume studied in this paper, on 19 September 1674, Navarro transcribed the last will of Isaac Gomez Salcedo (record no. 21), a merchant already referenced as the author of various documents because, as stated by the text, although he was seriously ill in bed [“enfermo en la cama […] con grave enfermedad”], he was conscious [“con todo su entero juisio respondiendo al no, no y al sí, sí”] 23 . The linguistic features of the cited testament are, as those mentioned in the two authors analysed in the previous sections, the instability of unstressed vocalism —devina for divina, enbentario for inventario, complimientos for cumplimientos—, the absence of aspiration from the initial F- —agan, aga, allare, iciera—, although contrary to Salcedo and Mercado they are presented alternately with examples like haser or hacer with the letter h and, lastly, an abundant evidence of seseo: juisio, clemensia, onse, losa, piesas, ensienda, sesión, tersias (however, tercera), 17 This is the sole variant in the Turkish texts of the 17th century (Quintana 2006: 169). The most comprehensive study on the phenomenon is that by Pascual and Blecua (2006). 18 Quintana (2006: 164) indicates the triumph, the consolidation of yeísmo “en textos provenientes de todas las comunidades del Imperio Otomano e incluso de Italia”. Penny (2000: 186) labels this phenomenon as “simplification”. 19 Work edited by Toaff (1990: 516-520) and linguistically studied by Minervini (1994: 170-179). 20 Heb. ‘Scribe of Torah parchments, phylacteries and mezuzot’. 21 Information of interest on Navarro in Toaff (1990: 82). 22 Census edited and studied by Frattarelli (2008: 342). 23 Rodriguez Toro (2017) edits the testament and studies the language of this document. LINGUISTIC VARIATION IN THE SEPHARDIC COMMUNITY OF PISA (17TH CENTURY) 7 dise, sinco, cobransas, justisia, haser / hacer, alcansara, seró, desire / dezirlo, servisio. In contrast, in Navarro there is no recording of b / v confusion, reflecting the merger of the voiced bilabials 24 , while features are recored that are not found in Salcedo and Mercado’s texts. This is the case in the loss of the final –d in the word cantidá for cantidad 25 , the consonant clusters simplification in efeto for efecto, repeated a number of times 26 , the merger of /r/ and /ɾ/ in enterado and seró 27 , and the rhotacism of /l/ in an syllable final position (Sarzedo for Salcedo). 4 Isaac Israel Machado Isaac Israel Machado, vice-chancellor of the community and, therefore, author of a large number of the texts conserved in the book —he writes from December 1685, and, exhaustively, in at least 19 records (record nos. 40-42, 44-46, 48-54, 62-64, 70-71)—, offers an extremely wide corpus for discovering his language, not only from a grapho-phonetic level, which is the prevailing theme in this paper, but also morphologically and syntactically. As a professional of the quill, he has a very fluid ductus and a Spanish that is quite correct, save for the slight influence of the Italian language that reveals the aphaeresis of ein stilo, Spaña and sposo — alternated with estilo, España or esposo, respectively— and the use of apigionado, blanquería and di. This would be fitting to attribute to the bilingualism (or trilingualism if we add Portuguese) of the Pisan community. There was a situation even a learned speaker such as the vicechancellor undoubtedly was would have been able to avoid. And despite the examples of any of the phenomena already listed — vacillation of unstressed vowels, loss of the aspiration of F-, merger of medieval Castilian /b/ and /β/ above all— seeming to be few and far less in Machado if compared to the number of texts written by him 28 , those 24 Navarro does not err once in the writing of these letters: devo, deve, dever, grave, devina compared to cabo in an intervowel context; likewise convenga, enbentario and servicio after a consonant; and voluntad or valga at the beginning of a word. 25 Minervini (1994: 174) explains this phenomenon with the influence of Italian. 26 They would be due to assimilation or dissimilation “spesso in parole colte” (Minervini 1994: 174). 27 The “scempiamento” Minervini (1994: 173) speaks of is, according to Penny (2000: 179), one of the “innovations” of Judaeo-Spanish. 28 At the most, ducientas for doscientas, Selvera alternated with Silvera, verginidades for virginidades; echo next to hecho; especially significant is the expression de bervo a verbo, which Machado employs in some of his texts. LINGUISTIC VARIATION IN THE SEPHARDIC COMMUNITY OF PISA (17TH CENTURY) 8 registered are suffice to show he also participated in them. Machado shows, however, numerous cases of consonant clusters simplifications —ato for acto, efeto for efecto, pato for pacto, solene for solemne—, and even ultracorrections —expontánea, expecialmente, sexso—, metathesis of liquids —blibia for biblia— and interchange of the liquids /l/ for /ɾ/ —palabla for palabra—, which would cast doubt on his initial characterisation as learned. The alternation between piezas and pieças or dixo and dijo would demonstrate, for the rest, the merger of the voiced sibilant phonemes and the voiceless sibilant phonemes, akin to the process that had taken place in peninsular Spanish decades previously. A distinctive feature of the texts written by the vice-chancellor is the complete lack of any manifestation of seseo. Nevertheless, as indicated, the size of the corpus allows us to discover other linguistic features of Machado such as the preference for the masculine gender in the noun dote together with the hyper-characterised feminine dota, the use of the form Dio, employed extensively by Sephardic Jews 29 , of the personal pronoun nos instead of nosotros, of the infinitive recorrer for recurrir (with change of conjugation, maybe influenced by It. ricorrere) and of the verbal form of the subjunctive haiga for haya. The greatest size of his texts even make it possible to register conjunctions such as siendo que and cualmente 30 . Regarding diminutive suffixes, Machado uses both -ico and -ito, for example, perlica and almohadita. 5 Jacob Henriques Miranda Jacob Henriques Miranda, parnas of the Jewish community of Pisa in 1659, 1662 and 1674, is the author of the text of 1658 that expresses the last will of Isaac Sacuto Silvera (record no. 21), bedridden at that moment. In effect, according to what can be read in the document, he was too ill, without the strength to make his will [“la enfermedá que el Dio Bendito” has Sacuto “opremido y apretado de tal forma que —Sacuto recognises— no me siento con fuerzas para disponer y ordenar mi testamento”], but not only does Miranda transcribe the text, he even signs for the grantor — affirming— due to the seriousness of his illness [“por la grabedá de mi enfermedá no sé”] 31 . 29 Also evidenced in Mercado and in Ester de Caceres (see Section 7 and Section 9 Text 3). 30 For this latter, see Hernandez Gonzalez (2018). 31 Further details of the document, see Rodriguez Toro (2017). LINGUISTIC VARIATION IN THE SEPHARDIC COMMUNITY OF PISA (17TH CENTURY) 9 The most distinctive vocalism feature of Miranda is also the vacillation of the unstressed vowels in learned words, above all with a change of /i/ > /e/ —opremido, despuzieren, bertú, enbiolablemente, desponer, trebunal, enbentario, deligencia, empuesta—, while for the change /e/ > /i/ we find only obidiencia, perhaps influenced by It. ubbidienza. The phenomenon also affects the back vowels, /u/>/o/ and /o/>/u/: complido, comonicado, buluntad (here vocal harmony could also be at play). As observed in Salcedo, the dipthongs [we] and [wa] become hiatuses [oe] and [oa] via the opening of the glide —coalquier, goes. There are numerous examples of the absence of the letter h —agan, arán, izieren, azer, iziera, azienda, ago, igos / igas, ixos— and those that reflect the merger of /b/ and /β/, the voiced bilabials, are characterised by the appearance of b in all possible contexts: in initial (buluntad, bida, bertú, biban), post-consonant internal (conbiene, enbiolablemente, conbenga, enbentario) and intervocalic internal position (brebe, serbido, sobrebibiera, biban, Nabaro, grabedá) 32 . Miranda stands out for the abundance of examples of loss of the final –d of the word: enfermedá, bertú, amistá, conformidá, sudá in contrast to a single example that contradicts the preference in question (buluntad). It also shows the consonant cluster simplification (dotor) and in one case would reflect the merger of /r/ and /ɾ/: Nabaro for Navarro. Lastly, as regards sibilants, we can observe that Miranda writes both the dental voiced sibilant and the apico-alveolar voiced sibilant with z — izieren, azer, azienda, vezinos and prezente, quizo, despuzieren, escuzo—, which, as shown in Salcedo, could indicate the maintaining of the voicing distinction. Apart from this, the names Izaque, Moizen also appear with the letter. It would fit to interpret the cases of educasión, sudá, pareser, nesesarias, Enriques, Soares and goes as the lack of distinction between /s/ and /θ/. 6 Rafael Isquiau Safrana The individual who, in light of the coarseness of his handwriting, reveals a lower level of studies is Rafael Isquiau Safrana, beadle of the community, responsible for writing down the citations of those involved in the matters of the court. Safrana is one of the members of the community who knows how to sign and write, but does so in a deficient manner. His autographic 32 There are hardly any registered cases of alternation between the letters: Silvera / Silbera, gobiernen / govierno, governadores, governar. LINGUISTIC VARIATION IN THE SEPHARDIC COMMUNITY OF PISA (17TH CENTURY) 16 Toaff, R. (1990). La Nazione Ebrea a Livorno e a Pisa (1591-1700). Florencia: Leo S. Olschki Editore.