A Sephardic Siddur with Ritual Prescriptions in Aragonese Romance

HISPANIA JUDAICA BULLETIN Articles, Reviews, Bibliography and Manuscripts on Sefarad

Editors: Yom Tov Assis and Raquel Ibáñez-Sperber

No 4 5764/2004

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The Mandel Institute of Jewish Studies

Contents

Editorial 1

Articles 3

JOSEPH YAHALOM, Andalusian Poetics and the Work of

El‘azar ben Ya‘aqov of Baghdad 5

ILAN SHOVAL, “Servi regis” Re-Examined: On the Significance

of the Earliest Appearance of the Term in Aragon, 1176 22

NADIA ZELDES, The Queen’s Property: Isabel I and the Jews and

Converts of the Sicilian Camera Reginale after the 1492 Expulsion 70

JOSÉ R. AYASO, The Site of the Judería of Granada According to

Christian Sources: Facts and Myths 86

Dossier: Judeo-Iberian Languages 103

DAVID M. BUNIS, Distinctive Characteristics of Jewish Ibero-Romance,

Circa 1492 105

ALDINA QUINTANA AND I. S. RÉVAH (posthumous), A Sephardic Mahzor

for the Holidays with Ritual Prescriptions in Aragonese Romance 138

MERIXELL BLACO ORELLANa, A Manuscript from the XVth Century

in Hebrew-Aragonese Script (JNUL, Yah.Ms.Heb.242) 152

Book Reviews and Abstracts of Books Received 167

Bibliography and Manuscripts 189

Sefarad 191

Al-Andalus 199

Crown of Aragon 203

Crown of Castile 207

Navarre 210

Portugal 210

Culture 214

Conversos, Polemics and Inquisition 224

Contemporary Spain and Portugal 234

Manuscripts on Polemics 243

Guidelines to Authors 260

Dossier

Judeo-Iberian Languages

[138]

Aldina Quintana and I.S. Révah

A Sephardic Siddur

with Ritual Instructions in Aragonese RomanceMs. Oxford, Bodleian Library 1133 (Opp. Add. 8° 18)

Aldina Quintana and I.-S. Révah (posthumous)

The text we are dealing with here1 consists of ritual instructions found in an

all-year-round siddur in Aragonese Romance. The instructions, which are inserted

in the ritual of the Passover holiday service are in accordance with tradition; they

appear in the local language spoken by the Jews.

There are many Passover Haggadoth originating in the Iberian Peninsula,

including some with ritual instructions in Castilian and Portuguese romances but

none has been preserved in Leonese Romance; they are also less numerous in

Catalan Romance. The same is true of the books containing only the daily and

Sabbath rituals (siddurim) and the prayer services for the different holidays of the

Jewish year (mahzorim). The instructions concerning the Passover ritual in¦

Judeo-Aragonese Romance I am dealing with here are part of a siddur that contains

the liturgy for the whole circle of the year, weekdays, Sabbaths and festivals. It is

found in the Bodleiana Library in Oxford.2

1. Description of the Ritual

The codex contains 258 parchment folios, numbered consecutively through page

251; folio 251 is followed by 6 folios containing pages 251 (i) through 251 (vi);

the size of the text is 11,7 x 9 (8 x 6,5). It is written in a beautifully elaborated

square script, a characteristic of calligraphic reproductions of the Bible, the

Talmud, the Passover Haggadah and prayer books. It contains flourishing signa-

1 A photographic copy of the pages containing the ritual instructions of Pesah and Ha-¦ ¦

nukkah, including the siddur analysed here, is found in the personal archives of the late

I. S Révah with some data referring to the description of the mentioned ritual. I have

the honour to complete and edit its publication. May it serve as a memorial and homage

to a great scholar on the thirtieth anniversary of his death. My gratitude to Jean-François

Révah for putting these materials at my disposal.

This research was completed thanks to the financial support of the Toni and Oded

Eliachar Foundation. My most sincere gratitude to this institution.

2 For the completion of this work, I also consulted a microfilm copy of the original of the

Bodleiana Library of Oxford, which is located in the National and University Library

of Jerusalem, classified with the number F 16594.

[Hispania Judaica *4 5764/2004]

A Sephardic Siddur

[139]

tures, some of them illuminated, without catchword, with 13 to 14 lines per page.

The parchment binding, with red fore-edge, is modern. The codex perhaps dates

from the last years of the 14th century.

The rite reflected in the siddur is that of the Jews of Aragon.3 Even though it

is difficult to specify its exact origin, it is undoubtedly a siddur of the northwest

area between Tudela, Huesca and Ansó, where Aragonese Romance was spoken,

most probably from the Tudela area.4

The part that contains the Pesah Haggadah in Hebrew is found between the¦

folios 98v�115v. The ritual instructions introduced between the different parts of

the Passover service are written in Aragonese in Hebrew characters. Also in

Aragonese are instructions concerning Hanukkah in folio 95v.¦

The majority of the instructions were introduced by the scribe of the text himself

(in our transcription, they are preceded by the number 1; the following number

that appears indicates the corresponding line of the mentioned folio) and they

present no formal difference with the Hebrew text of the siddur; they are vocalized.

The instructions of folios 95v, 100v and 101r must have been introduced after-

wards by another person (in our transcription, they are preceded by the number

2) and they appear in smaller and less elaborate script.

2. The Ritual Instructions in Aragonese Romance

Even if they have no canonic form, the ritual instructions of Pesah are traditional.¦

This means that once formulated, the text tends not to display significant variations

from one edition to another. Therefore, it is possible that the language of the

instructions dates from a period before this copy of the ritual.

In the transcription of the Aragonese words, we adopt the following equivalents

according to the Aragonese spelling of the 14th century:

Sound Hebrew Grapheme Romance Grapheme

[a] <אה>/<ה>/<א> <a>

[e] <אי>/<י> <e>

[i] <אי>/<י> <i>/<y>

[o] <או>/<ו> <o>

3 I thank Professor Yom Tov Assis for his help in checking the manuscript to establish

that we are dealing with a siddur of Aragonese rite.

4 Coincidence between national frontiers and boundaries which separate official languages

is anyway rare; there is no purely linguistic means of delimiting one �language� from

another, since closely related �languages� form part of a continuum and any dividing line

which cuts through this continuum is not drawn for linguistic reasons but for political

reasons. The term Aragonese Romance refers here exclusively to linguistic rules.

[140]



[u] <או>/<ו> <u>

[p] <פ> <p>

[b] <ב> <b>

[f] <פ'> <f>

[m] <ם>/<מ> <m>

[t] <ט> <t>

[d] <ד> <d>

[s]� <צ>/<ס> <ç>

[z]� <ז> <z>

[s] <ש>/<ש>/<ש> <s->/<-s>/<-ss->

[z] <ש> <-s->

[n] <ן>/<נ> <n>

[l] <ל> <l>

[r] <ר> <-r->

[rr] <ר> <r->

[c]� <ג'> <ch>

[y]� <יי> <y>

[n]¥ <נג>/<ני> <ny>/<ng>

[k] <ק> <c>/<qu>

[g] <ג> <g>/<gu>

Aragonese has five vowels /a, e, i, o, u/ and the scribe uses the Hebrew signs for

long versus short vowels respectively to indicate the stressed versus the unstressed

syllables in the word. Throughout the transcription we have invariably used á for

qameç, a for pathăh, é for çerê and e for seghol.¯ ¯ ¦ ¯

In Aragonese words, I do not transliterate the shwa quiescent; in the inserted

Hebrew words in the Aragonese text, I transcribe the shwa mobile as short e (sic,˘

e in Sephardic Hebrew). For consonants with a different phonetic equivalent than

in the Aragonese text or for consonants that only appear in Hebrew words included

in the ritual instructions in Aragonese, I adopt the following equivalents:


[a] <ה> <-á>

[h]/[ø] <ה> <h>

[z] <ז> <z>

[x] <ח> <h>¦

[j] <י>/<יי> <y>

[k] <כ> <k>

[x] <ך>/<כ> <k

[141]

A Sephardic Siddur


[s] <ס> <s>

[k] <ק> <q>

[s] <ש> <s>

[�] <ש> <�>

[t] <ת> <t>

These equivalents are also valid for the transcription of the Judeo-Aragonese

words of Arabic origin.

2.1. The Original Instructions

Fol 95V

פ'רן2.10 אי מש נון אי שהחיינו דירן פרימירה נואיטי לא תפלת[...]

אהעמידה2.11 כלם'חטי [...]על

Fol 100v

שו1.1 דירן אלחד די נואיטי אין פסח קאישיד שי [...]

[...]קדוש1.2 דירן" אי אנידרן אי שושו די קומו

אייבשהחיינו[...]2.10 אישטא קום נואיטי טל אין אי בחרתנו" אתה

דירן2.11 פייד אין אורציון בחרתנואין אהאתה חטי

קראת2.12 עלינו והקדוש הגדול [...]ושמך "

Fol 101r

אינטינירן2.8 אפיו דיל טומרן מנוש" לש לברשן אי בשו שו קדאונו בברן [...]

דירן'חרוסתאיניל2.9 האדמה'אי פרי בורא אל'מ'ה טומרןב'א'י'

אינטרימצותטריש2.10 למידיא דרא אי מידיש פור לאונה פרטירן אי

פור2.11 מנטיליש לוש שון מיטלא מידיא לאוטרא אי שאנש' דוש לש

לאפיקומן2.12 דירן אי בשוש לוש אינפלירן [...]הגדהאי

Fol 110v

הגפן[...]1.5 לברןפרי אי בשו שו קדאונו בברן "

בינדיזרן1.6 אי מנוש נטילתלש על

לידים"1.7 אימצהטומרן למידיא' קון שאנה

קומנאדהמוציא[פ']ארד1.8 נון אי מידיא' דילה

דילה1.9 טאייד קי דיראמצהאינטרו אי שאנה

מצה"1.10 אכילת על א'ק'בו אל'מ'ה' איב'א'י' קומנא

אי1.11 לי'ג'וגא' דילה טומרא אטודוש" דרא

[142]


דיראחרוסת"אינטינגדאניל1.12 אל'מ'ה'אי ב'א'י'

מרור"1.13 אכילת על דילהא'ק'בו מצהטומרא

נינגונא1.14 דירא אינון קומד אי ליג'וגה [...]ברכה"קון

Fol 111r

קומנן1.1 סינאדו אברן דישקי אי סינארן אי [...]

]אפיקומןאיל1.2 ] אי בשוש לוש אינפלירן אי

מזון"דירן3.1 באשוברכת שו קדאונו בברן אי

אל4.1 דירן [...]הללאי "

Fol 113v

בתושבחות"[...]1.9 מהולל מל בברןב'א'י'

אנטי1.10 דירן בשו" שו הגפןקדאונו פרי איבורא

11.1[...] ביבן"

Fol 114r

הגפן"[...]1.1 פרי ועל הגפן על אינטב'א'י' דאקי

מין1.2 שול אגואה שינון ביבן נין קומן נין אדילן

דיגד3.1 קי דיאה אוטרי אה [...]קידוש"אינטרו

2.2. Transcription of the Ritual Instructions

2.2.1 The Hanukkah Ritual Instructions¦

Fol 95v

2.10 [...] la nueyti priméra dirán seheheyanu y non mas y farán tefilát˘ ˘ ¦ ˘

2.11 amidá haté a al kulam´¦

2.2.2 The Haggadah Ritual Instructions

Fol 100v

1.1 [...] si caéssed pesah en nueyti de alhad5 dirán so¦ ¦

1.2 qidu� cúmo de súso y anyadrán y dirán" [...]

5 The word alhad is an Arabic form used to name �the first day� of the week, that is,¦

Sunday. The expression nuéyti de alhad denotes the �mosé Sabbath�.¦ ¦

[143]

A Sephardic Siddur

2.10 [...] baseheheyanu, y en tal nueyti cum6 ésta ay atá behartanu˘ ˘ ¦ ¦

2.11 en oraçión en piéd dirán atá behartanu haté a¦ ¦

2.12 vesimká hagadol vehaqado� alenu qarata" [...]˘ ˘

Fol 101r

2.8 [...] bebrán cáda únu so básu y labarseán las mános" tomarán del ápiu["]

entinyirán

2.9 en el haroset y dirán" [baruk atá a´ elohenu melek haolam] boré perí¦ ˘

haadamá´ tomarán

2.10 tres masót y partirán la úna por médias y dará la média éntre¦

2.11 las dos sánas, y la ótra média métala son los mantéles por7

2.12 afiqomen y enplirán los básos y dirán la hagadá [...]

Fol 110v

1.5 [...] perí hagefen" bebrán cáda únu so básu y labarán˘

1.6 las mános y bendizrán al netilat˘

1.7 yadayim" tomarán la masá sána con la média´ y¦

1.8 [f]arád hamosi de la média, y non comnád¦

1.9 éntro que táyed de la masá sána y dirá¦

1.10 [baruk atá a´ elohenu melek haolam] al akilat masá" comná y¦

1.11 dará a tódos, tomará de la lechúga´ y

1.12 entíngad enel haroset� y dirá [baruk atá a´ elohenu melek haolam¦

1.13 a�er qide�anu bemisvotav vesivanu] al akilat maror" tomará de la masá¦ ¦ ¦

1.14 con lechúga y cómad y non dirá ningúna beraká" [...]˘

Fol 111r

1.1 [...] y çenarán y désque abrán çenádu comnán

1.2 el afiqomen y enplirán los básos y [ ]

1.3 dirán birkát mazón" y bebrán cáda únu so básu

1.4 y dirán el hallel" [...]

6 There is here an elision of the unstressed -o, due to its contact with the following vowel.

This reflects a frequent feature of medieval Aragonese speech.

7 Pora (sic, para) in medieval Aragonese texts (see those edited by J. R. Magdalena Nom

de Déu & C. Lleal, Aljamías Hebraicoaragonesas (Siglos XIV-XV), Barcelona 1995.

Pora is also found in Castilian texts (Manuel Alvar & Bernard Pottier, Morfología

histórica del español, Madrid 1983, p. 301).

[144]


Fol 113v

1.9 [...] [baruk atá a´] melek haolam mehulal betu�bahot" bebrán˘ ¦ ¦

1.10 cáda únu so básu" dirán ánti boré perí hagefen y˘

1.11 béban" [...]

Fol 114r

1.3 [...] [baruk atá a´] al hagefen ve-al perí hafegen" dáqui énta˘

1.4 adelán nin cóman nin béban sinón água solá men

1.5 éntro a ótre día que dígad qidu�" [...]

3. Study of the Language of the Ritual Instructions

The language in which the ritual instructions are written is, without any doubt,

Aragonese Romance. The forms entíngad (110v: 1.12) �will wet�, nuéyti8 (95v:

2.10; 100v: 1.1 and 2.10) �night�, enplirán9 (101r: 2.12; 111r: 1.2) �will fill�,10

táyed (110v: 1.9) �cut�, adelán (114r: 1.4) �forward, from now on�, solá men (114r:

1.4) �only�, énta (114r: 1.3) �toward� y éntro (a)11 (110v: 1.9; 114r: 1.5) �until,

up to� are particularly indicative of this point. They tell us that we are not dealing

with an Aragonese Romance of the Catalonian-Aragonese zone or the Pyrenees

zone, but with the Romance spoken in a region almost bordering the zone where

Castilian was spoken since the influence of this last language can be appreciated

in the use of the word lechúga (110v: 1.11; 110v: 1.14) �lettuce� instead of the

medieval Aragonese form leytuga.12 The change of -it to -ch [c] took place in the�

15th13 century. The form of the possessive so (101r: 2.8; 110v: 1.5) and the

adverbs adelán (114r: 1.4) and solá men (114r: 1.4) seem to answer to lexical

Castilian interference. The two last words lost the -e when they were integrated

in the Aragonese language. Afterwards there was a reduction of the cluster -nt to

8 Nueyt and nueytes, are found in a translation into Aragonese Romance of a Passover

Haggadah from the 14th century published by Francisco Cantera Burgos, �Textos de

polémica antijudaica y judeo-catalano-aragoneses en un manuscrito de Burgos de Osma�,

Revista de Filología Española 48 (1965), p. 139.

9 Inplen, in F. Cantera Burgos, �Textos de polémica antijudaica�, p. 139.

10 Entindrad, noche and inchan are found into the ritual instructions in Castilian of the

Haggadah, edited by Laura Minervini, �Rituales de Pascua en castellano en un mahzor¦ ¯

del final del siglo XIII�, Eufemio Lorenzo Sanz, coord., Proyección histórica de España

en sus tres culturas: Castilla y León, América y el Mediterráneo, vol. II, Valladolid

1993, pp. 129-133.

11 Entro a, in F. Cantera Burgos, �Textos de polémica antijudaica�, p. 139.

12 This form is found in F. Cantera Burgos, �Textos de polémica antijudaica�, p. 141.

13 Bernard Pottier, �L´évolution de la langue aragonaise a la fin du Mogen Age�, Bulletin

Hispanique 45 (1952), p. 197.

[145]

A Sephardic Siddur

-n, a phenomenon that is also characteristic of Aragonese.14 The use of the forms

comnád (110v: 1.8), comná (110v: 1.10) and comnán (111r: 1.1) with -mn- instead

of -mbr- seems to confirm this hypothesis.

3.1 Orthography

The spelling used in the instructions is characteristic of the Judeo-Romance texts

of the 13th and 14th centuries in which the affricatives [s] and [z] are still reflected� �

through the graphemes and<ס> ,<ז> and also the fricatives [s] and [z] through

<ש> without distinguishing their sonority. It is analogous to the Mozarabic

spelling, very strongly influenced by the Arabic aljamía.15 The use of the graph-

eme <צ> by the author of the later instructions to represent the unvoiced affricate

[s] in oraçión (100v: 2.11) is characteristic of Jewish scribes from a�

non-Arabic-speaking area. The scribe of the siddur employed <ס> in çenarán and

çenádu (111r: 1.1) to represent the same phoneme. It was also characteristic of

Jewish scribes from the Arabic-speaking area.

The digraph ng <נג> representing the palatal nasal [n] in entíngad (110v: 1.12)¥

is extremely relevant. We have here a characteristic graph of the Navarrese-

Aragonese16 norm very rarely found in the Castilian and in the Leonese norms.

3.2 Phonetics and Phonology

The preservation of the Latin final -u denoted by ,<ו> deserves to be pointed out:

ápiu (101r: 2.8)

únu (101r: 2.8; 110v: 1.5; 111r: 1.3; 113v: 1.10)

básu (101r: 2.8; 110v: 1.5; 111r: 1.3; 113v: 1.10)

çenádu (111r: 1.1)

There are no exceptions. In the plural forms the -o masculine gender morpheme,

is kept in all the cases: básos (101r: 2.12; 111r: 1.2), tódos (110v: 1.11) and in

all the forms where the -o is analogical: mános (101r: 2.8).

In unstressed final position we find -i in nuéyti (95v: 2.10; 100v: 1.1 & 2.10)

and anti (113v: 1.10), perhaps determined by the t. The relaxation of the unstressed

-e occurred in Aragonese Latin and generally was lost afterwards. It was conserved

after the -t,17 just as these forms show.

14 Manuel Alvar, El dialecto aragonés, Madrid 1953, p. 198.

15 Laura Minervini, Testi giudeospagnoli medievali. Castiglia e Aragon, vol. I, Naples

1992, pp. 32-33.

16 Alvar, El dialecto aragonés, p. 29.

17 Ibid., pp. 59 and 154.

[146]


We find a relaxation of the -o as -e in ótre (114r: 1.5) entirely conditioned by

�tr, which corresponds with the phonetic evolution of the Aragonese language.18

Note worthy of is the sonorization of the -t in the forms caéssed (100v: 1.1),

[f]arád, comnád (110v: 1.8), táyed (110v: 1.9), cómad (110v: 1.14), entíngad(110v: 1.12), dígad (114r: 1.5), alternating however with forms where the -dreflecting Latin -t disappears altogether: dará (101r: 2.10; 110v: 1.11), dirá(110v: 1.9; 110v: 1.12; 110v: 1.14), comná (110v: 1.10) and tomará (110v: 1.11;

110v: 1.13)

The occlusive pronunciation of the consonants [d-, b-] in initial position is

indicated through a daghesh: bendizrán (110v: 1.6), de (110v: 1.8, 1.9 & 1.13),

désque (111r: 1.1), dirán (111r: 1.4; 113v: 1.10), bebrán (113v: 1.9), día, dígad(114r: 1.5). The occlusive pronunciation of [g] between vowels is also denoted by

a daghesh in dígad (114r: 1.5).

The b- <ב> in básu (101r: 2.8; 110v; 111r: 1.3; 113v: 1.10) and basos (101r:

2.12; 111r: 1.2) is also to be pointed out. It seems to reflect the loss of the

opposition between the voiced bilabial occlusive consonant and the voiced labio-

dental fricative consonant b: v. It occurs similarly in another Jewish Aragonese

text of the same period.19 In other cases, the confusion between the two sounds is

also denoted in the spelling.20

Other characteristics of Aragonese Romance that appear in the instructions are

the maintenance of the Latin consonant cluster PL- in enplirán (101r: 2.12; 111r:

1.2),21 from Latin IMPLERE, and the maintenance of �d en piéd (100v: 2.11);®

also the evolution of the Latin cluster -CT- into -it-, as in nuéyti (95v: 2.10; 100v:

1.1 & 2.10) with a diphthongization of the unstressed Latin [q] so frequent in

Aragonese;22 but the Castilian word lechúga instead of leytuga is employed (110v:

1.11 & 1.14).

Especially interesting in the instructions are comnád (110v: 1.8), comná (110v:

1.10) and comnán (111r: 1.1), deriving of combrá(d) (sg.) and combrán (pl.), as

in omne set against ombre. The replacement of the consonant group -mb- by -mn-

is probably the consequence of contact between the pronunciation norms of the

Aragonese Romance and of the Castilian and Riojan romances.23

18 Ibid., p. 154.

19 Magdalena & Lleal, Aljamías, p. 3, they indicate similar forms in a text from Huesca:

binya, bender.20 Ibidem, p. 79, it is denoted by baca and vaca in a text from Zaragoza.

21 Emplir is documented by Alvar in Hecho and empler in Ansó. See El dialecto aragonés,pp. 168 and 188.

22 Alvar, El dialecto aragonés, pp. 55-56.

23 R. Lapesa, Historia de la lengua española, Madrid, 1984, p. 188, indicates the presence

of the consonant group -mn-, as characteristic of the Castilian and the Riojan romances.

[147]

A Sephardic Siddur

We can point out the preservation of the initial f- in farán (95v: 2.10) and farád(110v: 1.8).

Finally, to note the probable pronunciation with voiced affricate [y] in táyed�

(110v: 1.9) instead of talle.24 This word is pronounced with the lateral [ë] in

Aragon and Catalonia until this very day.

3.3 Morphology

The future indicative presents a loss in the pretonic vowel between a consonant

and r, a phenomenon that also occurs in the Castilian Haggadah25 and in Castilian

medieval literature of the zone adjacent to the Navarrese-Aragonese areas. It is

also found, of course, in literary works written in the kingdom of Aragon:

anyadrán (100v: 1.2)

bebrán (101r: 2.8; 111r: 1.3; 113v: 1.9)

bendizrán (110v: 1.6)

Forms with the verbal ending -t of the third person singular in the present a future

tenses, weakened into -d, alternate with forms in which it is lost: caéssed (100v:

1.1), comnád (110v: 1.8), táyed (110v: 1.9), entíngad (110v: 1.12), cómad (110v:

1.14), dígad (114r: 1.5) versus dará (101: 2.10; 110v: 1.11), dirá (110v: 1.9; 110v:

1.12; 110v: 1.14), comná (110v: 1.10) and tomará (110v: 1.11; 110v: 1.13).

According to Alvar & Pottier this -d �...aún duraba en aragonés por el año

1139...�26 and in the Judeo-Aragonese corpus analysed by Magdalena & Lleal it

appears only in a text from Huesca.27 On the other hand, it occurs frequently in

Judeo-Navarrese Romance.28 Lleal points out that the use of these verbal forms

seems to be outstanding archaic characteristics in the 14th century texts of the Jews

from Navarre in comparison with the texts of non-Jews.29 This hypothesis seems

also true for the language of the instructions I am dealing with here.

Of significance in the instructions is also the presence of Romance forms of the

future tense: comnád (110v: 1.8) versus comná (110v: 1.10), and conmán (111r:

24 Talle appears in a text of the year 1488 edited by Magdalena & Lleal, Aljamías, pp. 76

& 78 and Minervini, Testi giudeospagnoli medievali, vol. I, p. 327.

25 I. S. Révah, �Un mahzor espagnol du XIIIe siècle avec des prescriptions rituelles en¦

castillan�, Revue des Études Juives 120 (1961), p. 358.

26 Morfología, p. 195.

27 Magdalena & Lleal, Aljamías, p. 3, porad.

28 Y. T. Assís, J. R. Magdalena & C. Lleal, Aljamía romance en los documentoshebraiconavarros (Siglo XIV), Barcelona 1992.

29 Ibid., p. 25.

[148]


1.1) deriving from Ancient Aragonese forms with the thematic vowel -b-,30 that

is combrá(d) (sg.) and combrán (pl.).31

In this text there appear some Aragonese prepositions characteristic of medieval

texts: énta32 (114r: 1.3) �towards� and éntro33 (110v: 1.9; 114r: 1.5) �until�, very

frequent in Aragonese Romance.34 The latter appears in the instructions with the

same value of haté (95v: 2.11; 100v: 2.11), a word derived from the Andalusian¦

Arabic hattá. Entro and haté appear here followed by the preposition of Latin¦

origin a, as in other Aragonese texts.35 It is the first time we found the form haté¦

in a Jewish text,36 but it seems not to be a characteristic feature of the

Aragonese-speaking Jews. The form até, after the loss of initial [x-], is preserved

in Portuguese and like this seems to appear in a Haggadah from Lisbon of

circa 1485.37

The adverbs de súso (100v: 1.2) �above� and son (101r: 2.11) �below�, are also

found in Castilian texts. The latter appears in a Passover Haggadah from Castile.38

3.4 Syntax

One may point out the use of the present or future indicative tenses instead of the

future subjunctive in conditional sentences as a characteristic phenomenon in

medieval Aragonese39:

- �...si caéssed pesah en nuéyti de alhad dirán so qidu� cúmo de súso...� (100v:¦ ¦

1.1 &1.2) instead of si caessiered...

The text displays an excessive use of the future indicative tense instead of the

subjunctive future. This is due to the influence of the Hebrew language and is a

common feature in texts of prescriptive character:

30 Alvar & Pottier, Morfología, p. 252.

31 Alvar, El dialecto aragonés, p. 233.

32 Ibidem, p. 250, used nowadays in Ansó, Embún, Benasque and Campos.

33 Ibidem, p. 251, entro and entroa.

34 Alvar & Pottier, Morfología, p. 291.

35 Magdalena & Lleal, Aljamías, p. 9, fasta a guey �up until today�.

36 In a text of the Jews from Navarre it appears as טאח (sic, hata). See Assís, Magdalena¦

& Leal, Aljamía romance en los documentos hebraiconavarros, p. 17.

37 According to the edition by H. P. Salomon, �A Fifteenth Century Haggada with Ritual

Prescriptions in Portuguese Aljamiado�, Archivos do Centro Cultural Portugues 15,

Paris 1980, p. 231.

38 Révah, �Un mahzor espagnol�, p. 357.¦

39 Magdalena & Lleal, Aljamías, p. 102, also Minervini, Testi giudeospagnoli medievali,vol. I, p. 79 and Aldina Quintana, �Concomitancias lingüísticas entre el aragonés y el

ladino (judeoespañol)�, Archivo de Filología Aragonesa, LVII-LVIII (Zaragoza), 2001,

pp. 181-182, they indicate similar verbal uses in other Judeo-Aragonese texts.

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A Sephardic Siddur

- �...y çenarán y désque abrán çenádu comnán el afiqomen� (111r: 1.1 & 1.2)

instead of aygan çenadu... and cóman... respectively.

The future indicative tense also occurs in sentences with a forbidding sense:

- �...y non comnád éntro que táyed de la masá sána...� (110v: 1.8 & 1.9) instead¦

of non cómad...

- �...y non dirá ningúna běraká� (110v: 1.14) instead of non díga(d)...

The subjunctive present appears only in temporal sentences:

- �...y non comnád éntro que táyed de la masá sána...� (110v: 1.8 & 1.9)¦

- �...tomará de la masá con lechúga y [entonces] cómad...� (110v: 1.13 & 1.14)¦

- �...dirán ánti boré perí hagefen i [entonces] béban...� (113v: 1.10 & 1.11)˘

- �...dáqui énta adelán nin cóman nin béban sinón água solá men éntro a ótre

día que dígad qidu�� (114r: 1.3 & 1.5).

3.5 Lexicon

The form táyed (110v: 1.9), the third person present subjunctive of the verb tayar

�to cut�, belongs to the lexical system of the Aragonese Romance.

3.6 Hebrew and Aramaic Words

With reference to Hebrew and Aramaic words it should be noted that in afiqomen40

(101r: 2.12; 111r: 1.2), a word evidently forming part of the Jewish Aragonese

lexicon and thus left untranslated, the etymological qameç a appears as seghol e;¯ ¯ ¯

this is characteristic of another text of the Passover Haggadah from Aragon41 and

the same form occurs in the Haggadoth of the Spanish-speaking Sephardim in

North Africa;42 it is also found in the Hebrew Haggadoth of the Judeo-Arabic

speaking Jews in North Africa43 and even in Iraq.44 The same form is found in

40 Afiqomen is a word of Greek origin, which was integrated, in the Aramaic lexical system.

See Amos Dodi, �The Vocalization of the Barcelona Haggadah�, Journal of Jewish Stud-

ies III, 2 (2002), p. 350. I take this opportunity to thank Dr Amos Dodi for his help in

providing me with information about Jewish prayer books from Spain.

41 Cantera Burgos, �Textos de polémica antijudaica�, p. 143.

42 Alegra Bendayan de Bendalac, Diccionario del judeoespañol de los sefardíes del norte

de Marruecos, Caracas 1995, p. 12.

43 I consulted the first Haggadah printed in Tunis in 1890, that of Jerba of 1962 and the

Haggadah included in the Mahzor Fez, Kfar Maimon 1998. In all of them, the form¦

afikomen appears in the Hebrew text. I thank Dr Ofra Tirosh-Becker for providing me

with this information.

44 Seder Haggadah �el Pesah im tirgum arabi beminhag q�q Bagdad. Livorno 1865.¦

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medieval Portuguese45 and Catalan46 Haggadoth. In mahzorim or siddurim in the¦

Castilian rite, the word is vocalized afiqomin or afiqumin,47 and this is the form,

which survived mainly in the Passover Haggadoth in Hebrew and Ladino of the

Sephardim in the Ottoman Empire.48 It is also found in those printed in the

Algerian communities.49 The use of these two forms, afiqomin (in Passover

Haggadoth from Castile) and afiqomen (in those from Catalonia, Aragon and

Portugal) seems to be related to the particular phonetic evolution, which took place

in Hebrew and Aramaic among the Jews of the Iberian Peninsula or to their

inherited nusah. The Judeo-Castilian form with hîreq in afiqumin or afiqomin can¦ ¦ ˘

be considered a characteristic of the Hebrew textual tradition of the Castilian Jews

that spread itself towards the south and the centre of the Peninsula as Castilian

Romance itself spread. The latter had an innovative character if compared with

the Catalan, Aragonese, Leonese and Galician-Portuguese romances preserved in

the geographical extremes of the Iberian Peninsula. The form with a seghôl should

be considered as more archaic, this fact being corroborated by its presence in texts

of the Passover Haggadah printed by North African communities.50

Worthy of note is the Aramaic form betu�bahot51 in the concluding blessing˘ ¦

following Hallel (113v: 1.9). One can also find this form in the Sarajevo Hagga-

dah (Crown of Aragon, 14th century).

45 See the Siddur for all-year-round, 15th cent., Ms. Oxford, Bodleian Library 1134 (Laud

27); see also H. P. Salomon, �A Fifteenth Century Haggada�, pp. 231-231 who edited

here the Siddur, year 1484 or 1485, Ms. Oxford, Bodleian Library 1132 (Can. Or. 108)

46 See theSiddur for all-year-round, ca. 14th or 15th cent.,Ms.VaticanBibliotecaApostolica,

Rossiana 362.

47 See the Siddur for all-year-round, 15th cent., Ms. Biblioteca Nazionale di Firenze, Gaddi

111 for the form afikumin, and the Siddur, 13th cent., Ms. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale

héb. 591 for the form afikomin which H. P. Salomon, �A Fifteenth Century Haggada�,

p. 227, erroneously transliterates afiqomen instead of afiqomin. The latter was published

by Révah, �Un mahzor espagnol�, p. 357; see also Minervini, �Rituales de Pascua en¦

castellano�, p. 132 and idem, Testi giudeospagnoli medievali. Castiglia e Aragon, vol.

II, Naples 1992, p. 19.

48 David M. Bunis, A Lexicon of the Hebrew and Aramaic Elements in Modern Judezmo,

Jerusalem 1993, p. 104.

49 Moshe Bar-Asher, La composante hebraïque du judéo-arabe algérien, Jerusalem 1992,

p. 96; the same author in Traditions linguistiques des juifs d'Afrique du Nord, Jerusalem21999, p. 294, mentions the forms afikumim, afikumin and appikumin. The latter form

is already found in the first Haggadah printed in North Africa, that of Algiers from 1854.

50 As we have seen, the only exception in North Africa is the presence of forms with a

hîreq in some Haggadoth from Algeria; this can be due to an influence of the¦ �

Judeo-Castilian tradition.

51 For an explanation of this form see Amos Dodi, �The Vocalization of the Barcelona

Haggadah�, p. 349.

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A Sephardic Siddur

We can also consider the feature of the birkát mazón52 (111r: 1.3) as charac-

teristic, even if not exclusive, of the Judeo-Aragonese Romance. This form

continued to be used in some Sephardic texts following the expulsion of 1492.

4. Conclusion

Judging by the linguistic characteristics of the Passover instructions, we are

dealing here with a text in Judeo-Aragonese Romance with light Riojan and

Navarrese influences, the latter probably due to its provenance from a zone near

the area where Riojan and Navarrese romances were spoken. The presence of

Castilian and Riojan linguistic features like -mn- instead of -mbr- in comnád

(110v: 1.8), comná (110v: 1.10) and conmán (111r: 1.1) just as Navarrese

linguistic features like the preservation of the verbal ending -d of the third person

singular in the present a future tenses in caéssed (100v: 1.1), comnád (110v: 1.8),

táyed (110v: 1.9), entíngad (110v: 1.12), cómad (110v: 1.14) and dígad (114r:

1.5) allow us determine that this siddur was written by a scribe from the north-west

of the Aragonese speaking area, approximately in the area between the cities

Tudela, Huesca and Ansó, but most probably from the Tudela area. Another person

from a northern area introduced more instructions in the siddur afterwards.

Especially the preservation of -d in the third person singular of present and

future tenses seems to be an outstanding archaic characteristic in 14th century texts

of Aragonese-speaking Jews from this area. The same occurs in texts written by

Navarrese Jews.

On the other hand, it is not easy to determine exactly when the instructions were

formulated, even if it is certain that it was not done later than the 14th century.

Both the language and the codex characteristics point to the possibility that the

first instructions of the Passover Haggadah were written at the same time that the

copy of the siddur we have just analysed was composed. Even if there were a

previous text employed in the oral tradition, most likely the Romance of the

instructions was updated since there does not seem to be a chronological discrep-

ancy between the state of the language they were written in and that of the codex

where they are included. The spelling of the instructions is also characteristic of

the 14th century.

52 The same form appears in the Aragonese Siddur, 14th cent., Ms. Parma, Biblioteca

Palatina, Parm. 1752.

A Sephardic Siddur with Ritual Prescriptions in Aragonese Romance

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