Quoting Benct Philip Jonsson <bpj@...>:
> At 19:45 10.11.2003, Andreas Johansson wrote:
>
> >When did Spanish acquire proper articles, BTW? Where they already there
> when
> >the Arabs turned up, or did they arose only later? In the later case it's
> easy
> >enough to see why the proto-Spaniards treated the al- as part of the word
> >proper, I'd say.
>
> It was the Berber who made out the bulk of the
> muslim armies in Spain who treated the Arabic
> article as part of the word because Berber
> lacks definite articles. Berber langs still
> treat the article of new Arabic loans as
> part of the word.
Thanks - that's good to know.
But I'd still be interested to know when Spanish - and other Romance langs for
that matter - acquired articles.
Andreas