Daisy chaining: Cadiz declined after the War of Independence against the French and suffered the final blow with the loss of the last colonies in 1898, but, if it never achieved the notoriety of Barcelona, it was still an interesting mix of people. Here’s one of my favourite songs, from one of carnival’s great personalities, Tio de la Tiza, as sung in 1891 by Los moros babucheros, The be-babouched (en-slippered) Moors. Apparently Moorish is a very simple language, a pechelingue so simple that the entire population spoke it–except, perhaps, the transcriber of this example:

El lenguaje moruno es muy sencillo
en Cádiz lo hablan
ya casi en propiedad
hasta los chiquillos.

El otro día pasé por los Callejones
y me estuve enterando de estas razones.

Jimalagi malaju mijima majijalea
decía una niña, desde la azotea.
Jimalagi malaju mijima majijilina
decía la otra, que estaba en la esquina.

Al oír estas razones
yo confieso francamente
que me puse a averiguar
que decía aquella gente.

Me enteré que eran dos vecinas
que se hablaban de aquella hechura,
preguntándose a que hora
pasaba el carro de la basura.

Would that count as Dog Moorish? No Moorish dogs in the following tongue-twister by the same gent, Periquitúliqui:

Piriquitúliqui, metúliqui, patúliqui,
saca la paútica, patúliqui, mulática,
piriquitúliqui, metúliqui, patúliqui,
saca la pin, saca la pun, saca la pon.

I wonder how much more of this stuff there is.

Tags: Andalusia, Barcelona, Cadiz, moors
Categories: Languages, Liberals & locals, Music

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1. Trevor
   September 29th 2008 15:16

   [
   DH points to the Rumba musulmana by Lecuona, at around 5 minutes into this MP3: http://www.rtve.es/resources/mp3/9/0/1222456926809.mp3
   The Comedian Harmonists also did something called Ali Baba. Some people think that Mozart wrote a March for turkeys.
   ]

2. kalebeul » The decline of the Spanish race
   September 30th 2008 07:07

   [...] sentimental tango from from Tio de la Tiza and the Bebabouched Moors demonstrates a firmly-rooted belief in 1891 Cadiz in the Decadence of the Nation, even before the [...]