J.-Sp. puertas de rey (es) 'royal courts'

Abstract

The expression puertas de rey (es), documented in only three versions of a single ballad collected on the Island of Rhodes in 1911, corresponds to Old Spanish puerta del rey 'king's court', which occurs in Calila e Dimna and the Libro de los çient capítulos. The semantic correspondence puerta = corte is known in many Near Eastern languages, both ancient and modern: Classical Arabic bāb al-malik; Ottoman Turkish qāpu; Persian and Urdu darbār; Assyrio-Babilonian bābu; Hebrew ša'ar and Aramaic ṭĕra'; Late Egyptian 'ryt; Old Persian *duvar; Classical Greek thúrai; North African Latin porta. The Old Spanish form doubtless originated in the Arabic source of Kalila wa-Dimna, while the Judeo-Spanish expression is a semantic caique (loan translation) based on Turkish qāpu, in line with numerous other Turkish and Pan-Balkan influences on Eastern Judeo-Spanish.