This article explores the reasons behind the orthographic practice of representing the definite article in written Judeo-Arabic as an independent entity, a phenomenon which became widespread in Jewish Arabic-speaking communities in the pre-modern era. Commencing with its representation in fifteenth to nineteenth-century Egyptian Judeo-Arabic manuscripts, the orthographic feature is traced back to Judeo-Arabic texts produced in medieval al-Andalus, Sicily, and the Maġrib, and from there, to post-1492 CE Sephardī Jewish refugees, who settled in North Africa and Egypt. The phenomenon is revealed to be the result of a two-stage process: (i) direct language contact between Romance and Judeo-Arabic; and (ii) the influence of Judeo-Spanish writing on Judeo-Arabic spelling practices in diaspora communities after their expulsion from the Spanish Kingdoms.

本文探讨了将书面犹太-阿拉伯语中的定冠词表示为一个独立实体的正字法做法背后的原因，这种现象在前现代时代在讲阿拉伯语的犹太社区中很普​​遍。从它在 15 到 19 世纪埃及犹太-阿拉伯手稿中的表现开始，正字法特征可以追溯到中世纪安达卢斯、西西里和马里布的犹太-阿拉伯文本，从那里到公元1492年后Sephardī 犹太难民，他们定居在北非和埃及。这种现象被揭示是两个阶段过程的结果：(i) 罗曼语和犹太-阿拉伯语之间的直接语言接触；(ii) 犹太-西班牙文字对散居社区被西班牙王国驱逐后的犹太-阿拉伯拼写实践的影响。