Abstract
La expresión puertas de rey (es), documentada sólo en tres versiones de un solo romance recogido en la isla de Rodas, en 1911, corresponde al antiguo español puerta del rey, con el sentido 'corte del rey', que consta en Calila y Dimna y en el Libro de los çient capítulos. El concepto puerta = corte existe en muchos idiomas antiguos y modernos del Próximo Oriente: árabe clásico bāb al-malik; turco otomano qāpu; persa y urdù darbār; babilonio bābu; hebreo ša'ar y arameo ṭĕra'; egipcio tardío 'ryt; antiguo persa *duvar; griego clásico thúrai; latín norteafricano porta. La forma antigua española sin duda tiene su origen en el mismo original árabe de Kalila wa-Dimna, mientras que la judeoespañola reflejará un calco semántico hecho a base del turco otomano qāpu, de acuerdo con otras muchas influencias del turco y de las lenguas balcánicas en el judeoespañol oriental.
Highlights
That the characteristic Pan-Balkan caique cited by Weinreich to typify semantic exchanges between Balkan linguistic communities: 'may God punish you' being rendered as 'May you find it from God', is known in Judeo-Spanish: Del Dio que lo topes (ARMISTEAD and SILVERMAN 1979: 139, n. 37)
Si culpado fuese, fuiría por la tierra et avería anchura, et non aturaría a la puerta del rey. (Cacho Blecua and Lacarra 1984: 125, 129, 131, 136, 183)3. Both the Judeo-Spanish usage oí puertas and that oí puerta in Calila e Dimna reflect -independently, we believe- the same ancient Near Eastern concept: the king's court being designated as the king's door, suggesting perhaps a custom of receiving the subjects' petitions at the palace gate, but implying especially a certain respectful separation, a distance from awesome and financial agent (Ar. sarrãf) of three successive Turkish governors
In the Bible, courts of law were sometimes convened at the gates of cities and kings occasionally held court there, as, for example, in an impressive passage in 1 Kings 22:10: «The king of Israel [Ahab] and King Jehoshaphat of Judah were seated on their thrones, arrayed in their robes, on the threshing floor at the entrance of the gate \pethah sa'ar] of Samaria; and all the prophets were prophesying before them» (Nevi'im 1978: 9 The translations we have seen of Esther 4:2 and 6 read «the king's gate» or «the palace gate» (King James; Kethubim [1982: 410]) or '(la) puerta del rey» {Lazar FLSJ (Ferrara) 1992: 673; LLAMAS 1950-1955: II, 179; HAUPTMANN and L I T
Summary
That the characteristic Pan-Balkan caique cited by Weinreich to typify semantic exchanges between Balkan linguistic communities: 'may God punish you' being rendered as 'May you find it from God' (with examples from Arumanian, Albanian, Greek, Bulgarian, and Serbocroatian), is known in Judeo-Spanish: Del Dio que lo topes
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