Its inhabitants, surrounded by Moorish or Spanish enemies and distracted by civil war, derived such rudiments of civilization as they possessed from Arabic or Leonese sources.
This marked type of the Leonese of modern times represents a Berber colony cut off among the Christians, and christianized at an early date, who went on using Arab and Berber names long after their conversion.
Leonese.Proceeding on inadequate indications, the existence of a Leonese dialect has been imprudently admitted in some quarters; but the old kingdom of Leon cannot in any way be considered as constituting a linguistic domain with an individuality of its own.
The fact that a poem of the 13th century (the Alexandro), and certain redactions of the oldest Spanish code, the Fuero Juzgo, have a Leonese origin has been made too much of, and has led to a tendency to localize excessively certain features common to the whole western zone where the transition takes place from Castilian to Gahician-Portuguese.