Arabic

About Arabic
Arabic is a Central Semitic language and is the most common among all Semitic languages. Most speakers are from the Middle East and North Africa, and is a first language to more than 280 million people. Arabic is very geographically distributed in many varieties. There are many Arabic dialects. Classical Arabic, the language of the Qur'an, was originally from Mecca in what is now Saudi Arabia. Modern Standard Arabic, a more recent form of Classical Arabic, is widely taught in schools and is used in workplaces, governments, and the media.

How Arabic words made their way into English
About a year ago, there were at least 900 English words of Arabic origin recorded in the OED. Many of these words have a large connection with the language of the Qur'an. According to Habeeb Salloum, it is very difficult to pick out Arabic-English words from an Arabic conversation because Arabic-English words are very anglicized. By the end of the seventh century, Arabic had become more widespread than many dominant languages from North Africa and, soon after, dominated in parts of Europe such as Spain. Arabic influenced English through the Crusades and merchant trades and was the language of the most powerful culture of the time.

Some English words borrowed from Arabic
 Transliteration system key:

a with a dash over it = like the 'a' sound in cat; i with a dash over it = like the 'i' sound in ski; u with a dash over it = like the 'u' sound in rude; ah underlined = like the 'o' sound in coming; dh underlined = like the 'th' sound in those; gh underlined = a voiced gargly sound; kh underlined = no equivalent in English- like the 'ch' in Scottish loch; sh underlined = like the 'sh' in shop; th underlined = like the 'th' in think; h with a dot under it = an emphatic 'h' formed deep in the throat without voicing; s with a dot under it = an emphatic velarized 's' somewhat like the 's' in soap; t with a dot under it = somewhat like the 't' in tome; z with a dot under it = somewhat like the 'th' in brother; c superscript = a sound made by constricting the throat before, between, or after the adjacent vowel(s)

The Zompist, written by Mike Rosenfelder, is a website that enlightens viewers with comics, linguistics, culture, language construction, diversions, particular languages, and editorials. One particular language he compares to English is Arabic. Here are a few of the English words that he lists as adopted from the Arabic language:


 * 1) alcohol - al-kohl 'the kohl'
 * 2) algebra - al-jebr 'reintegration' - jabara reunite
 * 3) amber - `anbar 'ambergris'
 * 4) berdache - (possibly) bardaj 'slave'
 * 5) bled - balad 'vast open country'
 * 6) checkmate - sha:h ma:t 'the king is dead'
 * 7) candy - short for 'sugar candy', from sugar + qandi 'candied', from qand 'cane sugar' - from a Dravidian language
 * 8) carat - qi:ra:t 'small weight' - from Greek
 * 9) drub - daraba 'beat'
 * 10) dura mater - Latin calque on umm al-ghali:dah 'hard mother'
 * 11) elixir - al-iksi:r 'philosopher's stone' - from Greek
 * 12) emir - ami:r - amara command
 * 13) fatwa - fetwa - fata: instruct by a legal decision
 * 14) genie - jinni: 'spirit'
 * 15) ghoul - ghu:l 'demon' - gha:la take suddenly
 * 16) hashish - h'ashi:sh 'dried herbs, hemp'
 * 17) hazard - yásara 'play at dice'
 * 18) jar - jarrah 'large earthen vase'
 * 19) kohl - kohl 'kohl' - kah'ala stain, paint
 * 20) loofah - lu:fah a plant whose pods were used as sponges
 * 21) magazine - makha:zin 'storehouses' - khazana store
 * 22) nadir - nadi:r as-samt 'opposite the zenith'
 * 23) ottoman - `uthma:n, a proper name
 * 24) racket - râh'et 'palm of the hand'
 * 25) sheikh - shaikh 'old man' - sha:kha grow old
 * 26) sherbet - sharbah - shariba drink
 * 27) tariff - ta`ri:f 'notification' - `arafa notify
 * 28) wisdom tooth - from a Latin calque on adra:su 'l h'ikmi - calqued from Greek
 * 29) zenith - samt 'path
 * 30) zero - s,ifr 'empty'