'
Arabic' has had a great influence on other languages, especially in
vocabulary. The influence of Arabic has been most profound in those countries dominated by Islam or Islamic power. Arabic is a major source of vocabulary for languages as diverse as
Berber,
Kurdish,
Persian,
Swahili,
Urdu,
Hindi (especially the spoken variety),
Turkish,
Malay, and
Indonesian, as well as other languages in countries where these languages are spoken. For example the Arabic word for ''book'' /kita:b/ is used in all the languages listed, apart from Malay and Indonesian (where it specifically means "religious book"). Other languages such as
Maltese[1] and
Kinubi derive from Arabic, rather than merely borrowing vocabulary.
The terms borrowed range from religious terminology (like Berber "prayer" <
salat), academic terms (like
Uyghur ''mentiq'' "logic"), economic items (like English "sugar") to everyday conjunctions (like Urdu ''lekin'' "but".) Most Berber varieties (such as
Kabyle), along with Swahili, borrow some numbers from Arabic. Most religious terms used by Muslims around the world are direct borrowings from Arabic, such as ''salat'' 'prayer' and ''imam'' 'prayer leader'. In languages not directly in contact with the Arab world, Arabic loanwords are often mediated by other languages rather than being transferred directly from Arabic; for example, most Arabic loanwords in Urdu entered through Persian, and many older Arabic loanwords in
Hausa were borrowed from
Kanuri.
Outside the Islamic world, there are more limited borrowings from Arabic, usually to denote vegetables and other articles in commerce, such as "aubergine" and "alcohol". Arabic influence is particularly pervasive in
Spanish and
Portuguese, where it often supplies place names, as well as the
placeholder ''fulano'' ("so and so").
English
Main articles: List of English words of Arabic origin
Like other European languages,
English contains many words derived from Arabic, often through other European languages, especially
Spanish and
Italian. Among them is every-day vocabulary like "
sugar" (''sukkar''), "
cotton" ('') or "magazine" (''
''). More recognizable are words like "
algebra", "
alcohol", "
alchemy", "
alkali", "
cypher" and "
zenith" (see
list of English words of Arabic origin). These words are often productive sources of derivatives, such as "algebraic", "alcoholic", "alcoholism", and "decipher".
A more indirect form of influence is the use of certain Latinate words in an unclassical sense, derived from their use in Latin translations of medieval Arabic philosophical works (e.g. those of
Averroes), which entered the
scholastic vocabulary and later came into normal use in modern languages. Examples are "information" to mean the imparting or acquisition of knowledge (Arabic ''taÅŸawwur'', mental impression or representation, from a root meaning "form") and "intention" (Arabic ''ma'na'', meaning). These words may almost be regarded as
calques.
French
Main articles: List of French words of Arabic origin
While
French shares many Arabic-derived words with other European languages, its occupation of the
Maghreb, in particular
Algeria, in the nineteenth century, which involved large-scale emigration, resulted in the borrowing of other words derived particularly from
Maghrebi Arabic. Examples iclude 'bled', a slang term for place of origin, following this word's usage in the Maghreb, as opposed to the Standard Arabic ''balad'', 'country', along with the Maghrebi term 'kif kif' and 'toubib', a slang term for 'doctor'.
Portuguese
Main articles: List of Portuguese words of Arabic origin
Between the 9th and the 15th centuries
Portuguese acquired about 1000 words from Arabic by influence of
Moorish Iberia. They are often recognizable by the initial Arabic article ''a''(''l'')''-'', and include many common words such as ''aldeia'' "village" from الضيعة, ''alface'' "lettuce" from الخس ''alkhass'', ''armazém'' "warehouse" from المخزن ''almakhzan'', and ''azeite'' "olive oil" from الزيت ''azzait''. From Arabic came also the grammatically peculiar word
''oxalá'' "God willing". The
Algarve is ''al-gharb'', the west. The frequency of Arabic toponyms increases as one travels south in the country.
Spanish
Main articles: Arabic influence on the Spanish language
The
Spanish language has been heavily influenced by
Arabic as a result of the
Islamic presence in the
Iberian peninsula between AD 711 and AD 1492. Modern day Spanish (or Castilian) first appeared in the small Christian
Kingdom of Castile in Northern Spain during this period of Islamic domination over most of the Iberian peninsula. As a result, the language was influenced by
Andalusi Arabic practically from its inception. Nevertheless, Arabic imprint on the language increased as the Kingdom of Castile expanded into Muslim lands where the Castilian language had never been spoken and as arabized Christians (
Mozarabs) from
Al Andalus emigrated northwards during times of sectarian violence in Muslim lands. In most of Al Andalus, Arabic was used among the local élites and local Arabic-influenced Romance dialects, known collectively as
Mozarabic were generally used as the vernacular language. Only the
kingdom of Granada, under the
Nasrid dynasty was totally arabized after many centuries of Muslim rule.
Modern Spanish is thus a mixture of Old Castilian and the Mozarabic dialects which it absorbed. This fusion explains why Spanish has, in many cases, both Latin and Arabic derived words of the same meaning. For example, ''aceituna'' and ''oliva'' (olive), ''alacrán'' and ''escorpión'' (scorpion), ''jaqueca'' and ''migraña'' (headache) or ''alcancÃa'' and ''hucha'' (piggy bank). The imprint of Mozarabic and Arabic is evidently more noticeable in the dialects of Castilian Spanish spoken in southern Spain than in northern Spain.
Lexical influence
It is estimated that there are over four thousand Arabic loanwords in the Spanish language (including derivations) and well over one thousand Arabic roots. A majority of these are nouns, with a more limited number of
verbs,
adjectives,
adverbs and
prepositions, thus not substantially changing the grammar or basic structure of the language. Examples include ''berengena'' (aubergine, from ''bedinjan''), ''aceite'' (oil, from ''az-zayt''), and ''alcalde'' (mayor, from ''al-qadi'').
Toponyms (place names)
There are hundreds if not thousands of place names and names of geographical features derived from Arabic in Spain. Examples include place names such as ''Alcazar'' and ''Alhambra'', and the
Guadalquivir, from ''wadi l-kabir'', 'the great river'. Toponyms derived from Arabic are common in all of Spain (including much of the North of the country) except for those regions which never came under Muslim rule or where it was particularly short-lived. These regions include
Galicia and the Northern coast (
Asturias,
Cantabria and the
Basque country) as well as most of
Catalonia. Regions where place names of Arabic origin are particularly common are the Eastern Coast (
Valencia and
Murcia) and the region of
Andalusia.
Those toponyms which maintained their pre-Islamic name during the Muslim period were generally Arabized and the mark of the old Arabic pronunciation is noticeable in their modern names: e.g. Cesarea Augusta - سرقسطة Saraqusţah -
Zaragoza.
Other Influences
'The suffix Ã'. Arabic has a very common type of adjective, known as the nisbi or relationship adjective, which is formed by adding the suffix -Ä« (masc.) o ية -iyya (fem.) to a noun. This has given Spanish the suffix -à (both masc. and fem.), creating adjectives from nouns which indicate relationship or belonging. Examples are MarbellÃ, CeutÃ, MaghrebÃ, ZaragozÃ, Andalusà or AlfonsÃ.
'Expressions'. A number of expressions in Spanish have been translated or adapted from their Arabic equivalent. Examples would be ''si Dios quiere'', ''que Dios guarde'' or ''bendita sea la madre que te pario''. The generally accepted etymology of ''hidalgo'' 'nobleman' — Old Spanish ''fijo d'algo'' — is composed of Latin roots (cf. Modern Spanish ''hijo'' 'son' + ''algo'' 'something'), but is considered a
calque of an Arabic phrase using ''ibn'' 'son' to mean simply 'person characterized by (the idea expressed by the following noun)'. In Old Spanish, ''algo'' could mean 'wealth, property'.
Turkish
Following the adoption of
Islam c. 950 by the
Kara-Khanid Khanate and the
Seljuq Turks, regarded as the cultural ancestors of the
Ottomans, the administrative language of these states acquired a rather large collection of loanwords from Arabic, as well as
Persian. During the course of over six hundred years of the
Ottoman Empire (c. 1299–1922), the literary and official language of the empire was a mixture of Turkish, Persian and Arabic, which differed considerably from everyday spoken Turkish of the time, and is termed
Ottoman Turkish.
After the foundation of the
Republic of Turkey, and following the
script reform, the
Turkish Language Association (TDK) was established under the patronage of
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in 1932, with the aim of conducting research on Turkish. One of the tasks of the newly established association was to initiate a
language reform to
replace loanwords of Arabic and Persian origin with Turkish equivalents.
[2] By banning the usage of replaced loanwords in the press, the association succeeded in removing several hundred foreign words from the language, thus diminishing but by no means erasing the Arabic influence on Turkish.
Interlingua
Dozens of Arabic words occur in
Interlingua, frequently because their co-occurrence in such languages as English, French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese can be used to
verify their internationality. Many of these words entered Interlingua's vocabulary through Spanish and Portuguese. Arabic words in Interlingua include "algebra", "alcohol", "cifra" (cypher), "magazin", "sucro" (sugar), "zenit", and "zero".
See also
★
List of French words of Arabic origin
★
List of replaced loanwords in Turkish
References
1. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9050379/Maltese-language
2. See Lewis (2002) for a thorough treatment of the Turkish language reform.
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