crystalhunting
Tallahastezzi Kaffirs!!!
- Joined
- Feb 12, 2001
- Posts
- 2,578
I'm pretty sure you are aware of this,but just in case you arent.
here we go.
CH
A society is generally as lax as its language.
October 2000, Vol. 2, No. 10 Tuesday, October 22, 2002
Arabic Influences in the English Language Habeeb Salloum
Visitors from Britain or North America strolling through an Arab city and listening to the Arabic conversations of passersby are usually unaware that the English language includes a good number of words derived from that strange tongue. Yet, if they are not students of linguistics, they cannot be blamed. Many of the Arabic words borrowed by English are so anglicized that, for the layperson, it is difficult to identify their true origin.
My late colleague, James Peters, and I examined over 500,000 English words and found that, from these, some 3,000 basic words and 5,000 of their derivatives have some connection with the language of the Qur'an. Upwards of 500 of the basic words are common in the everyday language.
The story of how these Arabic words entered the language of Shakespeare is a fascinating one. At the dawn of Islam in the seventh century, the Arabic language and Islam became inseparable. As the Muslim armies moved through North Africa, then through the Iberian Peninsula, the tongue of the Arabs as a part of the new religion spread like wildfire. The masses of newly converted Muslims, in many cases, took as their own the idiom of the conquering desert men. In a few decades, Arabic became the intellectual medium that united the new world of Islam.
Eastward, from the Arabian heartland, the Muslim armies occupied countries that had developed numerous civilizations and cultures. However, unlike a good number of conquerors before and after, they did not destroy but preserved the cultures they had overwhelmed. In the ensuing centuries, they absorbed the learning of these lands to produce an Arab-Islamic civilization that was to be mankind's beacon for hundreds of years.
From the conquered lands, the Arabs borrowed thousands of scientific and technical words, greatly enriching their poetic tongue. Between the eighth and twelfth centuries, this enhanced Arabic, with an endless vocabulary, became the intellectual and scientific language of the entire scholastic world.
The men of letters and scientists in both eastern and western lands had to know Arabic if they wished to produce works of art or science. During these centuries, Arab Andalusia by itself generated more books in Arabic than were produced in all the other languages of Europe. The Arabic libraries in Muslim Spain, some containing over half a million manuscripts, had no match in all the countries of Christendom.
Unlike the rest of Europe, where only the clergy were literate, the majority of people in Muslim Spain learned to read and write in the schools that were to be found in almost every town. European students from the northern Christian lands came to study in these institutions, and when they returned, their vocabularies were enriched with many Arabic words and phrases.
At the same time, the Christians in the Iberian Peninsula living under Muslim rule became proficient in Arabic, in many cases preferring it to their own Romance languages. Hence, in both the written and spoken idioms, Arabic words crept into the linguistic heritage of Spain and were later adopted by the other European languages.
As they borrowed from the rich repository of Arabic scientific and technical words, the Christian languages were enhanced and stimulated. Added to this, the movement of Arabic words into the tongues of Europe was accelerated by the translation of Arabic books, mostly in Toledo — captured early in the Reconquista. Hundreds of Arabic words entered the European languages by way of these translations. Historians have asserted that the reproduction of Arabic works from the most advanced civilization in that age transformed European thinking and put the continent on the road to advancement and prosperity.
Besides the Iberian Peninsula, there were two other points from which Arab influences spread to Europe: Sicily, after its conquest and Arabization, and the Middle East, by way of the Crusades.
As in Spain, the Sicilians borrowed many words from their conquerors, and the "men of the cross" brought back to the Europe of the Dark Ages many new products, ideas, and words borrowed from Arabic. The European languages, among them English, were enriched by the newly acquired vocabulary of these returning warriors, including a good number of Arabic words in all fields of human activity.
It was only natural that the West would borrow words from the Muslim East — the most advanced part of the world in that era. In the same fashion as, in our times, words from English — the language of industry and science — creep into foreign tongues, so it was with Arabic at the time of the Crusades.
In the ensuing years, Arabic words began to flow into English through intermediate languages like French and Portuguese. Later, from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries, when Britain expanded its empire to the four corners of the world, a variety of Arabic words entered English by way of Africa, the Middle East, and the Indian subcontinent. Even after colonialism disappeared, the inflow of Arabic words into English has continued.
If one leafs through modern English dictionaries, words of Arabic origin are to be found under every letter of the alphabet. It will surprise many to know that in a study made of Skeats Etymological Dictionary, it was found that Arabic is ranked seventh of the languages that have contributed to the enrichment of English. Only Greek, Latin, French, German, Scandinavian, and the Celtic group of languages have contributed more than Arabic to the tongue of Shakespeare.
These Arabic loan-words indicate that the Arabs contributed to almost all areas of western life. In architecture; food and drink; geography and navigation; home and daily life; music and song; personal adornment; cultivation of plants; the sciences; the domain of the heavens; sports; trade and commerce; the theater of the macabre; the abode of animals and birds; the clothing and fabric trade; and in the fields of chemicals, color, and minerals, one finds Arabic words and Arab-transmitted words from other languages used in the European languages.
One can see the immense Arab contribution to English if we examine only one of these areas: food and drink. Alcohol is derived from the Arabic alkuhl; apricot - al-barquq; artichoke - al-khurshuf; arrack - caraq; banana - banan; candy - qand; cane - qana; caramel - qanah; caraway - karawya; carob - kharrub; coffee and cafe - qahwa; cumin - kammun; jasmine - yasmin; julep - julab; kabab or kabob - kabab; lemon, lemonade, and lime - laymun; mocha - makha; orange - naranj; saffron - zacfaran; salep - thaclab; sesame - simsim; sherbet - sharba; sherry - Sherish (the Arab name of the city of Jerez de la Frontera in Andalusia); spinach - isbanakh; sugar - sukkar; sumach - summaq; syrup - sharab; tamarind - tamr hindi; tangerine - tanja; tarragon - tarkhun; tumeric - kurkum; and tuna - tun are a number of these words that have become as English as Yorkshire pudding.
Even in our times, the Arabic contribution has not stopped. As in most other fields, in the domain of food and drink, the flow of Arabic words into English continues. During the twentieth century, the words burghul or burghal are derived from the Arabic burghul; couscous - kuskus; falafel - filafil; halvah - halawa; hummus - hummus; kibbe or kibbeh - kubba; leban - laban; shish kibab - shish kabab; and taboula - tabbula are now to be found in most dictionaries as English words.
This sample of Arabic words in only one area of the English language makes it clear that the language of the Qur'an has contributed, and continues to contribute, to today's most widespread tongue on the globe. In today's world, Arabic is the only language in which an ordinary Arabic-speaking person can pick up a 1,500-year-old Arabic book and understand its contents. All European languages, including English, did not exist at that time. Languages such as Greek, Persian, and Chinese are, in our time, much different from the older versions of these tongues, which are understood only by scholars.
With such a venerable history, there is no doubt that Arabic, which the Arabs and, in fact, all Muslims consider to be "the language of paradise," will continue its worldly role.
Habeeb Salloum
habeeb.salloum@sympatico.ca
Habeeb Salloum is a freelance writer and author residing in Toronto. He has traveled extensively to most parts of the world and written comprehensively about the countries he has visited and their cuisines. He has had hundreds of articles and several books published about all types of travel and food. Among his most recent books are Arabic Contributions to the English Vocabulary (Librarie du Liban: Beirut, 1996), Journeys Back to Arab Spain (Middle East Studies Centre: Toronto, 1994), and Classic Vegetarian Cooking from the Middle East and North Africa (Interlink Books, New York, 2000). He is also the co-author of From the Lands of Figs and Olives: Over 300 delicious and unusual recipes from the Middle East and North Africa (Interlink Books: New York, 1995).
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)
Features
• Politicians Incorrect
• Arabic Influences in the English Language
• No Greater Misfortune: Debating with American Academics
• Two Poems
Departments
• Grumbling About Grammar
• The Grumbling About Grammar Awards (GAGAs)
• Elegant English
• On Dimwitticisms
• Clues to Concise Writing
• Scarcely Used Words
• Oddments and Miscellanea
• On the Bookshelf
• Letters to the Editor
Other Business
• Ads and Offers
• English-Language Links
• The Bookshelf
• The Collected GAGAs
• TVR Banner
• A Word on Generosity
Contributors
• Mark Halpern
• Richard Lederer
• Habeeb Salloum
• Elana Wolff
• Contributors' Guidelines
Recent Issues
• September 2000
• August 2000
• July 2000
• June 2000
• May 2000
Vocabula Books
• The Dictionary of Concise Writing
• The Dimwit's Dictionary
• Speaking of Silence
• TVR for PDAs
• Order Form
Vocabula Communications Company
• Home
• Views
here we go.
CH
A society is generally as lax as its language.
October 2000, Vol. 2, No. 10 Tuesday, October 22, 2002
Arabic Influences in the English Language Habeeb Salloum
Visitors from Britain or North America strolling through an Arab city and listening to the Arabic conversations of passersby are usually unaware that the English language includes a good number of words derived from that strange tongue. Yet, if they are not students of linguistics, they cannot be blamed. Many of the Arabic words borrowed by English are so anglicized that, for the layperson, it is difficult to identify their true origin.
My late colleague, James Peters, and I examined over 500,000 English words and found that, from these, some 3,000 basic words and 5,000 of their derivatives have some connection with the language of the Qur'an. Upwards of 500 of the basic words are common in the everyday language.
The story of how these Arabic words entered the language of Shakespeare is a fascinating one. At the dawn of Islam in the seventh century, the Arabic language and Islam became inseparable. As the Muslim armies moved through North Africa, then through the Iberian Peninsula, the tongue of the Arabs as a part of the new religion spread like wildfire. The masses of newly converted Muslims, in many cases, took as their own the idiom of the conquering desert men. In a few decades, Arabic became the intellectual medium that united the new world of Islam.
Eastward, from the Arabian heartland, the Muslim armies occupied countries that had developed numerous civilizations and cultures. However, unlike a good number of conquerors before and after, they did not destroy but preserved the cultures they had overwhelmed. In the ensuing centuries, they absorbed the learning of these lands to produce an Arab-Islamic civilization that was to be mankind's beacon for hundreds of years.
From the conquered lands, the Arabs borrowed thousands of scientific and technical words, greatly enriching their poetic tongue. Between the eighth and twelfth centuries, this enhanced Arabic, with an endless vocabulary, became the intellectual and scientific language of the entire scholastic world.
The men of letters and scientists in both eastern and western lands had to know Arabic if they wished to produce works of art or science. During these centuries, Arab Andalusia by itself generated more books in Arabic than were produced in all the other languages of Europe. The Arabic libraries in Muslim Spain, some containing over half a million manuscripts, had no match in all the countries of Christendom.
Unlike the rest of Europe, where only the clergy were literate, the majority of people in Muslim Spain learned to read and write in the schools that were to be found in almost every town. European students from the northern Christian lands came to study in these institutions, and when they returned, their vocabularies were enriched with many Arabic words and phrases.
At the same time, the Christians in the Iberian Peninsula living under Muslim rule became proficient in Arabic, in many cases preferring it to their own Romance languages. Hence, in both the written and spoken idioms, Arabic words crept into the linguistic heritage of Spain and were later adopted by the other European languages.
As they borrowed from the rich repository of Arabic scientific and technical words, the Christian languages were enhanced and stimulated. Added to this, the movement of Arabic words into the tongues of Europe was accelerated by the translation of Arabic books, mostly in Toledo — captured early in the Reconquista. Hundreds of Arabic words entered the European languages by way of these translations. Historians have asserted that the reproduction of Arabic works from the most advanced civilization in that age transformed European thinking and put the continent on the road to advancement and prosperity.
Besides the Iberian Peninsula, there were two other points from which Arab influences spread to Europe: Sicily, after its conquest and Arabization, and the Middle East, by way of the Crusades.
As in Spain, the Sicilians borrowed many words from their conquerors, and the "men of the cross" brought back to the Europe of the Dark Ages many new products, ideas, and words borrowed from Arabic. The European languages, among them English, were enriched by the newly acquired vocabulary of these returning warriors, including a good number of Arabic words in all fields of human activity.
It was only natural that the West would borrow words from the Muslim East — the most advanced part of the world in that era. In the same fashion as, in our times, words from English — the language of industry and science — creep into foreign tongues, so it was with Arabic at the time of the Crusades.
In the ensuing years, Arabic words began to flow into English through intermediate languages like French and Portuguese. Later, from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries, when Britain expanded its empire to the four corners of the world, a variety of Arabic words entered English by way of Africa, the Middle East, and the Indian subcontinent. Even after colonialism disappeared, the inflow of Arabic words into English has continued.
If one leafs through modern English dictionaries, words of Arabic origin are to be found under every letter of the alphabet. It will surprise many to know that in a study made of Skeats Etymological Dictionary, it was found that Arabic is ranked seventh of the languages that have contributed to the enrichment of English. Only Greek, Latin, French, German, Scandinavian, and the Celtic group of languages have contributed more than Arabic to the tongue of Shakespeare.
These Arabic loan-words indicate that the Arabs contributed to almost all areas of western life. In architecture; food and drink; geography and navigation; home and daily life; music and song; personal adornment; cultivation of plants; the sciences; the domain of the heavens; sports; trade and commerce; the theater of the macabre; the abode of animals and birds; the clothing and fabric trade; and in the fields of chemicals, color, and minerals, one finds Arabic words and Arab-transmitted words from other languages used in the European languages.
One can see the immense Arab contribution to English if we examine only one of these areas: food and drink. Alcohol is derived from the Arabic alkuhl; apricot - al-barquq; artichoke - al-khurshuf; arrack - caraq; banana - banan; candy - qand; cane - qana; caramel - qanah; caraway - karawya; carob - kharrub; coffee and cafe - qahwa; cumin - kammun; jasmine - yasmin; julep - julab; kabab or kabob - kabab; lemon, lemonade, and lime - laymun; mocha - makha; orange - naranj; saffron - zacfaran; salep - thaclab; sesame - simsim; sherbet - sharba; sherry - Sherish (the Arab name of the city of Jerez de la Frontera in Andalusia); spinach - isbanakh; sugar - sukkar; sumach - summaq; syrup - sharab; tamarind - tamr hindi; tangerine - tanja; tarragon - tarkhun; tumeric - kurkum; and tuna - tun are a number of these words that have become as English as Yorkshire pudding.
Even in our times, the Arabic contribution has not stopped. As in most other fields, in the domain of food and drink, the flow of Arabic words into English continues. During the twentieth century, the words burghul or burghal are derived from the Arabic burghul; couscous - kuskus; falafel - filafil; halvah - halawa; hummus - hummus; kibbe or kibbeh - kubba; leban - laban; shish kibab - shish kabab; and taboula - tabbula are now to be found in most dictionaries as English words.
This sample of Arabic words in only one area of the English language makes it clear that the language of the Qur'an has contributed, and continues to contribute, to today's most widespread tongue on the globe. In today's world, Arabic is the only language in which an ordinary Arabic-speaking person can pick up a 1,500-year-old Arabic book and understand its contents. All European languages, including English, did not exist at that time. Languages such as Greek, Persian, and Chinese are, in our time, much different from the older versions of these tongues, which are understood only by scholars.
With such a venerable history, there is no doubt that Arabic, which the Arabs and, in fact, all Muslims consider to be "the language of paradise," will continue its worldly role.
Habeeb Salloum
habeeb.salloum@sympatico.ca
Habeeb Salloum is a freelance writer and author residing in Toronto. He has traveled extensively to most parts of the world and written comprehensively about the countries he has visited and their cuisines. He has had hundreds of articles and several books published about all types of travel and food. Among his most recent books are Arabic Contributions to the English Vocabulary (Librarie du Liban: Beirut, 1996), Journeys Back to Arab Spain (Middle East Studies Centre: Toronto, 1994), and Classic Vegetarian Cooking from the Middle East and North Africa (Interlink Books, New York, 2000). He is also the co-author of From the Lands of Figs and Olives: Over 300 delicious and unusual recipes from the Middle East and North Africa (Interlink Books: New York, 1995).
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)
Features
• Politicians Incorrect
• Arabic Influences in the English Language
• No Greater Misfortune: Debating with American Academics
• Two Poems
Departments
• Grumbling About Grammar
• The Grumbling About Grammar Awards (GAGAs)
• Elegant English
• On Dimwitticisms
• Clues to Concise Writing
• Scarcely Used Words
• Oddments and Miscellanea
• On the Bookshelf
• Letters to the Editor
Other Business
• Ads and Offers
• English-Language Links
• The Bookshelf
• The Collected GAGAs
• TVR Banner
• A Word on Generosity
Contributors
• Mark Halpern
• Richard Lederer
• Habeeb Salloum
• Elana Wolff
• Contributors' Guidelines
Recent Issues
• September 2000
• August 2000
• July 2000
• June 2000
• May 2000
Vocabula Books
• The Dictionary of Concise Writing
• The Dimwit's Dictionary
• Speaking of Silence
• TVR for PDAs
• Order Form
Vocabula Communications Company
• Home
• Views
