{"id":197,"date":"2010-03-08T20:01:05","date_gmt":"2010-03-08T20:01:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/arabic\/?p=197"},"modified":"2010-03-09T00:52:14","modified_gmt":"2010-03-09T00:52:14","slug":"english-words-of-arabic-origin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/arabic\/english-words-of-arabic-origin\/","title":{"rendered":"English Words of Arabic Origin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Being a native Arabic speaker, one of the most difficult challenges I found when learning English was its lack of familiarity to anything I\u2019ve known before. I could say the same about\u00a0 learning Portuguese, my most recent undertaking since moving to Sao Paulo, Brazil. Although my task was made easier because I could draw upon my experiences of learning English. I imagine I\u2019m not the only who thinks this way. Our lack of familiarity with a language can make learning it frustrating and intimidating. I do think that sometimes we are more familiar with things than we actually know, and our initial impressions are not entirely accurate.<\/span><\/h2>\n

Have you ever heard people conversing in Arabic? I think that those who have no or minimal exposure to it would find it intimidating and perhaps intriguing. Some common observations I would expect to hear are that it\u2019s guttural, rough, and unlike anything they\u2019ve heard. In reality it\u2019s neither, but our reaction is heavily influenced by the languages we already know. To most English speakers, whose language is derived from Germanic, it\u2019s certainly different than what they\u2019re usually accustomed to. This is also true for speakers of romance languages.<\/p>\n

Consider any of the romance languages used in Europe and parts of the Americas: Although they are very different, they share a relatively similar alphabet, and on many occasions similar vocabulary. This is not surprising given their common ancestry. In many instances we only need to change our pronunciation, or a letter or two, to arrive at the same word in one or two other languages. The English word \u201cjar,\u201d for example, has the French, Spanish, and Portuguese equivalents of (respectively) \u201cJarre,\u201d \u201cJarra,\u201d and \u201cJarro.\u201d While noting the obvious differences we can also see the clear resemblances. Now consider the Arabic equivalent of the same word;\u00a0 that is the word \u201c\u062c\u0631\u0629\u201d. If you did not know already, \u201c\u062c\u0631\u0629\u201d is transliterated as \u201cjarra.\u201d Phonetically it sounds similar to its English equivalent, and it\u2019s almost identical to its Spanish, French, and Portuguese equivalents. In fact the origin of the word \u201cjar\u201d is Arabic, and it\u2019s one of many hundreds of English words that share that heritage.<\/p>\n

This one example is not meant to mitigate the vast differences between Arabic and European languages, but if we look closely we will find many similarities. As I mentioned earlier, the English language is strewn with words whose origin is Arabic: Alcohol, or \u201c\u0627\u0644\u0643\u062d\u0648\u0644\u201d; magazine, or *\u201c\u0645\u0627\u063a\u0627\u0632\u064a\u0646\u201d; mascara, or \u201c\u0627\u0644\u0645\u0633\u0643\u0631\u0629\u201d are just a few examples.<\/p>\n

Incidentally, alcohol, or \u201c\u0627\u0644\u0643\u062d\u0648\u0644\u201d (al-ko\u2019hool), was invented by an Arab chemist named Al-Kindi (\u0623\u0628\u0648 \u064a\u0648\u0633\u0641 \u064a\u0639\u0642\u0648\u0628 \u0625\u0628\u0646 \u0625\u0633\u062d\u0627\u0642 \u0627\u0644\u0643\u0646\u062f\u064a, Abu Yoosef Ya\u2019kub\u00a0Is\u2019haq al-Kindi). Or more precisely the chemical (another word of Arabic origin from \u201c\u0627\u0644\u0643\u064a\u0645\u064a\u0627\u0626\u064a\u0629\u201d, \u201cal-keemya\u2019eya\u201d, derived from \u201c\u0627\u0644\u0643\u064a\u0645\u064a\u0627\u0621\u201d, \u201cal-keemya\u2019a\u201d, which\u00a0means \u201cchemistry\u201d) process to isolate distilled alcohol and ethanol was invented by Al-Kindi\u2014next time you\u2019re enjoying your vodka-tonic perhaps you could toast in his honour.<\/p>\n

Some words of Arabic origin:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Amber \u201c\u0627\u0644\u0639\u0646\u0628\u0631\u201d\u00a0 (anbar)<\/li>\n
  2. Crimson \u201c\u0642\u0631\u0645\u0632\u064a\u201d \u00a0(karmazi)<\/li>\n
  3. Elixir \u201c\u0625\u0643\u0633\u064a\u0631\u201d (ikseer)<\/li>\n
  4. Carat \u201c\u0642\u064a\u0631\u0627\u0637\u201d (kirat)<\/li>\n
  5. Cottom \u201c\u0627\u0644\u0642\u0637\u0646\u201d (al-kutn)<\/li>\n
  6. Sherbet \u201c\u0634\u0631\u0628\u0627\u062a\u201d (sharabat)<\/li>\n
  7. Tahini \u201c\u0627\u0644\u0637\u062d\u064a\u0646\u0629\u201d (tahina)<\/li>\n
  8. Chipher \/ zero \u201c\u0635\u0641\u0631\u201d (sifr)<\/li>\n
  9. Mask \/ mascara \u201c\u0627\u0644\u0645\u0633\u0643\u0631\u0629\u201d (mascara)<\/li>\n
  10. Alcohol \u201c\u0627\u0644\u0643\u062d\u0648\u0644\u201d (al-kohool)<\/li>\n
  11. Hazard \u201c\u0632\u0647\u0631\u201d (zahr)<\/li>\n
  12. Caliber \u201c\u0642\u0627\u0644\u0628\u201d (ka\u2019leb)<\/li>\n
  13. Jar \u201c\u062c\u0631\u0629\u201d (jarra)<\/li>\n
  14. Chemistry \u201c\u0627\u0644\u0643\u064a\u0645\u064a\u0627\u0621\u201d\u00a0(al-keemya\u2019a)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    * A side note: While \u201cmagazine\u201d is commonly used in English to describe printed publications, the origin of its Arabic equivalent \u201c\u0645\u0627\u063a\u0627\u0632\u064a\u0646\u201d, (makhazeen), is\u00a0obsolete. Today we use a similar word to describe a storehouse: \u00a0\u201d\u0645\u062e\u0632\u0646\u201d (makhzan). Ironically, we have now adopted the English meaning of this word (magazine, as in a publication) even though its Arabic roots mean something entirely different.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    A brief list of English words that have Arabic origin.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3525,3],"tags":[3531,7784,7854,65,7853],"class_list":["post-197","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-arabic-language","category-culture","tag-arabic","tag-arabic-words","tag-english-arabic-words","tag-etymology","tag-words-originally-arabic"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/arabic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/arabic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/arabic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/arabic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/arabic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/arabic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":206,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/arabic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197\/revisions\/206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/arabic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/arabic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/arabic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}