Words of the Month - Arabic Origins

         The Arabic language has, over the centuries, been a rich source of words in English.  Like most linguistic borrowings, there are some patterns to be seen in which words make their way from one language into another, and those patterns have to do with where different cultures rub up against each other and influence each other.

        One category is words for foods.  When we discover and borrow new foods, we usually borrow the words to go with them.  This is quite obvious for a word such as hummus, which entered English around 1955 and comes from Arabic for “chickpea.”  But European languages have been influenced by Arabic for centuries, and some of our other food borrowings might be more of a surprise.

apricot - English started using this word around the 1550s, having borrowed it from Catalan, which got it from Arabic.  Arabic, in turn, got it from Byzantine Greek, which probably got it from Latin, so you can see that Arabic is really just one step in a long journey.  It is Arabic, however, that gave us the a- at the beginning, a residue of the definite article al-.  You’ll see this in a lot of English words that passed through Arabic.

aubergine - This one is from French, but French got it from Catalan, which got it from Arabic.  It was the French who shifted the al- article to au-.  Arabic got the word from Persian, which got it from Sanskrit.  (Not being a big fan of eggplants, I don’t see why anyone at all wanted to adopt this food from its native home in Southeast Asia!)

candy - English adopted candy (specifically crystalized sugar) in the late 13th century, from Arabic by way of French.  Cane sugar was introduced to Europe from the Middle East.  

While you're on the subject, revisit the Arabic step in the etymology of sugar, as well as the sweet siblings syrup, sherbet, and sorbet.

coffee - This plant is in fact native to Arabia and Abyssinia, so of course our word comes from Arabic - but it did pass through Turkish and then Dutch first.  (Earlier English forms in the late 16th century appear to have come straight from Arabic and/or Turkish, but the Dutch influence seems to have won out.)

lemon - This one is another fruit with a long journey, ultimately probably from the Malay archipelago, but with Arabic as an important step in bringing it from India to the edge of Europe in the 9th or 10th century.

You can also revisit artichoke (from Arabic al-hursufa, so you can see firstly, that we kept the article attached again, and secondly that we really mangled the sounds!)

        In addition to foods, the introduction of other unfamiliar things often brings with it the introduction of their words.  Animals introduced to English (often by way of other European languages) from Arabic sources include fennec and gazelle, but also giraffe.  In 1486 the Sultan of Egypt gave Lorenzo de’Medici a giraffe which caused quite a sensation.

        Plants whose words grow from Arabic roots include alfalfa (in which you can once again see the article al-), carob, cotton (about which just a little more here), and jasmine.

        Languages also borrow words for objects and cultural ideas that are associated with foreign places and people.  That’s where we get caravan (during the Crusades) and harem (in the 1630s).  Also lute (from al-‘ud, in which we keep just the -l- of the article), mattress and sofa, mummy, sash (originally the strip of cloth used for a turban), alcove (another one with the article still attached) and even jar.

        Jar first came to English in the 15th century full of olive oil, and the word comes from the large containers used in Mediterranean trade - which brings us to another category of linguistic borrowings.  When we admire elements of another culture and aspire to their ways, we often borrow words, as well.  In English this has given us 

admiral - originally a Saracen commander, admired during the Crusades (It didn’t come to apply to a naval commander until around the 14th century.)

magazine - originally a warehouse, especially for storing ammunition and military equipment

ream - the measure of paper, which comes from Arabic because the Moors introduced the manufacture of cotton paper to Spain

        But what learned Europeans really admired and had to borrow from Arabic in the Middle Ages and Renaissance were words for mathematical and scientific concepts.  These include

alchemy - Arabic got the word from Greek, but of course it left its mark on our word with, once again, the redundantly attached article.

elixir - originally the Philosopher’s Stone.  Read all about it here.

alcohol - you can see more about this here

tariff - originally an arithmetical table

nadir and zenith - late 14th century.  Nadir comes from nazir meaning “opposite” the zenith, while zenith comes from samt meaning “the way [overhead]”  The -m- was misread by Medieval scribes as -ni-, and to see why, read this.

cipher and zero - These words are doublets, both originating in the same Arabic word for zero, sifr.  Cipher reached English in the late 14th century, along with Arabic numerals, from Old French.  Zero arrived about 1600 possibly from Italian.  (But both variants appear in Latin, and I don’t know why that is.)

        Finally, I can’t resist adding a few mythical creatures that we borrowed from Arabic:

almiraj - the unicorn hare, which you can read about (along with a few other Arabic creatures) here

ghoul - Arabic ghul, English learned of this evil, corpse-eating spirit from a French Orientalist novel called Vathek, translated into English in 1786.

jinni - Funnily enough, Arabic jinni is not the origin of genie, which comes from Latin genius, meaning “a tutelary spirit.”  Genie was used in the French translation of Arabian Nights, and was then borrowed into English.  But we had the legit Arabic word in the 1680s.

        There is one other major category of words borrowed from Arabic, but this post is already long enough, so you’ll have to wait for next month to find out about them!  In the meantime, did you learn anything new today?

[Pictures: Still Life with Eggplant, woodcut in colors on paper by Werner Drewes, 1954 (Image from MutualArt);

The Coffee Tree, woodcut from The Virtue and Use of Coffee by Richard Bradley, 1721 (Image from Project Gutenberg);

Just Browsing, rubber block print by AEGN, 1999 (Sold Out);

Zenith and Nadir, wood block print from book by Sacrobosco and Pifferi, 1604 (Image from IlPonte).]