Talk:List of Arabic loanwords in English

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Does anyone else feel there should be at least a line to validate the claim of the word being derived from Arabic? It's quite unhelpful at present. Zoney 22:32, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

See new topic near the bottom. Hurmata 13:08, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, several of these are almost certainly wrong. This needs work. - Mustafaa 22:37, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

This, for example:

* CheckMate Kish Mat "Chase - dead" (Kish is a warning phrase that must be said whenever the next step kills the king, it basically means "I'm chasing your king so you better move away", Maat means "died", aka your king has already died so don't even try)

I'd always heard it coming from Persian, not Arabic, and being shah mat -- death of the king. - Montréalais 03:02, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

To my knowledge, Arab speakers do not say "Kish Mat" but rather "Kish Malik" when the King is cornered, and "el-Malik Maat" or rarely "al-Shah Maat" when the oponent have no valid moves. - A.Khalil

from the OED etymology

"Adapted form (immed. from Arabic) of Pers. shāh ‘king’, also the ‘King’ in chess; in this specific sense the Pers. word was taken into Arabic, where arose the phrase shāh māt, ‘the King is dead’, i.e. can make no further move: see CHECKMATE. (This has been taken back into Persian in the form shāh māt gardad = the shāh becomes māt.) "

So shāh is of Persian origin, but it is a borrowing in the European languages from Arabic. And māt is Arabic, not Persian, in origin, according to the OED. And the whole phrase "checkmate" came to Europe from Arabic, so it should therefore still be included in this list (and note that "Check", which is purely Persian in origin, as opposed to mixed Persian and Arabic, is still in the list). Of course, a correct etymology should be in the list instead of the previous incorrect one. -Lethe | Talk

Contents 1 Words Removed 2 Aniline 3 Suggestions 4 Call for Opinion on Kermes 5 Persian words 6 Names or Words 7 Contended Words 8 Added Crimson to the list 9 Capitalized 10 Gypsum 11 Lake pigments 12 Sugar 13 Earth 14 merge 15 Arrack 16 Betelgeuse 17 How about changing the very name of this entry? 18 Etymologies 19 Transcription/romanization 20 Forced logouts Dec. 2, 2006 21 Response to remark about transliteration 22 Earth again 23 Free for all list!? 24 Disrespectful edits on 6 Jan 2007 25 2007-03-1 Automated pywikipediabot message 26 Genie

[edit] Words Removed

I removed Guadalajara, Alexander, and Alexanderia today, which were added by User:208.5.114.86. That same anon added Allah. It isn't clear to me that Allah is an English word, but I left it in. Dbenbenn 00:03, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Guadalajara was right; it's named after a place in Spain with the originally Arabic name waadii l-Hijaarah. The other two are wrong. - Mustafaa 11:23, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

On second thoughts, though, you were right to remove it: it's a placename. - Mustafaa 12:54, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Of course Allah is an English word since it is used by English speaking Muslims worldwide. Guadalajara is a place name, but it is a place name in English (and Spanish) for something that is not named by Arabs. It exists allover the Latin world and "Guad" also exists in other names (like Guadalupe River). Alexander and Alexandria are not Arab names per se, but the specific forms with which they are known and are used are Arabic, by adding AL (the) to both, and IYYAH to the later. If you have proof otherwise, please do provide it. Otherwise you are just following your "pre-determined" pro-Western opinion in removing them. --comment posted anonymously by 208.5.114.157 (contribs).

Please consider creating an account and logging in. It's free, it only takes a few seconds, and it allows you to take credit for you work.

To address your issues:

1. Alexander. The article doesn't mention Arabic, though that could be an oversight. My dictionary, Webster's NewWorld Dictionary, Second College Edition, 1982, says that "Alexander" comes via Latin from Greek.
2. Alexandria. The entry I removed was actually Alexanderia, which is not an English word. Also, it's a place name.
3. Guadalajara. Well, I guess one could fruitfully discuss whether to include place names in this list. But you'd have to come up with some criterion to keep it from becomming a List of Arabic places.

Dbenbenn 20:07, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Oh, for the love of... "Alexander" comes from the Greek words alexein "to protect" and aner (root form andr-) "male person". ia is an exceedingly common place-name ending, by no means limited to or originating with Arabic. Not everything that sounds vaguely like a modern Arabic word comes from Arabic. YBeayf 20:27, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Ok, can you tell me the true name of Alexander the Great, the original one, as his mother, father or others around him would have called him? As far as I could tell it was Iskandar of Macedon, and not Alexander. His city, at the time, would be called Iskandarona, and not Alexandria. --comment posted anonymously by 208.5.114.157 (contribs).

It would have been Alexandros or something very similar. I'd like to know where you got the notion that it would have been anything like Iskandar. YBeayf 21:00, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

See below for a response on Alexander, sorry. Another question relates to names of people and specially those that have been absorbed in the English speaking world by use, such as Jamal or Karim, and those of the Islamic age that have been Latinized, such as Averroes or Avecinna? The first are demonstratively used by English speaking people and the names do have a meaning associated with them. The second are actually completely latinized that no one would know whom they refer to unless he/she is told the original Arabic name.

I removed lacquer because it did not come to European languages from Arabic and myrrh because its etymology is simply unknown beyond the vague "it's Semitic". I removed "allah" and "muslim" because they are nothing but names from a foreign language to describe ideas or entities specific to some religion. It's the same logic as "Tokyo". To discuss Japan, we must mention "Tokyo". Not only do many outsiders discuss Tokyo, they visit it. But it would be idle to include "Tokyo" in vocabulary lists for English, Arabic, Spanish, what have you. Anybody with an IQ above moron knows where the words "Allah" and "muslim" come from (they come from the religion of Islam) and what they mean. (Or know close enough what they mean. "Allah" means "the god", not just "god". "Laa illaahu min allaahi, muhammadu rasuulu allaahi" -- [there is] no god but *the* god, Mohammed [is] his messenger". It's a venerable mystery why "the god" is "allaah" instead of "al-illaah". Apologies if my use of the case suffixes 'i' and 'u' is incorrect.) Hurmata 12:51, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Aniline

comment moved from article -- Ferkelparade π 08:23, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Aniline : ultimately from Sanskrit nilah "dark blue" (So you would have us believe that the River NILE was named by Sanskrit speaking people from India? Did the Ancient Egytians come from India too so the Nila color would be Sanskrit? This cannot be true.) -- User:68.12.103.47

No, it's more likely that "aniline" derives from a Sanskrit word nilah meaning "dark blue", and that "Nile" ultimately comes from a Semitic root "N-H-L" meaning "valley" or "river" (cf. Hebrew nahal "dry river") and any similarity between the two words is coincidental. Also, please stop adding words that are obviously from Latin not Arabic. YBeayf 10:56, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I completely disagree with you. Aniline came to English and othe European languages from Arabic, not Sanskrit. The Arabic, form is Al-Nili, which would be pronounced An-Nili by amalgaming the "N" sound. This, in Arabic, comes from the color of the NILE river. The Nile, which is blue, is named such by Egyptians and they still use "Nilah" as a color blue. The Egyptians, which you so easily removed ftom the comment, dyed themselves blue when mourning, and till this very day would tell someone "Gatak Nilah" which is "May you [dye] yourself blue." meaning may someone close to you die. Also, the word ending in Nilah is typical of Arabic femenen form and not Sanskrit.

Also, many words in Latin do have roots in the so called "Semitic" languages to which Arabic belongs, and, following your own logic elswhere, and since "Semitic" is more ancient, it must be that those words came to Arabic before they did to Latin, or, at least came to Arabic directly from the source language, say Aramaic, and subsequently were adopted into European languages from Arabic directly and not through Latin. Also, you have to remember that Latin was an integral culture and language to the Middle East, where Arabic dominates today, long before it was related to Europe and the West. Latin culture traces its roots to Greek culture, who trace their roots to Egypt and the Levant (East Mediterranean). No one in the Pre-18th Century world have thought that the Romans and the Greeks are more kin to the Britts or French that say to the Syrians or any of the Arabs.

With all due respect, I submit that you do not know what you are talking about. Greek was the lingua franca of the eastern Mediterranean, not Latin, which always had its home in the Italic peninsula. The Latinate sphere of influence was in Western Europe, not in the Near East. Greek culture does not in fact trace its origin to Egypt. The Indo-European languages and the Semitic languages are of equal antiquity; neither is more "ancient" than the other. Many of the words that have been submitted on here are demonstrably of Indo-European origin, and have nothing at all to do with the Semitic languages. It is true that Latin did have some borrowings from Arabic, but these borrowings are without fail from middle and late Latin, as prior to the Islamic conquests Arabic was fairly limited to the Arabian peninsula and exerted no great influence on the languages of the Near East. Even if elements of Greek culture were borrowed from the Levant, that still has nothing to do with Arabic, because *Arabic was not spoken in those areas*, nor was it spoken in Egypt. Saying that nobody prior to the 18th century would have disputed that the Graeco-Romans were closer to the Syrians or Arabs than to Western Europeans is balderdash -- French itself is a direct descendant of Latin! In point of fact, it is likely that many more terms were adopted into Arabic from Greek or Latin than vice-versa, simply because those languages were widespread long before Arabic was, and classical Arabic culture borrowed much from the Graeco-Roman tradition.

In any case, the point remains that nila is the Sanskrit word for "blue", and that it and the name of the river Nile have nothing to do with each other. If "nila" is an extant word in modern Egyptian Arabic, then it is virtually certain that it was borrowed ultimately from the Sanskrit, and does not derive from the name of the Nile, and I defy you to produce a reputable cite that says otherwise. YBeayf 18:28, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Indeed, the Oxford English Dictionary, in the "Nile" entry says:

< Nile, the name of a river in North and Eastern Central Africa. Cf. classical Latin Nīlus, ancient Greek Νειλος (Hesiod), of unknown origin.

The ancient Egyptian name was jtrw river (> Hebrew yȇ'ōr).

In Old and Middle English the name of the river is attested both as Nilus and Nil; the form Nile is attested from the 15th cent. onwards.

There is no evidence whatsoever that the word "Nile" came from Arabic in any way at all whatsoever. Further, the ancient Egyptians, who gave it the name jtrw, didn't speak Arabic.

Under "aniline" it says:

[f. (by Fritzche 1841) ANIL indigo + -INE.]

referring back to the entry for "anil", which says:

[a. Fr. or Pg. anil = Sp. añil, ad. Arab. an-nīl, i.e. al the + nīl, Arab. and Pers. ad. Skr. nīlī indigo (and -plant), f. nīla dark blue.]

which seems to indicate that the word did indeed go through Arabic before it came to English, but Arabic is neither the proximate nor the ultimate language of borrowing.Nohat 19:54, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

So which way is it? Does Aniline come to English from the Name of the River Nile through Arabic, or would the Arabs have to wait a while, go to India, pich up the word, modify it a little and then give it to English? Also, I've just asked my Indian friend and he told me that in Sanskrit nila is green, and not blue.

Also, the Ancient Egyptians did not speak Arabic, but they did not speak Sanskrit either. In actuality, the Ancient Egyptian and Arabic do share many of the linguistic constructs and words. Many words in Egyptian are derived from its Eastern Neighbors, wheather you want to call them Arab or not is a moot question since thery are historically related and do presently consider themselves and are considered by others as Arab. The reverse is also true. Many words is Arabic come from Ancient Egyptian either directly or through mediation of another language, sometimes Semetic, sometime Greek and sometimes Latin. Having said that I must proclaim that I myself do not subscribe to language or racial families, which are demonstratively biblical bullshit, and look at the whole of humanity as being a great big sea with water mixing all around at all times. Of course, the closer the distance the similar the waters, and this is true of cultures and languages. Also, nothing precludes that a language claimed to be "Indo-European" by Western historians, as if this means anything, was not actually developed by a so called "Semetic" people and then passed on to the more barbaric Aryans. Afterwards, the Semetic people either advanced beyond it or rejoined the other Semetic peoples and adopted one of the Semetic languages. It is all nonesense of course, but the whole construct of "families" is nonesense too. Now, seriously, does anyone really know the HISTORICAL path of the word, in distiction to the assumed, and biased, path of origin which is usually given in dictionaries?

Yep, you definitely have no idea what you are talking about. My patience for dealing with a profoundly benighted anonymous user has run out. This conversation is over. Come back when you have a username and some actual sources other than your own imagination. Nohat 06:53, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

There is no need for this childish response or any undue remarks. I've checked your profile and you are not the GOD of the site. If you consider yourself intelligent then do provide answers when asked or shut up, but don't be a moron. As for getting a login, that is not required by the site and certainly I would not do it on your orders. If you do have clout, then do please change the policy of the site and make a login required for any posting. Absent that, again, please keep your attention to the topic and just respond to what is asked or discussed, politely.

Anonymous commenter, please create an account. It only takes a few seconds. You're right that logging in is not required; but it's impolite to have an extended conversation with someone without introducing yourself. Dbenbenn 00:11, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

While most user identities I checked did not have real information about the people behind them, and as such did not really introduce themselves, I'll do it just because you are nice :), but that does not negat the fact that Nohat is childish and a jerk.

Even if Nohat is "childish and a jerk" (though I've not seen evidence of that yet), that does not change the fact that your linguistic theories are nonsense, and that you have yet to provide a citation for any of your claims. YBeayf 01:57, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Neither have you provided citation for that matter. The only evidence I found so far of the origin of Alexander as you state is from a Website on baby names. What a reference! On the other hand, I have tons of Near Eatern histories that call him Iskandar, and they would know since they encountered him, lived the hellenistic age and even supposidly worshipped his person, and also an article on his reference in Indian culture that lists his Sanskrit name as being Skanda, again without the AL so typical of Arabic. The fact that I disagree with you does not mean that my questions are not valid, and the fact that you only know Western histories is your loss not mine. Get out of the box a little and see if your mind can take you to other places. If we all went only by the knowledge within encyclopedias and dictionaries then knowledge would not advance at all. And yes, I have not signed in yet, so grow up and live with it.

I can assure you that whatever baby name site you viewed, it was not my source. May I ask what Near Eastern histories you have read, and in what language they were composed? If, as I suspect, they were in Arabic, then the fact that Alexander is referred to as "Iskandar" is no surprise, as that is the Arabic form of his name. The fact that his name in Arabic is "Iskandar" or in Sanskrit is "Skanda" is irrelevant, because his name is GREEK. Alexander was a Greek, he spoke Greek, and to suggest that mutations of his name in other languages somehow mean that his name was Iskandar is ludicrous. Therefore, I must once again ask you for a cite (preferably a reputable one, but at this point I'd be interested in seeing *anything* other than your bald assertions), and I shall not return to this conversation until you have produced one. YBeayf 05:59, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Anonymous comment above: "Neither have you provided citation for that matter." Actually, I cited Webster's dictionary above. Ball's in your court. (By the way, note that the issue is ultimately about how English got the name "Alexander". Details about Alexander the Great are logically secondary.) Dbenbenn 20:01, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Webster or any other source I looked at did say that it came from Latin from Greek, or just Greek, which is not saying much for the main question. What I am asking about is the assertion that "'Alexander' comes from the Greek words alexein 'to protect' and aner (root form andr-) 'male person'" which is not found in any of the sources available to us the general public. What is the source and is this attested by the existence of "alexein" as a word and/or in other names, or is it constructed, assumed, presummed, probable, possible or any of the words that mean that it is not set in stone.

I know I said I'd stay out of this, but I couldn't resist. Anonymous poster, please see the Latin text of Quintus Curtius Rufus's Life of Alexander the Great. For your convenience, I shall quote the first sentence of Book III, Chapter 1: "Inter haec Alexander ad conducendum ex Peloponneso militem Cleandro cum pecunia misso Lyciae Pamphyliaeque rebus conpositis ad urbem Celaenas exercitum admovit" (emphasis mine). This text was written in the 1st century CE, and should, even if it doesn't have anything to say about "alexein", nevertheless show the absurdity of claiming that "Alexander" comes from "al-Iskandar", unless you are going to claim that a 1st-century Latin author took the name of Alexander from Arabic. YBeayf 18:58, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

See, that was easy. Now I can follow your link and ponder on it a little and see if I can find more information. And you provided us with a link too, great. Hope it did not cost you much! Still, you have not told me yet about the origin/source of your break down of the name to "alexein" and "andr" components. This info would be very helpful. By the way, do I have to enter my name or does this thing do it automatically?

Regarding the origin of the name Alexander, see the entry from the Online Etymology Dictionary: 'masc. proper name, from L., from Gk. Alexandros "defender of men," from alexein "to ward off, keep off, turn (something) away, defend, protect" + aner (gen. andros) "man." The first element is related to Gk. alke "protection, help, strength, power, courage," alkimos "strong;" cf. also Skt. raksati "protects," O.E. ealgian "to defend." ' To put your name and the date you posted, enter four tildes in a row -- they will be converted to the name/date stamp. YBeayf 20:28, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Type ~~~~ at the end of your message to sign it. You still haven't provided any sources for your shall we say extremely unorthodox linguistic theories. But:

• [1]
• [2]
• [3]
• [4]
• [5]

Nohat 20:46, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Well, thanks for all the links, even though it seems that they all drink from the same stream. However, I find in one of the sources Nohat gave that "in fact it goes back even further to a King of the Hittites (Turkey) called "Alaksandus". (1300 B.C.)." So, if it is a Hittite name, how come it has a Greek etymology? Anyone would care to comment on this? ItisIAnonymous 21:49, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps this discussion should be taken somewhere else, as it doesn't have much to do with this list of words of Arabic origin. Whether it came from Hittite or Greek, it doesn't belong here. Dbenbenn 23:18, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestions

Extra words that OED derives from Arabic: burka, merino. OED disagrees with the derivation from Arabic of many words on this page. There is also an issue with words coming from other languages (esp Sanskrit and Persian) via Arabic, as they are included inconsistently. --Zero 07:28, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Which words does the OED disagree with? I believe I checked most of the doubtful ones, and removed the ones that weren't at least arguably from Arabic. If you can tell me which words you think are wrong I will be more than happy to delete them provided no dictionary asserts Arabic origins. If only one dictionary asserts Arabic origins or the Arabic origins are merely probable or possible, then the entries on this page should say so.

You are correct about inconsistent treatment of words coming from other languages. For related pages, the method I have been using, although it isn't complete really on any page is like this:

If the word's evolution was as follows: source language form1 > proximate language form2 > English form3, then on List of English words of source language origin, there would be an entry like this:

form3 

from form1 via proximate language form2

and on the List of words of proximate language origin, there would be an entry like this:

form3 

from form2, from source language form1

If there was more than one intermediate language, the handling has varied. We should probably decide on a standard way to do it. Also, if any of the dictionaries consulted were equivocal about the origins of the word, I added either probably or possibly before the word from, depending on how equivocal the etymology was. Further, we might decide to divide each page up into sections by words proximately borrowed from the language, words ultimately borrowed from the language, and words that passed through the language on their way to English. Let's discuss potential standard practices for these pages at Talk:Lists of English words of international origin. We might also want to move Lists of English words of international origin to Lists of borrowed words in English or delete the page altogether now that we have the category. Nohat 08:09, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Call for Opinion on Kermes

Regarding the listing below,

kermes 

قرمز qirmiz (via Spanish; ultimately from Sanskit krmi-ja "worm-produced")

I doubt that an Arab would say "qirmiz" in classical or in slang, but rather "qurmozi" قرمزي

Also it is Sanskrit and not Sanskit

Anyone objects to this modification?

I have checked and found that the "Merriam-Webster" dictionary attributes the english word "Crimson" to the arabic origin "Kermes". Here is the link http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/wftwarch.pl?010206 and here is the text snippet:
Crimson entered English during the 15th century from an Old Spanish version of the Arabic word for kermes. What are kermes? They are the dried female bodies of a round scale insect about the size of a pea that are found on the dwarf evergreen kermes oak of the Mediterranean region. These kermes constitute a very old—perhaps the oldest—dyestuff known to produce a red color.

[edit] Persian words

The following Persian words which were wrongly listed as the words of Arabic ORIGIN were ommited by me from the list:

zircon 

from Persian Zarnikh

vizier 

From middl-ePersian Vichir

spinach

Orange

lemon

lilac

lime

julep 

from Persian Gulab

guitar from Persian sitaar (thrre snares)

galingale

check

checkmate

shah."

candy from Persian Qand

borax 

from Persian Burah

azure 

from Persian Lajevard

algorithm 

from Persian Khwarazmi

Almost all of these should be restored. Most English borrowings from Persian are via Arabic, and some of these - algorithm, for instance - are purely Arabic. - Mustafaa 17:22, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Names or Words

There are some parts of this list which are proper names and therefore oughtn't be here - I'm thinking of the names of Stars. These are not English but English transliterations of the Arabic, as opposed to words which have been taken into the English language such as admiral. GraemeLeggett 18:39, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Contended Words

Candy

I've made my frist Wikipedia submission by adding candy to this list and I've noticed it has be removed. I'm not at all interested in any sort of "editing wars" so I'd prefer to simply write my source and ask why it was unacceptable. The American Heritage Dictionary (entry "candy") states the current etymology/spelling of candy is via Middle English candi via Old French sucre candi (or Old Italian zucchero candi) via Arabic sukkar qandy. This is very likely from the Persian qand which in turn is possibly from the Sanskrit khanda and/or from an older, Dravidian word. Is this in dispute? Does the OED disagree with this etymology?

Your etymology is correct. However, we've had words like this in the past, and ultimately they were not kept on the page. With 'candy', its ultimate origin was not in Arabic, and English didn't borrow it from Arabic. It passed through Arabic on its way to English, but that's not really enough to say that it's an English word of Arabic origin. Depending on how you look at it, it's an English word of French origin, or an English word of Sanskrit (or Dravidian) origin. YBeayf 01:52, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I can see how this would be appropriate. Having the simple rules that either the words enters English direct from Arabic, or the words' etymologies are traced back only as far as Arabic. Perhaps this should be stated at the top of the page? It would be more clear for visitors looking for information or for prospective submitters, like myself, to understand which words should be on this list. (Sorry, but I forgot to sign my previous comment.) Jestem 18:36, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

alcohol

My understanding is that this comes from ikhal, meaning dark blue as its core meaning (contrast with izraq for light, or sky, blue). I suppose that colour would have been a popular eye shadow choice, but that wasnt the primary meaning of the word. Perhaps it had something to do with alcohol's chemical reaction with certain pH indicators too. Rhialto 02:31, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

'Ikhal', etc.: all just conjecture, and false. The conjecture about color terms may be thoughtful; but as for chemistry, ethanol doesn't make any pH indicators change color (at least not any that were known during the Islamic world's golden age of scholarship). The etymology of 'alcohol' is readily accessible. 'Alcohol' has long been recognized as coming rather from the Ar. 'kuHl', which is said to mean the chemical element, antimony, but more likely means its compound, stibnite. Neither of these is dark blue. There is an extensive etymology for 'alcohol' at dictionary.reference.com. Hurmata 10:34, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

According to the article on [antimony], the Arabic root for that element is quite different - Arabic انتيمون ([al-]ithmīd). Either you are in error, or that article is. I cheerfully admit to knowing nothing of the Arabic word for antimony, but if you are certain, perhaps that article should be corrected too? Rhialto 15:06, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

There is certainly a mistake in Antimony, because the Arabic cited انتيمون reads 'antimun', and nothing like 'ithmĩd'. However, the OED reports a conjectural derivation of 'antimony' from Arabic 'uthmud', earlier 'ithmid', itself possibly from Greek 'στιμμι', also the origin of 'stibium'. So if that conjecture is borne out (I haven't checked any more recent references than OED1), the article is correct except for the erroneous Arabic citation. In any case, this is the derivation of the English word 'antimony', and says nothing about whether a different Arabic word - 'kohl' might be more prominent - as it certainly is today; the interwiki link to ar.wikipedia is to كحل, 'kahl'. --ColinFine 00:28, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Added Crimson to the list

I found an article on "Merriam-Webster" online dictionary discussing the origin of this word. Here is the link: http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/wftwarch.pl?010206

I dispute this, as both "crimson" and "kermes" ultimately come from Sanskrit. They passed through Arabic on their journey to English, but that doesn't mean they are of Arabic origin. YBeayf 06:02, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

The American Heritage dictionary of the English language states the word crimson is from "Middle English cremesin, from Old Spanish cremesín, Old Italian cremesino or Medieval Latin cremesnus, all from Arabic qirmizy, from qirmiz, kermes insect." [6] And for the word kermes, it says that it probably came from a Sanskirt word. [7] You people decide what it is, I find this all confusing. --Inahet 06:53, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Capitalized

I have capitalized each word as per the general convention in a dictionary entry. --Bhadani 07:07, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Gypsum

I've removed this portion

"?? an "unidentifified Semitic root" is not the same as Arabic!

"; gypsum : from Greek gypsos "chalk", from unidentified Semitic root; akin to Arabic jibs

well Arabic is the closest of so-called Semetic langauge to the proto-Semitic language

While it's true Arabic is a very conservative Semitic language, until the rise of Islam it was confined to the Arabian peninsula, and the Semitic language the Hellenic world had the most contact with was Aramaic. It's quite unlikely that "gypsum", "myrrh", or various other Greek-derived words originating in an unknown Semitic language had their origin with Arabic. YBeayf 05:25, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, the Greeks did receive their myrrh from Arabs in Yemen in ancient times. It's likely that the name did come from the Arabic word murra, but this word is also present in other Semitic languages as well see bartleby. --Inahet 06:38, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

What evidence have you for calling Arabic a 'very conservative Semitic language?' Alice Faber, in "Genetic Subgrouping of the Semitic Languages" (in Hetzron, Robert (1997). The Semitic Languages. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-05767-1. ) lists two distinctive innovations of 'West Semitic', and five more for 'Central Semitic' within that, which is where she places Arabic. While she is certainly not claiming that the classification she uses is the only possible one, she remarks that one of the main differences among the various classification schemes proposed is which group within West Semitic Arabic should be placed closest to. Either way, this does not suggest that Arabic is particularly conservative.

As for Myrrh from Yemen: I don't think there was much Arabic down there before Islamic times. They would have spoken various South Arabian languages (such as Sabean and Himyaritic) - Semitic, defeinitely, but not close to Arabic. ColinFine 23:53, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Pardon me for not citing precise evidence, but Hetzron himself, and Kees Versteegh, both conclude that the *phonology* of Arabic is conservative relative to other Semitic languages. (Hetzron when he summarizes Semitic in Comrie, B, ed., 1987, The world's major languages (Oxford), and Versteegh 1997, The Arabic language (Columbia U. Press)). Granted, experts can be mistaken (march of science and all that  :) ). Hurmata 10:04, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

On the other hand, it is of course a crude fallacy to equate even the oldest recorded Arabic (centuries before Islam) with Proto-Semitic. Hurmata 11:10, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lake pigments

The words "lake" and "pigment" are not of Arabic origin, see lake and pigment. Also, if they were of Arabic origin, then they should be listed separately. --Inahet 05:20, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Well I'll be... IIRC, the "pigments" part was never intended to be listed as having come from Arabic, but was added to make clear that the word being referenced referred to the pigment and not the body of water. YBeayf 13:56, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, the etymology of the pigment "lake" is in the link I provided:

lake: "deep red coloring matter," 1616, from Fr. laque (see lac), from which it was obtained.

lac: ::"red resinous substance," 1553, from Pers. lak, from Hindi lakh (Prakrit lakkha), from Skt. laksha, which according to Klein is lit. "one hundred thousand," in ref. to the insects that gather in great numbers on the trees and make the resin run out. But others say lakh is an alteration of Skt. rakh, from an IE root word for "color" [Webster]. Still another guess is that Skt. laksha is related to Eng. lax, lox "salmon," and the substance was perhaps originally so called from being somewhat the color of salmon.--Inahet 06:31, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sugar

According to the sugar article, it was derived from Sanskrit through Arabic. --24.16.148.75 19:11, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

• Yes, this is the case according to AHD [8]. If you peruse Wikipedia English etymology pages, you'll find many, many such instances and you'll also find that if you change them, they might be reverted. Some people like to list the word at every intermediary language bewteen English and it's ultimate source.--Hraefen ^Talk 21:24, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Earth

The word Earth is used in the Quran: "Al Ard" = "The Earth". As I saw no mention of it in the list given, maybe someone could clarify on this subject? Thanks.

It was put in a few weeks ago, and I removed it. The Germanic root behind 'earth' is too old to be from Arabic. It is possible - though not widely accepted - that the root might indeed be a borrowing from a Semitic language (see for example Theo Vennemann's article in the latest Transactions of the Philological Society - I'll add the proper reference when I have it with me), but it cannot be from Arabic. ColinFine 11:47, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] merge

I created List of exported Arabic terms and recently discovered this. Is there any merit at all in my article, or should it just be outright merged? Is this a Sub-article to my article? --Striver 10:30, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Arrack

Is it possible that arrack is from ʻaraq directly, and not al-araq? The etymology now is only one word.

-Misha

216.254.12.114 15:50, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and should "alcázar" be on the list?

216.254.12.114 17:32, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Alcazar? Of course not -- it's not an English *word*, it's an *artefact* (broadly speaking, in the archaeological sense) and it's not even located in an English speaking territory. "Mount Fuji" and "Taj Mahal" and "Louvre" -- just because most English speaking people know about them and just because the Taj Mahal and the Louvre get mentioned relatively often by English speaking people, doesn't make them "English words". Hurmata 09:54, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Betelgeuse

The etymology given for Betelgeuse is: beit al-jeuza "House of Gemini".

This seems to disagree with other very thorough explanations of the origins of the word. Other sources say something more like "Hand of Gemini"

One funny thing is that both "house" and "hand" are the names of semitic letters (bet and yod)

216.254.12.114 18:52, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

One can gain a feeling of satisfaction by doing some research first. Nowadays with Web search engines, it's easier than ever, too. First off, Betelgeuse is in the constellation of Orion, which is not part of the constellation of Gemini. Second, you do not cite any source that "gives the etymology"; and in fact, the 'bet-' is NOT the Arabic word for 'house'. I suggest clicking on the "star names page" link at the top of http://astro.isi.edu/reference/starintro.html. That page discusses various name and etymology corruptions that have arisen over the centuries, some of which have befallen "Betelgeuse". These pages seem to be a hobbyist effort, but a very sophisticated one. Hurmata 10:48, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Ok, that seemed a bit harsh. Your words of wisdom were very...painful for me. To someone younger or more sensitive than myself, this could actually deter someone from learning, asking questions or having curiousity. Oh, and these are the talk pages, where it's alright to be wrong, or ask questions, or not do the reasearch at all, but alert others to...things.

Now on to the real stuff. In my American Heritage Dictionary, it says that jauzaa' referred first to Gemini, and later to Orion.

I was only pointing the dubious nature of the etymology given. I left it to someone more expert than I to find a good etymology.

I did not say that bet- was Arabic for house, in this word or any other. It was an unrelated comment about the names of letters. If you'll notice, I was going against the etymology given, "House of Gemini". And the site you linked me to basically agreed with me. Yad. Hand.

It actually looks like someone fixed up the etymology on this one. Everything is fine now. Oh wait. It was you who changed it. To something closer to my definition.

I'm sorry if my writing was not clear enough. I feel that I do do research. And maybe you weren't being sarcastic, and I got hurt for no reason at all. It's always so hard to tell on the internet. I might be getting paranoid.

-Misha Vargas

216.254.12.114 18:39, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How about changing the very name of this entry?

Instead of "words of Arabic origin", it would be correct to say "words borrowed from Arabic". As was pointed out over a year ago, the *origins* of some words *immediately borrowed* from Arabic by one or another European language are actually not Arabic, but Persian, Latin, or Greek (some words borrowed from Arabic had actually been earlier borrowed by Arabic from Latin or Greek). Hurmata 09:47, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Etymologies

I think it is ill advised to copy etymologies from OED or another dictionary, except in unusual cases. This is needless duplication. I suggest that the value of this Wiki entry is to reveal the influence of the Arabic language on English vocabulary. We do not need to spent oodles of time reproducing etymologies that people can readily find at http://dictionary.reference.com. I *do* think we should mention when Arabic itself borrowed a word that English has borrowed from Arabic. At any rate, those OED etymologies that somebody put in the 'A' section use *highly* nonstandard transcriptions. 'k with subscript dot' is only appropriate to occasional specialist discussions; the proper romanization for general use is 'q'! Hurmata 13:08, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

The addition of an entry for 'caliber' raises several points regarding the content and formatting of the entries in this list.

• As I mentioned earlier in this discussion, we need to be more diligent in confirming the etymological claims we find in any one dictionary. In the case of 'caliber', the DRAE disagrees with etymonline.com on some of the details: "Del fr. calibre, este del ár. clás. qālab o qālib, este del pelvi kālbod, y este del gr. καλωπους, horma"
• Another "again": I believe it clutters this article to repeat the full etymologies we rely on. Let's instead provide links to them (either to the specific Web page or to the Web site).Hurmata 17:59, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Transcription/romanization

This is inherently difficult because out in the world of Arabic studies there isn't uniformity. There are many points for which rival alternatives are equally worthy. I made a start at standardizing the transcription: long vowels represented with macrons (double letters, aa, ii, uu, would be equally well advised, in my opinion); 'q' for k-dot; '7' for glottal stop. The cayn/9ayn is especially troublesome because out in the world there are close to half a dozen choices. 'C' is objectively the best (it best mimics the shape of the Arabic letter, it requires no special typewriting, and it isn't psychologically disruptive as '9' is, '9' being a numeral already), but tradition is strongly against 'c'. Hurmata 13:08, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Forced logouts Dec. 2, 2006

Twice this morning, I have gotten logged out of Wikipedia without my realizing it, then I post some changes. But it looks like up until now, nobody else has edited the page. Hurmata 16:44, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Response to remark about transliteration

"KazakhPol" deleted line spaces in between letter sections of the list. And left the mysterious comment, "transliterated words don't belong in the list". What precisely is KP referring to, and why not? Do they really mean that the "al-qubba" that accompanies "alcove" doesn't belong? *That*, "al-qubba", is a transliteration. Did KP use the words that express what they really mean?

Incidentally, the decision to give the Arabic scripts for the entries was made by my predecessors. I have accepted it, checking many of them and correcting several. Hurmata 03:45, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Earth again

A user not logged in added "earth". People who do this seem to have little regard for historical fact and logical reasoning. "Earth" is in the core vocabulary of all the Germanic languages (but apparently not of neighboring branches of Indo-European), and on this basis alone has to date back at least 2,000 years. Furthermore, the word has indeed been traced back to Proto-Indo-European (the Slavic and Italic branches use other roots to mean "earth, land, ground"). Only a Middle Eastern chauvinist would fail to see that Europeans were not borrowing from Arabic before the rise of Islam, which was, of course, less than 1,500 years ago. It is a pity that some chauvinistic people insist on finding Arabic influence where none exists. Hurmata 04:31, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Please see the topic "Earth" above, contribution of 7 October 2006. (As to the possibility that the Proto-Indo-European source of Germanic *erþ- might have reflexes in non-Germanic: possibly some words in Welsh, Armenian, and the Baltic languages. But they are not those languages' generic words for "earth" or "ground". That's why I think it's valid to say that Gothic aírþa, modern German Erde, English earth are "distinctively Germanic".) Hurmata 09:00, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Free for all list!?

More than half of the words listed here are just as easily derived from Hebrew. What kind of list is this and how is it sourced? frummer 23:37, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

• Indignation of this empty, ideologically driven type does no service to the pursuit of knowledge. The questions are just rhetorical questions (they ignore statements in the article). The opening statement is stubborn in ignoring history fact, and mischievous in insinuating that dozens of words have been designated as Arabic loanwords without any basis of research. Hurmata 16:49, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Disrespectful edits on 6 Jan 2007

A user who did not log in, "89.148.43.17", restored sections which have been heavily edited during more than a month's time. In so doing, this user (1) deleted the fruits of days worth of article research done *offline*; (2) did not bother to respond to previous entries in this Discussion page -- nor to respond to paragraphs in the article's introduction -- that justify the past weeks' edits.

I have resorted to doing a revert because my attempt to use Wikipedia's new "Undo" editing feature failed.

As for point (1), I did substantial research for the entries for "alcohol" and "kohl", consulting Priesner and Figala (which I added to the References) and other *historiographic*, not *lexicographic*, sources. This goes way beyond sitting at a computer and going from one online dictionary to the next. I discovered information you will not find in a book which is just a dictionary of English or a dictionary of Spanish.

Just in the last week or two, I have reported in the Discussion page of a different article, the article on Arabic loanwords in Spanish, on the following discovery: etymologies from different major dictionaries often disagree with one another. I may have made some of these remarks on this page as well. At any rate, I have argued, repeatedly, against presenting detailed etymologies except in special cases. Specifically with regard to the mass cutting and pasting of etymologies available online, there are two obvious objections: (i) Wikipedia's mission includes trying diligently to confirm information before posting it; but there are many discrepancies between the etymology offered by different online dictionaries for a given word. (ii) It is a waste of time and effort to reproduce this instantly available material -- which is copyrighted material, of course, by the way.

All a contributor need do for a given entry is to cite one -- or more -- dictionaries. Don't put in detailed etymologies unless you are offering information that's hard to access or unless the meaning in today's English diverges from the meaning of the Arabic source word. I, for example, consulted a book on the history of alchemy written in German in order to write the entries for "alcohol" and "kohl", AND, the meaning that "alcohol" has for us, the Arabs did not use it that way centuries ago. Hurmata 20:50, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

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[edit] Genie

I noticed this on here, and I think I should present this excerpt from the Genie page.

Genie is the usual English translation of the Arabic term jinni, but it is not an Anglicized form of the Arabic word, as is commonly thought. The English word comes from French génie, which meant a spirit of any kind, which in turn came from Latin genius, which meant a sort of tutelary or guardian spirit thought to be assigned to each person at birth (see genius). But this has nothing to do with the jinn of Islam, as this might suggest. The Latin word predates the Arabic word jinni, and the two terms have not been shown to be related. The first recorded use of the word in English was in 1655 as geny, with the Latin meaning. The French translators of The Book of One Thousand and One Nights later used the word génie as a translation of jinni because it was similar to the Arabic word both in sound and in meaning; this meaning was also picked up in English and has since become dominant.

I had always assumed that it was a direct loanword; however, this raises some doubt. I saw that it wasn't cited to an online source, so I checked the Online Etymology Dictionary, and sure enough...:

genie 1655, "tutelary spirit," from Fr. genie, from L. genius (see genius); used in Fr. translation of "Arabian Nights" to render Arabic jinni, pl. of jinn "spirit," which it accidentally resembled, and attested in Eng. with this sense from 1748.

My question being: does the actual etymology, which is not related to the Arabic except by coincidence, disqualify the word from presence on this page? Or should it just be noted that the similarity between the two terms has caused a false etymological connection which seems to be apparent to the uninformed?

Considering the mental association between the word and its Arabic meaning (thanks to Arabian Nights and Alladin and such), it might be acceptable to leave it in, but clarification of the unlinked etymology would be necessary. I don't know though, as it seems to be more of a convenient coincidence which crossed the two separate words. Considering the etymology given, it would be more suited on the respective language word list (French or Latin, although a Latin page would be ridiculous).--C.Logan 23:10, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

"My question being . . ." The answer is: basically YES. The point of this page is to identify words which owe their existence to the influence of Arab speaking culture or Arab speaking societies. The only reason to list a word *not* meeting that description would be this situation, that people *suppose* it does meet that description. Hurmata 02:58, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

That makes sense. But I think a note should be added; just because people assume something by majority, doesn't mean it's true. If the word Genie did not actually come to us in English through Arabic influence, but in actually only acquired that relationship later, then it should be noted on the page. Obviously, the current mental image is definitely more akin to the Arabic meaning, but that doesn't mean we should ignore its actual etymology... or else, we're basically spreading false facts, here.--C.Logan 04:08, 18 March 2007 (UTC)