Spanish's Arab Connection

[ترانيـم]

If you speak either Spanish or English, you probably speak more Arabic than you think you do.
It's not "real" Arabic you're speaking, but rather words that come from Arabic. After Latin and English, Arabic is probably the biggest contributor of words to the Spanish language, and a large portion of English-Spanish cognates (words that the two language share) that don't come from Latin come from Arabic.

The English words you're most likely to think of as Arabic origin are those that start with "al-," words such as "algebra," "Allah," "alkali" and "alchemy," and they exist in Spanish as álgebra, Alá, álkali and alkimia, respectively. But they are far from the only ones. A variety of other types of common words such as "coffee," "zero" and "sugar" (café, cero and azúcar in Spanish) also come from Arabic.

The etymology of English words goes beyond the scope of this article, but the introduction of Arabic words into Spanish began in earnest in the eighth century, although even before then some words of Latin and Greek origin had roots in Arabic. People living in what is now Spain spoke Latin at one time, of course, but over the centuries Spanish and other Romance languages such as French and Italian gradually differentiated themselves. The Latin dialect that eventually became Spanish was highly influenced by the invasion of the Arabic-speaking Moors in 711. For many centuries, Latin/Spanish and Arabic existed side by side, and even today many Spanish place names retain Arabic roots. It wasn't until late in the 15th century that the Moors were expelled, and by then literally thousands of Arabic words had become part of Spanish.

On the next page are some of the most common Arabic-origin Spanish words you'll come across. As you can see, many of the words also are a part of English. Although it is believed that the English words "alfalfa" and "alcove," which originally were Arabic, entered English by way of Spanish (alfalfa and alcoba), most Arabic words in English probably entered English by other routes. Not all possible English translations of the Spanish words are listed.

[Oriental]

yes I was read an article talk about the influence of Arabic in other languages
Persian and Turkish are in the first place
then Spanish and Portuguese in the second
Hindi and English in the third


and the article explain the letter (í) is come from arabic letter (~) Maddah

thanks my sister

[Younis Hazzaa]

thank you for great topic
which tells us more facts about our language and the relationship with other languages
regards

[ترانيـم]

oriental & yunis

thank u 4 the addition

[hanoooy]

That's so interesting, and I've noticed a lot of similarities between Arabic and Spanish

I like that :)

Thanks dear**

[ترانيـم]

glad 2 c u here


welcome dear
:)

[همس جده]

thanks alot my friend
I like collecting Spanish words which were came from Arabic
and I have alot of them .such as:

Musulmanes(مسلمين)
toro(ثور)
aceituna(الزيتون)
alubias(اللوبياء)
jabon(صابون)
and don't forget the letters j , g which pronounced sometimes as the letter (خ)

[ترانيـم]

thanx 4 the addition dear

[david edward]

Due to several reasons DON'T YOU READ ARAB STORY IN THE LATE ANTIQUITY :: which are
1 - Arab or Muslim hegemony those ages
2 - The trading movement from east to west
3 - The Arab innovations , manufacturing and decorations
and much more i 4gotta mention . So these points were essential reasons to the massive diffusion of Arabic language allover the world
thnx....

[Arl0unt]

claro que si amiguita..........
que bien .. me gusta tu asunto ....