ARABIC INFLUENCES IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
by Habeeb Salloum
-------------------------------------------
Visitors from Britain or North America strolling through an Arab
city and listening to the Arabic conversations of passersbys 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
layman, 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, there are some 3,000 basic words
and 5,000 of their derivatives which have some connection with the
language of the Qur'an. Upward to 500 of the basic words are
common in the everyday language.
To tell the story of how these Arabic words entered the language
of Shakespeare is a fascinating story. At the dawn of Islam in
the 7th 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 which united the new world of
Islam.
Eastward, from the Arabian heartland, the Muslim armies occupied
countries which 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 which 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 8th and 12th 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 remainder of Europe where only the clergy were literate,
the majority of people in Muslim Spain learned to read and write in
the schools which 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 these 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, on a continuing basis, Arabic words began to flow
into English through intermediate languages like French and
Portuguese. Later, from the 18th to the 20th century, 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 sub-continent. Even after colonialism disappeared, the
inflow of Arabic words into English has continued until our times.
If one leafs through the 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 the
Skeats Etymological
Dictionary it
was found that Arabic is the seventh on the list of languages that
has 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 theatre of the
macabre; the abode of animals and birds; the clothing and fabric
trade; and in the fields of chemicals, colour and minerals, one
finds Arabic words and Arab transmitted words from other languages
into 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 al-kul; apricot - al-barquq; artichoke -
al-khurshuf; arrack - araq; banana - banan;
candy qand; cane - qanah; caramel - qanah;
caraway - karawya; carob - kharrub; coffee and
cafe - qahwah; cumin - kammun; jasmine -
yasmin; julep - julab; kabab or kabob - kabab;
lemon, lemonade and lime - laymun; mocha - mukha
(port city in Yemen); orange - naranj; saffron -
zafaran; salep - thalab; sesame - simsim;
sherbet - sharbah; 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 - Tanjah (Arab name for Tangiers,
Morocco); tarragon - tarkhun; tumeric - kurkum;
and tuna - tun are a number of these words which 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 20th century the
words: burghul or burghal, from the Arabic burghul;
couscous - kuskus; falafel - filafil; halvah -
alawa; hummus - ummu; kibbe or kibbeh - kubbah;
leban - laban; shish kebab - shish
kabab; and taboula - tabbulah 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
is continuing to give enrichment 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. The older
languages such as Greek, Persian and Chinese are, in our time, much
different and the older versions of these tongues, and only
understood 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 |