Arabic Words in English

XVIII century

Sierra, Cavacole, Escapade, Esplanade, Plaza

Cannibal, Negro, Mulatto, Alligator, Batata, Mosquito, Potato, Banana, Bonity, Manilla, Machete, El Dorado.

Words from America.

The XVII century shows the largest number of Spanish borrowings of which some relate to Spanish life, trade, po­litics, etc.: duenna, toreador, junta, cortes, embargo, etc..

When the naval power of England began to grow and Englishmen came into contact (though hostile) with Spaniards upon the high seas, in the West Indies and on the coasts of Mexico and South America, they adopted from them the names they used for the inhabitants, animals, plants, etc.

From the end of the XV century Spanish merchant-vessels were exploring the ocean westwards from Europe.

The introduction of Spanish words into English by direct contact hardly begins until the XVI century. After that period Spanish words begin to be borrowed with some freedom, though they are never adopted in such numbers as Italian words.

XVI century - 1) Spanish trade and products;

2) Words denoting persons and titles of rank;

3) Games and dancing;

4) Naval and Military;

5) Miscellaneous;

1) Peso, Cask, Real, Rusk, Sherry;

2) Don, Infante, Infanta, Senora, Renegade, Hidalgo, Santon, Grandee, Booby;

3) Primero, Corants, Spade;

4) Galleon, Grenade, Armada, Casque, Comrade, Escalade;

5) Tornado, Corral, Sombrero, Peccadillo, Bravado;

XVII century –

1) Doubloon, Cargo, Creole, Toreador, Dona, Picaroon (Pirate), Duenna, Matador;

2) Dorado, Granadilla, Lime;

3) Embargo, Junta, Cortes;

4) Corvette, Parade;

5) Saraband, Guitar, Castanet, Ombre;

American. Peon, Piccaninny, Chinchilla, Ananas, Cockroach, Manchineel, Turtle, Vanilla.

Guadroon, Albino, Stevedore, Picador, Merino, Domino, Quadrille, Bolero, Marinade, Caramel, Elotilla, Carmine, Mantilla, Auto-Da-Fe, Jade, Cigar.

Jerk, Alpaca, Mate, Hacienda, Mesa, Ratoon.

XIX century (most of them are from the American side of the Atlantic)

Cigarette, Esparts, Camisole, Guerilla, Camarilla, Pelota, Lasso, Gaucho, Rodeo, Bronco, Nutria, Pueblo, Patio, Serape, Canyon, Dayo, Cafeteria (XX c.), Tango (1913).

There are about a thousand words of Arabic origin in English, and many thousand derivatives from those words. Of the main words, two-thirds are either obsolete or rare; and of the remaining third one-third are technical; so that about 260 of the thousand are in everyday use.

The form, which Arabic words take in English are va­ried and confusing. The Arabic words which got into English before the Restoration period have by the time taken a thoroughly English form, accent, and pronunciation - as have nearly all foreign loan-words borrowed before that time. For the most part they are not consciously regarded as Ara­bic words: admiral, alcohol, apricot, candy, carat, check, chess, coffee, cotton, crimson, lemon, sofa, sugar, talc, zero, etc.

There are also rarer words derived from or through Arabic which have taken a stable form and pronunciation in English. Some of them are now obsolete, and are known only to the scholar and historian. Others are technical, and are familiar to the modern doctor, scientist, or geographer. To most of us they are all strange and exotic.

The Arabic loan-words belong to various fields, though they are all to a certain extent technical - the names of things strange to Europe. When Arabic words were first trans­lated into Latin in the twelfth century men were seeking from the Arabs knowledge of alchemy, medicine, mathematics, and astrology. Since that time travellers and merchants have borrowed a large variety of words.

Animals, Birds, and Fishes - albatross, gazelle, giraffe, marabou, popinjay, varan, zebra (43 words).

Astronomy and Astrology - algol, asimuth, nadir, Vega, zenith (44 words).

Botany - henna, apricot, artichoke, banian, baobab, camphor, coffee, cotton, crocus, jasmine, lemon, lilac, line, manna, orange, sandal, sesame, senna, spinach, tamarisk, tarchon (137 words).

Chemistry and Alchemy - alchemy, alcohol, alkali, amalgan, antimony, arsenic, benzoin, chemistry, elixir, jargon, matrass, naphtha, natron, nitre, talo, tartar, zircon (56 words).

Clothing and Stuffs (chiefly Oriental) - atlas, baldachin, calico, camise, cassock, chiffon, cottanee, damask, gauze, mohair, moire, mousseline, mufti, muslin, sash, taffeta (50 words).

Dyeing and Colouring – A considerable number of dye-stuffs were imported from the East before the development of mo­dern colour-chemistry: anil, azure, brazil, carmine, crimson, crocus, fustic, henna, saffron, olizarin (30 words).

Food, Drink, and Vessels - candy, carafe, caramel, carotel, jar, marzipan, sherbet, sherry, shrub, sugar, syrup, etc. (35 words).

Geography and Travel - barbary, dragoman, hakim, Kaffir, kibitka, mahal, sahara, simoom, sirocco, typhoon (83 words).

Mathematics - It appears that the Arabic mathematical ter­minology was translated, not borrowed. There is little to borrow in mathematics except figures, and our figures are of course borrowed from Arabic, and our way of writing them is Arabic: Algebra, algorithm, cipher, etc. (5 words).

Medicine and Surgery (nearly all obsolete) - elemi, elixir, emblic, hakeem, mummy, soda (40 words).

Music - guitar, kanoon, lute, tambourine, timbal (18 words).

Place-names, Proper Names and Titles - Arab, Arabia, Bedouin, Berber, Brazil, Cairo, Emir, Gibraltar, Guadalupe, Kabyle, Mahomet, Mecca, Mirza, Mogul, Morocco, Nabob, Otto­man, Sahara, Saracen, Sheikh, Sudan, Sultan, Swahili, Trafal­gar (cape of the cave), Vizier, Zanzibar (106 words).

Religion (chiefly Islamic) - Allah, bismillah, caliph, darwish, fakir, imam, Islam, Kaffir, kismet, Koran, madrasa, minaret, Moslem, mosque, muezzin, mulla(n), mussulman, Ramadan, Shaitan, sura, talisman (75 words).

Shipping - cable, felluca, etc. (17 words).

Trade - camphor, magazine, sicca, tariff (45 words).

Various words - alcove, almanac, amulet, check, checkmate, cheque, chess, harem, kaif, kalian, khan, macrami, masquerade, mattress, ottoman, racket (for games), risk, salaam, sofa (68 words).

War - admiral, arsenal, assassin, calibre, mafia, tabor (51 words).

By reading and using a foreign word in English, an Englishman gives that word a right in the English vocabu­lary. By pronouncing it as an English word he in part na­turalizes it: by writing it down as he pronounces it, in the ordinary English alphabet, he carries that process a stage further. The word needs an accepted pronunciation and spelling before it will seem at home in its new environment. The best rule is to write down and pronounce the word in the simplest and least ambiguous way.

Many Arabic words end with the stressed syllable [Ij] or [Jj]. Arabic consonants are uttered with more vigour then the corresponding English ones. The result is that a vowel is heard after the final consonant; thus we meet the forms Arabia, Kefia.

The second problem is how to write down the long [J] in Arabic words. When the word has come of age in English, and has been given an English stress on the first syllable, this long vowel disappears, and we say harem [hEqrqm] instead of [hRrJm], moslem ['mOzlqm] instead of [muz'lJm].

The Arabic short “U” we tend to transform into [A]. We have retained it in sugar but transformed it in sultan, sultana, felucca. The long “U” written variously as U in marabout or -oo- in kanoon.

We do not attempt to pronounce final “H” in rayah, subah; the tendency in English is to drop it; the only reasonable “H” is in the word fellah. Allah is not likely to change its form either.

The consonant kh is rather a difficulty, if one tries to pronounce it. In khan and shaikh we pronounce it as K.

When one thinks of Arabic words in English, one thinks first of the typical words beginning with -al- (the Arabic definite article). It is worth of note that English has not been guilty of borrowing words from Arabic with the -al-attached as though it were part of the word: all the loan­-words beginning with -al- were taken immediately from French, Spanish or Latin.

The French loans from Arabic (25% of the total number) were made from the Middle English period onwards, a fair number of words being first recorded by Chaucer. Through Spanish (many of them via French), and from Spanish, Portu­guese, and Italian direct, loans totalling 22% we made from the XVI century onwards, through translations from those languages, and as a result of colonial and mercantile expan­sion. The last and largest group of words is the 34% taken from Arabic direct from the end of the XVI century when English travellers and merchants came into personal contact with Arabic-speaking people and when Arabic in the XVII cen­tury began to be taught at Oxford.

As the result of the Crusades the Arabic names for the different kinds of merchandise and ship, as well as for the operations of business, then came into current use in Medi­terranean countries. Those words were already known to the Spaniards and Italians; but they now became truly interna­tional.

Spain was for over 500 years the home of Islamic civilization, the benefits of which she spread through trade, through universities, through literature, over the rest of civilized Europe. Arabic affected Spanish at the most imp­ressionable period of its growth - the beginning - at the time when Latin was first changing. Arabic affected the Spanish vocabulary so extensively because it was the language not only of the ruling class but of a higher civilization.

Arabic did not affect the grammatical structure of Spanish, even less than Norman - French affected the grammatical structure of English; but like French on English, Arabic had an enormous influence on enlarging and enriching the Spanish vocabulary. Thus Arabic affects the vocabularies of European languages primarily through Spanish. And not only Europe did she teach but Spanish America; and even in the United States of the Spanish words which the Red Indians adopted, about 200 are of Arabic origin.

The most useful Arabic words in English are those which came through French and Latin. The words taken immediately from Spanish or Italian tend to remain rare or technical. The most numerous class, that was brought to English by travel­lers, colonists, and orientalists directly from Arabic, or from some or other dialect of that language, contains those words not yet fully anglicized. It is possible that future loan-words will be adopted in a form nearly approaching a transliteration of the Arabic word.

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