English words from Arabic

[RonBee]

English has borrowed quite a few words from Arabic, some of them quite common. Some of them might surprise you. Below are listed some of the more common English words from Arabic.

• admiral
  alcohol
  algebra
  almanac
  apricot
  artichoke
  arsenal
  caliber
  calico
  candy
  check
  chess
  coffee
  cork
  cotton
  crimson
  garble
  gazelle
  genie
  gerbil
  ghoul
  giraffe
  harem
  hazard
  jar
  lilac
  lemon
  lime
  loofah
  lute
  mask
  mattress
  orange
  sash
  satin
  scarlet
  sequin
  sherbet
  shrub
  sofa
  spinach
  sugar
  syrup
  zenith
  zero

See:
http://www.zompist.com/arabic.html
http://www.funtrivia.com/dir/4563.html (quiz)
http://www.takeourword.com/Issue067.html

 

[Gala]

Are you learning Arabic? ;-)

 

[Tdol]

'Aubergine' and 'azimuth' can be added to the list, or so I'm told. ;-)

 

[momdubah]

hi
how are you
i thik that there other words you may missed
but are studying combaring languages?

 

[Noego]

How could you figure that? Are you learning Arabic?

Google my friend, google .

NE

 

[Fleur de mort]

That's right bro
also you can edit these word in you'r list​

Genie = Genie in English​

Moot ( Death) = Moot in french​

Sokkar (Sugar)= Sokkar in germany​

 

[çakırpençe]

Good work friend
Do you have a larger archieve about that
maybe ı can include these words into my list.

 

[Epica]

thank you so much that so nice ......... :lol:

 

[Obadiah Loombucket]

Also, I think, the word "bint", which, in English, is a rather derogatory word meaning "woman" - not used in polite circles, though.

Also "algorithm".

 

[Dr. Jamshid Ibrahim]

Some of these words are not of Arab origin. They are for example Persian:
check
chess
lilac
lemon
orange
spinach
They were brought to Europe via Spain, Turkey or India. Spain was under Muslim rule for 800 years.

 

[Over the top]

Hi Dr-Abrahim,
Chess is taken from French. Orange also isn't from Persian Language. I don't know from where.
I would like to add: (From Arabic)
fakir - faqir
adobe - al-tob
alfalfa - alfasfasah
hashish - hashish
safari - safary
minaret - manarah

 

[RonBee]

Are you learning Arabic? ;-)

No, I thought it might be interesting to see how many words English has borrowed from Arabic. (I did the same thing with Chinese some time or other.)

~R

(I didn't know people had been posting on this old thread.)

 

[RonBee]

'Aubergine' and 'azimuth' can be added to the list, or so I'm told. ;-)

Yep, they're in there. (Note: I listed "some of the more common English words from Arabic" and didn't try to list them all. To find more go to the websites I provided links to. Or use Google. ;-) )

~R

P.S. Chess originally came from India and traveled through Middle-Eastern countries before it reached Western Europe. And orange isn't, of course, from Persian. It's from Arabic.

On this site:
https://www.usingenglish.com/members/wordlists/?t=group&id=452

 

[Over the top]

I'm an Arabian. The word "Orange" isn't from Arabic nor Persian

 

[Over the top]

Ah, maybe you mean Trang! but it is not an orange. it is another fruit
As for Chess, I'm sure that it comes from French.

 

[Dr. Jamshid Ibrahim]

1. Chess is from Persian (originally from the word Shah: king) reached English via French whereas German Schach (East European for shah) came via eastern Europe. The game is an Indian invention as with zero, cipher or chiffre.

2. Orange is ultimately from Persian naranj. See Spanish naranja. French dropped n for two reasons:
1. It was mistaken with the indefinite article
2. the colour is like French ore for gold

To our Arab friends: for me it is only important to mention where a word originally came from. I don't mind whether a word is of Arab, Persian or indian origin. They are all the same to me. But I can only say we need to be more critical and careful when making statements about etymology. Some of the words mentioned indeed came from Arabic but others were borrowed from other languages like Persian. The borrowing went into English in three ways:
1. Via Spanish
2. Via Indian
3. East European into German: like tulip which resembles turban in form is from Persian - Turkish - East Europe- Austria

See also Memories of Sir William Jones (Oriental Jones) William Jones (philologist) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. I can provide the sources if there is interest.

 

[Dr. Jamshid Ibrahim]

Yep, they're in there. (Note: I listed "some of the more common English words from Arabic" and didn't try to list them all. To find more go to the websites I provided links to. Or use Google. ;-) )

~R

P.S. Chess originally came from India and traveled through Middle-Eastern countries before it reached Western Europe. And orange isn't, of course, from Persian. It's from Arabic.

On this site:
https://www.usingenglish.com/members/wordlists/?t=group&id=452

Hi Ron: I am afraid there are a lot of mistakes in the link you gave. The etymologies given are misleading. See my explanation regarding orange. The words in blue and magneta are not of Arab origin. I placed a question mark after some words which I am not sure about. Etymology is not folketymology. It often remains speculation because it is difficult to determine the time and place of borrowings:

dmiral
alcohol
algebra
almanac
apricot: Persian
artichoke: Persian
arsenal
caliber
calico?
candy?
check: Persian
chess: Perisian
coffee
cork
cotton
crimson?
garble
gazelle
genie
gerbil
ghoul
giraffe
harem
hazard
jar
lilac: Persian
lemon: Persian
lime: Persian
loofah
lute
mask?
mattress
orange: Persian
sash
satin
scarlet?
sequin
sherbet
shrub
sofa
spinach: Persian
sugar: Indian
syrup
zenith?
zero: Indian

 

[RonBee]

I am sure you are right. However, while zero, for example, originally came from India, it came into English from Arabic. (At least I think that's the way it happened. I am certainly not an expert on the subject.) Also, the Spanish certainly had more contacts with Arabs than with Persians, and while the word orange may have originally come from Persian, the Spanish would have encountered it through their contacts with Arabs. Then the English encountered the word through their contacts with the Spanish. (As I said, I am no expert on the subject, but that makes the most sense to me.)

~R

 

[Dr. Jamshid Ibrahim]

Yes Ron, your are partly right. But we can rather say through Islam in Spain. Arabs often played an intermediary role (zero). As with Arabic numbers and Arabian Nights they came from India through Persian into Arabic. My point was they were originally not Arabic but borrowed through Arabic. The Arabic word for orange is burtuqaal which is simply a corrupted form of Portugal because the potuguese traded with oranges. So orange must have taken a different way into Spanish. The Spanish word for orange is naranja then it was borrowed into French and lost its initial n.

 

[Over the top]

You are a doctor and I am only a student, so absolutely I have no knowledge as yours. but I want to ask you about some words that you said it came from Persian rather than Arabic e.g Lemon.
Why did you consider it as a Persian word not an Arabic while lemon is a lemon in both Arabic and Persian?
When I see a word shared between Arabic and any other language, I always (and maybe I'm wrong) consider the Arabic is the origin because Arabic has influenced in many languages, clearly in those countries that were non-Muslim and became Muslim and the countries that were under Arab rule. sometimes Arabic replaced some languages as happened in Syria, before Islam Syriac was spoken in it and after Islam all syrian people spoke Arabic until nowadays maybe Syriac became an extinct language. The same happened with Coptic language which was spoken by Egyptian people. Since the time Egypt became Muslim Country until nowadays, No one speaks Coptic, even Coptic Christian Pope speaks Arabic.
I'm sorry I went on, but I only want to declare that Arabic influenced in many language like Turkish, Urdu, Persian, Spanish...etc. Did you know that there are 6000 words in Spanish taken from Arabic and 50% of Turkish words are Arabic. So if we take in consideration that Persian was Zoroastrian and became Muslims and Arabic replaced its letters into Arabic letters and reflected in the Persian language itself So the Lemon is an Arabic origin Word. LoL :lol:
again I'm only a student so maybe I'm wrong.
Check is from Persian Shahaking that's right but as for chess it is from french word "eschecs"