# Latin and Greek borrowings



## Magmod

I often wondered how much *Arabic* was borrowed from *Latin* and vice versa. Is there a website?
 Prophet Mohammed used to travel to Damascus for trade and I wonder what language was spoken in Damascus during that time. 
I think when St Paul went to Damascus after Jesus died, it was part of the Roman Empire.
 It seems to me that the Arabs conquered South Iraq because Arabic was already spoken there. I don't know about Syria?
 For example, *Damascus* I presume is of Latin origin and I don’t know what it means?
 Tripoli, a Latin word, which means 3 cities.
Regards  

Moderator Note :
Seeing that Greek and Latin are so mingled with the topic of this thread, I added the word "Greek" to the title of this thread.
Magmod, if you dislike this "solution", please let me know, and I'll try to move the Greek-related posts to another thread.


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## skanner62

Hello,

in the VIIth century the usually spoken languages in Syria were Greek and Latin. That's because Syria was dominated by the East Roman Empire (Costantinople)

Tripoli sounds more Greek than Latin: Tri-Polys, as Neaples (new polys) ... and Costantinople (Roman) is the Costantinus' Polys...

Bye

Skanner


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## Thomas F. O'Gara

The usually accepted derivation of the name Damascus is from Aramaic "Darmasheq", which meant something like "abode of water."  The modern English name came to English via the Latin, which had it from the Greek, which had it from the Aramaic.

Contrary to what skanner says, I believe that Syriac was the major spoken language in Syria and Southern Iraq in the Prophet's time. A great deal of the early translations of Greek texts into Arabic were done from Syriac translations.

Arabic gradually supplanted Syriac in this area but there are still pockets where it is spoken, in various dialects, mostly among Christians in Syria and Iraq.

On the subject of Latin words in Arabic, while I don't doubt that there may be a few, I can't think of any off the top of my head. There are a fair number of Greek words, such as _musiqi, _music, and _usquf, _bishop.


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## Hibou57

May be I'm wrong but I heard to say that the Latin alphabet has borrowed from the Semitic alphabet. As an example, the upper case letter « A » is from an old letter which was the same but bottom-up, and which was an iconic cow head. This ancestor of the letter « A » was a consonant which was not well understood at this time. It was pronounced with a sort of short vowel which were sounded like our Latin sound « a ». So it as been taken for this sound, ... and from the consonant it was first, it became a vowel in the Latin alphabet.


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## Magmod

Thomas F. O'Gara said:


> The usually accepted derivation of the name Damascus is from Aramaic "Darmasheq", which meant something like "abode of water." The modern English name came to English via the Latin, which had it from the Greek, which had it from the Aramaic.
> 
> Contrary to what skanner says, I believe that Syriac was the major spoken language in Syria and Southern Iraq in the Prophet's time. A great deal of the early translations of Greek texts into Arabic were done from Syriac translations.
> 
> Arabic gradually supplanted Syriac in this area but there are still pockets where it is spoken, in various dialects, mostly among Christians in Syria and Iraq.


Very interesting answer  
I presume Syriac is a dialect of Asyrian Language and the the name Syria is derived from Asyria.
Madrid in Spain like Damascus also means Plenty of Water Ma+Duraid ?
It is much easier to see similarities of borrowings in Islam from Christianity and Judaism than language borrowings.
Regards


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## cherine

Hibou57 said:


> May be I'm wrong but I heard to say that the Latin alphabet has borrowed from the Semitic alphabet. As an example, the upper case letter « A » is from an old letter which was the same but bottom-up, and which was an iconic cow head. This ancestor of the letter « A » was a consonant which was not well understood at this time. It was pronounced with a sort of short vowel which were sounded like our Latin sound « a ». So it as been taken for this sound, ... and from the consonant it was first, it became a vowel in the Latin alphabet.


This theory seems a bit far fetched to me (un peu tirée par les cheveux). Do you have proofs ?


Magmod said:


> Madrid in Spain like Damascus also means Plenty of Water Ma+Duraid ?


I'm not sure about that, specially that Madrid's name in old Arabic books is magriit مجريط which seems more of an arabization of the word Madrid.


> It is much easier to see similarities of borrowings in Islam from Christianity and Judaism than language borrowings.


Let's not mix languages with religions  Comparing languages is something (which pertains to the forum), while comparing religions is something else (and falls outside the scope of our forum)


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## Magmod

cherine said:


> I'm not sure about that, specially that Madrid's name in old Arabic books is magriit مجريط which seems more of an arabization of the word Madrid.
> 
> Let's not mix languages with religions  Comparing languages is something (which pertains to the forum), while comparing religions is something else (and falls outside the scope of our forum)


In the 7th Century the Islamic conquest of the Iberian Peninsula saw the name changed to "Mayrit", from the Arabic term "Mayra" (referencing water as a "mother" or "source of life") and the Ibero-Roman suffix "it" that means "place". The modern "Madrid" evolved from the Mozarabic "Matrit", which is still in the Madrilenian gentilic.[4] 
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madrid#Names_of_the_city_.26_Origin_of_the_current_name
The Arabs founded an observation fortress at Madrid. I saw no ruins in Madrid that suggests otherwise. 
The official guide of the city agrees more or less with what I said plus other references of Spanish and Arab Origins. 

I was refering to the *Koran *as a major source of the Arabic language. How many words in this book were of Latin/Greek origin? As you probably know before Islam, the Arabs were either Christians, Jews or multi-god believers(like the Romans before 300 AD) and all of these religions were related to religions under Romans who spoke Latin. I am enquiring about these relationships in the *languages*. 
Islam evolved from these desert people, so how did the language interchanged with the people to the West?

Regards


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## Claire Steiner

Hibou is cutting a few corners. The Latin alphabet was an adaptation of the Greek alphabet to better serve the needs of the Latins (people from around Rome, modern-day Lazio). They probably picked up the Greek alphabet from trading with the colonists in southern Italy. It is also suspected that some of the elements of the Latin alphabet were based on Etruscan (a language group unto itself). Since so little is known about Etruscan, it's hard to say what these elements are. But the letter V/U seems to have no direct parallel in Greek. Upsilon and Beta are separate letters, and the original pronounciation of the Latin B is a matter of hot debate.

The Greek alphabet was an adaptation of the Phoenician alphabet supposedly developed by traders who could not carry large amounts of heavy clay with them to write in Cuneiform, which was their official writing system. 

Where did the Phoenicians get it? There are some connections between the Phoenician alphabet and some semitic alphabets, but the use of vowels in semitic languages is so different than in Indo-European languages, that if such a thing happened, it took quite a while. the order of the letters in semitic alphabets is similar to the descendants of the Phoenician alphabet, but I would think that's a later convention instituted by Christan scholars to translate poetry, like some of the psalms, that are written with each line beginning with the consecutive letters of the alphabet.

I'm sure you know that there's a lot of Arabic in Spanish, a language that broke away from Latin long before French. Many Spanish names, like Alvarez are of Arabic origin.

As for Latin in Arabic, I can't think of anything right now, either. I would guess that it would be more difficult to bring a word into a Semitic language because of the complexity of the three consonant root stems.


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## Magmod

Claire Steiner said:


> but I would think that's a later convention instituted by Christan scholars to translate poetry, like some of the psalms, that are written with each line beginning with the consecutive letters of the alphabet.
> 
> I would guess that it would be more difficult to bring a word into a Semitic language because of the complexity of the three consonant root stems.


So in what language the gospels were written? I presume Latin  
What do you mean by the complexity? Nowadays the Hebrew and Arabic languages are full of foreign words.
Hebrew is used at Israeli universities even for medicine, but this is not the case for Arab universities where medicine is studied in English.
Regards


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## Outsider

Claire Steiner said:


> Hibou is cutting a few corners.


Many corners, but I'm afraid your explanation has some flaws, too. 



Claire Steiner said:


> The Latin alphabet was an adaptation of the Greek alphabet to better serve the needs of the Latins (people from around Rome, modern-day Lazio). They probably picked up the Greek alphabet from trading with the colonists in southern Italy.


There is no mystery about that. The Greeks founded many colonies around the Mediterranean, including in southern Italy, and brought the alphabet with them. The peoples of northern Italy (like the Etruscans) learned writing from the Greek colonists.



Claire Steiner said:


> It is also suspected that some of the elements of the Latin alphabet were based on Etruscan (a language group unto itself). Since so little is known about Etruscan, it's hard to say what these elements are. But the letter V/U seems to have no direct parallel in Greek.


The direct parallel of V/U in the Greek alphabet is Y. In archaic Greek, they even wrote it "V", sometimes.



Claire Steiner said:


> Upsilon and Beta are separate letters, and the original pronounciation of the Latin B is a matter of hot debate.


Sure, haven't upsilon and beta always been separate letters? 



Claire Steiner said:


> The Greek alphabet was an adaptation of the Phoenician alphabet supposedly developed by traders who could not carry large amounts of heavy clay with them to write in Cuneiform, which was their official writing system.
> 
> Where did the Phoenicians get it? There are some connections between the Phoenician alphabet and some semitic alphabets, but the use of vowels in semitic languages is so different than in Indo-European languages, that if such a thing happened, it took quite a while. the order of the letters in semitic alphabets is similar to the descendants of the Phoenician alphabet, but I would think that's a later convention instituted by Christan scholars to translate poetry, like some of the psalms, that are written with each line beginning with the consecutive letters of the alphabet.


This is correct. The missing piece of the puzzle is that, in early Semitic alphabets (or abjads, more accurately), each letter had a symbolic value. Aleph, for example, represented an ox, and was originally shaped like an ox's head. This is because it was the first letter in an ancient word for "ox".



Claire Steiner said:


> I'm sure you know that there's a lot of Arabic in Spanish, a language that broke away from Latin *long before French*.


Absolutely not true! 



Claire Steiner said:


> Many Spanish names, like Alvarez are of Arabic origin.


I doubt it. At least, it's usually believed that the ubiquitous suffix "-ez" of Spanish is of Latin, or perhaps pre-Roman Iberian origin.


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## Outsider

Magmod said:


> So in what language the gospels were written? I presume Latin


It's usually believed that the original version was in Aramaic, though no evidence of it has ever been found. The earlist copies available are in Greek.


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## Thomas F. O'Gara

Magmod:

The standard original text of the gospels is the Greek version. Some scholars hypothesize that there was an Aramaic version predating them, but if so it has been lost, and the Aramaic versions we have were translations from the Greek back into Aramaic.

The gospels, along with the rest of the bible, were translated into Latin in the fourth century by St. Jerome.

As for the complexity of Arabic, Claire is referring to the way that Arabic, and other Semitic languages, form words based on a three-consonant word root, which is supplied with vowels in between the consonants in certain ways as to constitute different word derivations. It's a different way than Indo-Eurpoean languages develop word roots, and it makes it difficult to adopt words from non-Semitic languages, although not impossible.

While it's definitely true that there are any number of words in modern Arabic that come from Latin (and French, English, Greek, Turkish and other languages for that matter), there were virtually none that came in to the language at the time of the Prophet. Having said that, there are foreign words in the Quran, either from Greek, Aramaic or Middle Persian, for the most part; I am sure that there are lists of these words, although a cursory seach online didn't reveal any to me just now.


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## cherine

Thomas F. O'Gara said:


> As for the complexity of Arabic, Claire is referring to the way that Arabic, and other Semitic languages, form words based on a three-consonant word root, [...] and it makes it difficult to adopt words from non-Semitic languages, although not impossible.


Not impossible at all. And as you said, the Qur'an has words from non-Arabic sources, but these words are arabized, like all borrowed words.
For example :
salsabiil (clear water) سلسبيل
istabraq (a kind of fine cloth of heavy silk) إستبرق

Most of the arabized words are borrowed from Hebrew, Nabatea, Persian, Syriac, الحبشية (not sure about the word in English, but it's the language spoken in [older?] Ethiopia), and some Greek too. But I didn't find any mention of Latin arabized words.

For those who have good enough level of Arabic, I recomment books in علوم القرآن (the sciences of the Qur'an). The one I just found, and where there's a chapter about (words in the Qur'an from other languages) : الإتقان في علوم القرآن of السيوطي, the book's language is quite easy, and it's kind of interesting reading.


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## Josh_

The idea of whether or not there are borrowing from Latin, what those borrowings are, and the extent of them, if any, is interesting.  I cannot think of any off hand.  For what it's I have an Arabic dictionary that has short etymological notes for Arabic words of foriegn origin and Latin is not one of the listed languages.  Of course, that does not mean that there are not.  Even if there aren't many is use today, there may have been at one time, as many philosophical and scientific writings were transalted from the Latin into the Arabic bcak in the early days of Islam.  As much of these writing are highly technical it would not surprise me if Latin terms were Arabized during the translation process.  So going back to those old texts might be one source of discovery of Latin in Arabic.  But outside of scientific/technical writing I highly doubt there are many, if any, Latin borrowings, at least in modern times.  I'm not sure, though.  Just my not so educated opinion.


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## Thomas F. O'Gara

From what I'm aware of, there were no translations of Latin authors into medieval Arabic. There were a lot of translations _from _medieval Arabic _into _Latin, albeit often not directly; they were translated by Spanish Jews from Arabic into medieval Spanish and then by Christians from medieval Spanish into Latin, for the most part.


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## cherine

I doubted that too, but I needed -and still need-  to check first to be 100% sure.
So, until I'm sure, please take this as a half truth: the Arabic translations were from Greek, not from Latin. And the technical terms are from Greek, they were used in philosophy, mathematics... and many of them are still used till now.


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## MarcB

I can think of two words from Latin: .طاوله .=table from tabula and. دينار . from denarius, dinar in several countries. Also in northern Tunisia 9atusa =cat from cattus. These words are said to be from Latin.


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## mansio

al-qaSr the castle comes from Latin castrum.


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## Outsider

MarcB said:


> Also in northern Tunisia 9atusa =cat from cattus. These words are said to be from Latin.


But Latin _cattus_ may have been a loan from Egyptian. So, could Arabic have borrowed it directly from Egyptian/Coptic, as well?


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## Dr. Quizá

Maybe you'll find interesting these two lists since the main Latin based languages of the Iberian peninsula also are the most spoken heirs of Latin:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_vocabulary#Words_of_Arabic_origin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Spanish_words_of_Arabic_origin



Claire Steiner said:


> Many Spanish names, like Alvarez are of Arabic origin.



Suffix "ez" in surnames mean "son of", so "Álvarez" means "son of Álvaro", but Álvaro is not an Arabic name, it's a Goth one: Alewar, "Guard of All". Not all words starting in "Al" are Arabic


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## cherine

Outsider said:


> But Latin _cattus_ may have been a loan from Egyptian. So, could Arabic have borrowed it directly from Egyptian/Coptic, as well?


Good point Outsider. It seems more plausible that Arabic borrowed from Egyptian rather than from Latin.


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## maxl

cherine said:


> I doubted that too, but I needed -and still need-  to check first to be 100% sure.
> So, until I'm sure, please take this as a half truth: the Arabic translations were from Greek, not from Latin. And the technical terms are from Greek, they were used in philosophy, mathematics... and many of them are still used till now.



Right in principle (from Greek, not from Latin), but mostly not directly from Greek, but through Syriac.


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## cherine

You're right Maxl: Translations in the 7th and 8th century were carried by translators who spoke Greek and Syriac. Some of these translations were directly from Greek, others went through Syriac first.

I didn't find any mentioning of translations from Latin.

More interesting : I just read, today, that Greek remained the official language in both Egypt and Syria for more than a hundred year after the Arabs conquested them. Hence, I guess it was easy for the two languages (Arabic and Greek) to borrow from each other. Arabic surely borrowed loads of scientific terms from Greek.

Again, I don't think Arabic borrowed much, if anything, from Latin. The load words that are from Latin origins, were most probably borrowed through French, Spanish and Italian, not direcly from Latin itself.


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## MarcB

Quote:
Originally Posted by *MarcB* http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?p=1605596#post1605596
Also in northern Tunisia 9atusa =cat from cattus. These words are said to be from Latin.



Outsider said:


> But Latin _cattus_ may have been a loan from Egyptian. So, could Arabic have borrowed it directly from Egyptian/Coptic, as well?


This word is a northern Tunisian borrowing from Latin. Even in Southern Tunisian it is not usually used,it is not the standard Arabic word for cat.


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## Abu Bishr

Hi Guys

What about فِرْدَوْس the plural of which is فَرَادِيْس which sounds very much like "paradise". Is'nt "paradise" of latin origin?


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## mansio

Paradise and firdaws are from a Persian word meaning an enclosed place like a garden or a field surrounded by a fence or a wall.
The pairi- (=around) in the Persian word is probably cognate with Greek peri- (=around).


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## Ayazid

Acording to various sources the quranic word سراط (path, way) is coming from Latin _strata _(the English word _street_ has the same origin).

Check this article:

http://www.riifs.org/review_articles/review_v5no2_walidsaleh.htm


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## Arrius

mansio said:


> al-qaSr the castle comes from Latin castrum.


 
I have often wondered about this connection. Is this borrowing likely to have occurred during the hostile interchanges of the Crusades, when military matters were of prime importance, Latin used as a language of religion and possibly as a lingua franca among the generals of the various European contingents, and the word had the meaning of "castle" rather than the original Roman camp?
The Germanic word "burg" (fortress), which conveys a similar idea, seems also to have wandered in this direction possibly at the same time, and given Arabic "burj" (tower).
However,if these words appear already in the Qur'an, then I am wrong.

*Mod note:*
*The discussion of the word برج is now in this thread.*


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## Outsider

The borrowing was probably much earlier than that, dating to the Arabic expansion of the 7th-8th centuries across formerly Roman provinces.
I say this because in Iberia there are places whose name is derived from _al qasr_. For example, Alcácer do Sal, in Portugal.


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## Abu Rashid

Magmod,



> but this is not the case for Arab universities where medicine is studied in English.



Although this is true in most universities, there are some where it's studied in Arabic. I have a friend who studied medicine in Damascus University in the Arabic language.


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## Spectre scolaire

cherine said:
			
		

> So, until I'm sure, please take this as a half truth: *the Arabic translations were from Greek*, not from Latin. And the technical terms are from Greek, they were used in philosophy, mathematics... and many of them are still used till now.


This is definitely the case. The Arabs translated quite a number of treatises written in Classical Greek, and they had a special liking for Aristotle. I think this can be seen in much the same context as the inclusion of pagan literature in early Christianity. There was a long debate among Christians as to how to make the transition from paganism to the new religion. The _dilemma_ (which incidentally is a _terminus technicus_ in Classical Greek philosophy), was to break away from the past, but at the same time keep those elements of the past which could serve the new community of the faithful. Considering the fact that Homer was on the curriculum in Constantinople until late Byzantine times, gives an idea about the difficulty and the delicacy of the task. 

In Islam there was also a need to _back up_, as it were, the new religion with a solid scientific tradition. In this respect, Aristotle came in handy, not only because he was a philosopher (and philosophy can always be adapted to whatever need you have), but also because he was a “universal genius” in the sense that he wrote about everything imaginable. For centuries Aristotle was _the_ reference in Christian Middle Age - to such an extent that there was no need to proceed to empirical investigations as long as you could just consult Aristotle. (This only changed, ironically, with the Renaissance!)

Islam emerged as a “pratical religion” somehow devoid of the innumerable subtleties that had caused so much heresy in early Christianity. Works of Aristotle were thought to serve Islam, and he was translated from Greek manuscripts dispersed all over the late Roman world. The Muslim encounter with Spain and its vibrant Jewish-Christian symbiotic society turned out to be of great importance. 

Greek loanwords in Arabic are numerous, and they found their way into the language through works on philosophy, botany, medicine, politics, physics, zoology – I don’t know where to put the limits because no comprehensive study (as far as I know) has ever been made to describe this influence. I have seen articles on the subject, and I personally possess a book (in Arabic) printed in Syria which includes a list of Greek loanwords in Arabic, but the latter is a compilation without any scientific aspirations, and as to the former category, many articles treating specific subjects (which might be of great relevance) often include a lexical part which, however, may only be a corollary.

An interesting aspect of Greek loanwords in Arabic is to what extent words were actually translated – making so-called _calques_ – in order to fit in “through the back door” of the rather narrow morphological _procrustean bed_ of the Arabic language. Like in Chinese – where the restrictions are rather on a phonetic level – Arabic is said to be more or less immune to loanwords. I think this is a myth, but I am not qualified to elaborate on the subject.

Eventually, much of the Aristotelian corpus became known to the West through Latin translations from Arabic! This mediating role of Arabic in pre-renaissance Europe is well known in scientific circles - and also among Arabs! - but it has remained a footnote in western schoolbooks.

I wish I could give some more detailed information on the question of Greek loanwords in Arabic , but for the time being I am about 8000 km from my archives and my personal library.


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