# African languagues: Arabic influences



## Stiannu

Hi everybody,
For many reasons I have learned some words in both Swahili language (spoken mainly in Kenya and Tanzania, East Africa) and in Wolof language (spoken in Senegal, West Africa). The two areas are quite far and I was surprised to find similarities, but I supposed that, since the two areas were exposed to Islamic and Arabic influence, that could be the missing link. Some Arabic speaker could help. Three examples:

*news* is said *xibaar* (prononciation: k*h*ibaar, with a strong aspiration) in Wolof (used for the TV news, for example) and *habari* in Swahili (used also in greetings: "habari?", meaning "how are you?", literally "what are your news?")

*thanks* are expressed as *sant* in Wolof (literally meaning "praise", as in the sentence "sant Yalla", thanks to God), and *asante* in Swahili (the word to say "thank you")

*soul/spirit* can be said as *ruu* in Wolof and as *roho* in Swahili (I guess this is of Semitic origin.. "ruàh" should be a Hebrew biblical word)

Thank you!


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## MarcB

The words for news and soul are Arabic.


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## palomnik

I'm not familiar with Wolof.  However, there is a tremendous number of Arabic words in Swahili, and they penetrate deep into the language.  Arguably it was the Arabic influence that originally marked it off as a separate language from its other Bantu neighbors.

Kiswahili - from the noun class prefix _ki- _and _sahiliy, _Arabic for coastline.

karibu - welcome, from Arabic _qarib_, near.  The original idea was "come near."

kwaheri - goodbye, from native Swahili kwa + heri, from Arabic _kheir - _well, fine.

ghali/rahisi - expensive and cheap, respectively, from the Arabic.

tena - again, from Arabic _thani_, second.

kufahamu - to understand, from infinitive prefix _ku- _plus Arabic _faham, _to understand.

sita, saba, nane, tisa - six, seven, eight, nine, from Arabic _sitta, sab3a, thamanya, tis3a._

kitabu - book, from Arabic _kitab.  _This word has become so domesticated that the intial _ki- _is assumed to be a noun prefix, and the plural is _vitabu._

uhuru - freedom, from noun prefix _u-_ and _huri, _Arabic for free.


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## C. E. Whitehead

A lot of words went back and forth between the Mediterranean and Africa; for example in Bor Dinka there is a word waquero (?) I think (someone correct me; I saw data from Bor in a linguistics course) which means "cow;" the Spanish word for cowboy is "vaquero," and I think there is a related Arabic word too  (the Spanish name Baquero is from Arabic).

--C. E. Whitehead


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## Stiannu

Thanks. 
I thought of another example of similarity between Wolof and Swahili:

*guest* is said *gan* in Wolof and *mgeni* (m- being a prefix, the plural being wageni, so the root is *geni*) in Swahili

The Dinka case is really strange and interesting... to be continued!
Of course African languages are also full of words of European origin, due to the colonial period... but that's another story.


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## Whodunit

Stiannu said:


> *news* is said *xibaar* (prononciation: k*h*ibaar, with a strong aspiration) in Wolof (used for the TV news, for example) and *habari* in Swahili (used also in greetings: "habari?", meaning "how are you?", literally "what are your news?")


 
Yes, _khabar_ *خبر* is Arabic and means _news_.



> *thanks* are expressed as *sant* in Wolof (literally meaning "praise", as in the sentence "sant Yalla", thanks to God), and *asante* in Swahili (the word to say "thank you")


 
_sant_ doesn't remind me of an Arabic word with a similar meaning. _Yalla_, however, sounds like Arabic _allah_ الله.



> *soul/spirit* can be said as *ruu* in Wolof and as *roho* in Swahili (I guess this is of Semitic origin.. "ruàh" should be a Hebrew biblical word)


 
Yes, Arabic _ruu7_ *روح* and Hebrew _roo7a_ *רוח* both mean _spirit._



C. E. Whitehead said:


> A lot of words went back and forth between the Mediterranean and Africa; for example in Bor Dinka there is a word waquero (?) I think (someone correct me; I saw data from Bor in a linguistics course) which means "cow;" the Spanish word for cowboy is "vaquero," and I think there is a related Arabic word too (the Spanish name Baquero is from Arabic).


 
You're right! The Arabic word for _cow_ is _baqara_ *بقرة*.



Stiannu said:


> Thanks.
> I thought of another example of similarity between Wolof and Swahili:
> 
> *guest* is said *gan* in Wolof and *mgeni* (m- being a prefix, the plural being wageni, so the root is *geni*) in Swahili


 
No idea of an Arabic cognate.


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## Flaminius

Whodunit said:
			
		

> Hebrew _roo7a_ *רוח* both mean _spirit._


Minor corrction, Hebrew רוח is to be pronounced _ruaħ_.


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## C. E. Whitehead

Thanks, whodunit!


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## jfm

The Arabic influence on the lexicon of African languages is massive. If you draw an imaginary line from Dakar to Nairobi, virtually all languages down to and around that line will have loanwords from Arabic. This includes languages like Wolof, Fula (Fulfulde, Pulaar), Bambara, Moore, Hausa, Kikuyu, Swahili, etc. A large reason for this is, of course, Islam. But, many African languages show influences from Arabic due to historical trade relations rather than religious conversion. 

In East Africa, the influence goes much further south, but this is largely due to Swahili, as that has been the main trade language in East Africa. Swahili's origins lie in various trade centers along the coast of southern Somalia, Kenya and northern Tanzania. Many of these were Islamicized early on, and have for long (more than a millenia) maintained trade relations with Arab merchants and other African kingdoms, incl. various Islamisized Sultanates (not necessarily Arabs).  A large network of trade routes (caravan routes) has connected the whole of East Africa throughout much of known history.

The Arabic loanwords in Swahili include many nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and also many greeting (and other) phrases, like *Asante!* 'Thank you!', *Shukran!* 'Thank you!', *Tafadhali!* 'Please!', *Salkheir!* 'Good day!', *Karibu!* 'Welcome!', etc., etc.

The Arabic loans include also some grammatical elements, spec. various function words like *kabla* 'before', *bila* 'without', *ama...ama* 'either...or', *lakini* 'but, nevertheless', and several more.

Foreign influences in Swahili extend beyond Arabic, however. Trade routes have connected much of the Indian Ocean area. Arabs, Persians, and South Indians have all traded on the East African coast. Hence Swahili has many loanwords also from Persian and various Indian languages (e.g. Hindi, Cutchi). Some of these have entered other East African languages via Swahili.

---
jfm


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## avok

Stiannu said:


> Hi everybody,
> *news* is said *xibaar* (prononciation: k*h*ibaar, with a strong aspiration) in Wolof (used for the TV news, for example) and *habari* in Swahili (used also in greetings: "habari?", meaning "how are you?", literally "what are your news?")
> 
> *thanks* are expressed as *sant* in Wolof (literally meaning "praise", as in the sentence "sant Yalla", thanks to God), and *asante* in Swahili (the word to say "thank you")
> 
> *soul/spirit* can be said as *ruu* in Wolof and as *roho* in Swahili (I guess this is of Semitic origin.. "ruàh" should be a Hebrew biblical word)
> 
> Thank you!





Hi, they are certainly of Arabic origin and we have the same words in Turkish too!!! Far away from Tanzania and Senegal

News is "*haber*" 

Soul is "*ruh*" and some other words that might be present in Swahili or Wolof, to be precisely,  are *kitap* ( book ) *din* (religion) and even the name "*Swahil*i" exists in Turkish in the form of "*sahil*" which means "coast". But "santa "does not ring a bell


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## eskandar

Whodunit said:


> You're right! The Arabic word for _cow_ is _baqara_ *بقرة*..




Interestingly enough, this is unrelated to the Spanish word _vaca_ (cow), derived from the Latin _vacca_. The RAE claims that _vaquero_ is unrelated to Arabic, but etymology is tricky, so who knows. My instinct would be to agree with the RAE on this one, however.


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## C. E. Whitehead

I do not know; with the Bor-Dinka word for (is it cow?? ) waquera or something similar (correct me if I'm wrong; it's been a while since I worked with Bor-Dinka in school); the Arabic word baqara, and the Spanish word for cowboy (not cow; but derived from cow) vaquera, I'd think about it; I'm sure of a strong trade relation up and down there, from the Southern (upper) Nile and the Red Sea to Mediterranean and North African shores to Spain and other ports.  (I know that in Spanish the 'qu' in vaquero is pronounced  slightly further back than the velar k and the same is true for the Arabic 'q'--I know that much about Arabic pronunciation.)
--CEW


eskandar said:


> Interestingly enough, this is unrelated to the Spanish word _vaca_ (cow), derived from the Latin _vacca_. The RAE claims that _vaquero_ is unrelated to Arabic, but etymology is tricky, so who knows. My instinct would be to agree with the RAE on this one, however.


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## Outsider

*Vaquero* is clearly a compound in Spanish (as in Portuguese): *vac(a) + ero*. The Latin-derived suffix _-ero_ is very common in Spanish, and used for example to make the names of professions.


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## C. E. Whitehead

Is there ever such a suffix in Arabic? I know for example that iyya/iyyu (in Lubnaniyya, etc.) makes its way from Arabic to Spanish; thus we have a stressed i before the final a in a number of Spanish words ending in ia, probably because of the Arabic double consonant in iyya--if Latin were the sole source of the suffix, the i would not be stressed some linguists argue (for example 
sangría: wine [color of blood; looks like made from/comes from blood; sangre [Noun]: blood]; seems analagous to Lubnan, Lubnanillu, Lubnanilla).

What I'm wondering is if the Arabic and Bor words could also be compound, or derived from Spanish.

--C. E. Whitehead


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## Outsider

C. E. Whitehead said:


> Is there ever such a suffix in Arabic?  I know for example that iyya/iyyu (in Lubnaniyya, etc.) makes its way from Arabic to Spanish; thus we have a stressed i before the final a in a number of Spanish words ending in ia, probably because of the Arabic double consonant in iyya--if Latin were the sole source of the suffix, the i would not be stressed some linguists argue.


Curiously, though, the Spanish word for "Lebanon" is not Lebanía.

It's not unheard of for stress to change from Latin (or Greek) to Spanish. Appealing to an origin in Arabic _-iyya_ when Latin _-ia_ has been available since antiquity seems farfetched to me.


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## cherine

*I'm not sure I'm following you guys. But is this thread now discussing Arabic influences on Spanish?!*
*If so, allow me to remind you that the topic is about African languages. *

*Thanks for remaining on topic *


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## Lugubert

Among Arabic words spreading successfully, _kitab_ 'book' has been mentioned. I find _dunya_ 'world' (from at least Turkey to Indonesia) and _qalam_ 'pen' in several languages. Just found _kalamu_ 'pen, pencil' in Swahili, for example. Also Swahili _Alhamsi_ 'Thursday', Arabic _yaum-ul-Hams_ 'the fifth day', S. _asubuhi_ 'morning', A. sabaH, S. _baraka_ 'blessing', A. _baraka_.

Sorry, mods, I can't resist mentioning a couple of borrowings from other languages when looking at just the Swahili letter 'b' in a tiny wordlist: _bilauri_ 'glass, tumbler' from Hindi etc. _billaur_ 'glass, crystal, quartz', possibly derived from the southern Indian town name Belur and related, perhaps through Greek, to the element name beryllium, and _bustani_ 'garden', Persian for '_flower-garden_'.


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## palomnik

I was rummaging around in my attic the other day and I came up with my copy of Johnson's _Standard Swahili-English Dictionary, _a book which I dare say most students of the language would hardly consider standard any more, but it is a curiously pleasant relic of the British Empire in East Africa (it came out in 1939) and - rare for a dictionary - a good read, with explanations like:

*Keua - *_to straighten a pole for building by cutting a notch in it and inserting a wedge or small piece of wood_.

*Mviza - *_a kind of evergreen tree used in magic and medicine making.  It is said that if an offering is placed under the tree by a person, who meanwhile chews some of its leaves and forms a wish in his mind, that wish will be granted.  Also, if its wood is burnt, wild animals will not come near._

One of the virtues of the dictionary is that it gives the etymology of every word that is not of Bantu origin. A quick review shows that these probably make up more than half the language.  The largest contingent is Arabic, although there are a surprisingly large number of Farsi and Urdu words as well, including a few familiar ones like _pesa _(money) and _bima _(insurance). There are a lot of Portuguese words too.


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## jaxlarus

Lugubert said:


> Among Arabic words spreading successfully, _kitab_ 'book' has been mentioned. I find _dunya_ 'world' (from at least Turkey to Indonesia) and _qalam_ 'pen' in several languages



You can include Greece as well for _dunya_: ντουνιάς (dunyás), used mostly in street talk.

But _qalam _is actually of Greek origin: κάλαμος (kálamos), meaning reed which with chisels used for writing were made of.


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