# Influence of other languages on Arabic



## Mahaodeh

*Moderator note: This thread is split from this one in the Arabic forum.*

As for the un-likeliness of Latin influence on Arabic, I would say that it's not only likely, but real. There was an ancient, pre-Islamic contact between Arabs and Romans of course (Romans were in the Levant and Egypt, and Arabs were not exactly confined to the desert and many Orientalists like to imply) - and then there was continuous (but not so new) contact with peoples of Romance languages - through trade, war, travel, exchange of knowledge...etc.


I'm not saying that half of the Arabic vocabulary is Latin, but you can't dismiss the words of Latin origin no matter how few or old they are.


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## post887

I think you are mistaken. You have forgot that Arabs were strictly straitening their sources of Arabic on the Bedouin البادية and tribes who were rooted to Arab stock (ethnologically) as well as being livign in an uncivilized centers بعيدا عن الحواضر so that they have had no contact with non-Arabian nations. (the other late influence regarding the solecism ظاهرة اللحن is irrelevant to the point.)

Also, the lexicon of Arabic is very unique so that it is transparently disclose any strange or foreign strauctures (mainly via the root system as well as morphological laws) unlike Latin's offsprings that are quite heterogeneous.

So trying to compare between the paths both Spanish, French or whatsoever, and, on the other hand, Arabic, were influenced through is incorrect from the philological point of view as well as the phonetical aspects.

As to the entry I was looking for the context.. the enrty originally has no indication or implication on the origin to me.

This is the main perspective, exceptions have very little value to add to the subject. Plus, to avoid mistakening, I am talking about the old set of dictionaries and origins.

I have no problem with accepting the borrowing occurrences once in a while, but I do care referring to the fact that Arabic represents a family of languages (call it Proto-Semetic or whatever) rather than an occurrence of a pre-dated language system. In which its predefined characteristics affects its lexicon as well.

Saying that Tavola (italian) or tablo (Greek) is the origin is merely suggestive, it could be taken from Persian which took it from Arabic (proto- form.), or any other way around. Most cases are quite suggestive. An example of how erroric assumption happens is the word الدُّكان, some poeple said it is Persian, one had said it is Greek, another one say it is from the Sumerian "Dugan" from which the Accadian "Tukkanu", the last two are both Arabic in the philological sense. Another example the word الصك in لسان العرب Persian فارسي معرب أصله جك  نقلاً عن أبي منصور الثعالبي whereas it is an Arabic authenticated word from the root صكك it is clear that Persians took it from Arabic, but because الثعالبي was Persian he thought it is taken from Persian. It is also an example for words that are taken from Arabic and returned back on a distorted form and taken as معربة while it was originally Arabic. In conclusion, Latin/Greek took more from eastern languages, not the other way around, I guess.


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## Mahaodeh

post887 said:


> I think you are mistaken. You have forgot that Arabs were strictly straitening their sources of Arabic on the Bedouin





post887 said:


> البادية and tribes who were rooted to Arab stock (ethnologically) as well as being livign in an uncivilized centers بعيدا عن الحواضر so that they have had no contact with non-Arabian nations.



 
With the exception of this, I pretty much agree with most of what you said or at least with your main concept. I am aware that borrowing is very little in Arabic (when comparing the borrowed words to the total vocabulary - excluding of course modern "scientific naming")
 
I don't think it's accurate to assume that beduins in the depth of the desert in pre-Islamic eras had no contact with other nations, they were far from secluded and they have already had centuries of contact before Islam came (you can find references to Arabs and a king of Arabs in Assyrian documents dated to the eighth century AD) - or else, how would we explain سروال, an undeniable Persian loanword, being a common word in beduin everyday life before Islam? If they had contact with Persians why not then with Romans too? Both were equally strong, equally influential and equally available on Arab lands and close to Arab lands!
 



post887 said:


> Also, the lexicon of Arabic is very unique so that it is transparently disclose any strange or foreign strauctures (mainly via the root system as well as morphological laws) unlike Latin's offsprings that are quite heterogeneous.



 
Not as much as we would like to think. Older borrowed words (i.e., much older than the borrowing of تلفزيون وبلايستيشن) followed certain rules that made them similar to Arabic words that clear roots and اشتقاقات; the words فُرْس ورُوْم وتُرْك وحَبَشَة وهِنْد وإِفْرَنْج وزِنْج , as an example, all have three letter roots and proper ways of being derived and Arabic letters as well as being loanwords and pre-Islamic. Words that are used in daily life are much more difficult to distinguish.
 
Having said that, I do agree that Arabic is very conservative and borrowed little words and maintained more of its original Semitic or Proto-Semitic features than most other languages. I'm not disputing this.
 



post887 said:


> This is the main perspective, exceptions have very little value to add to the subject.



 
I'm not sure I agree with this, exceptions prove that it's possible; they make it harder to dismiss another possibility (if it happened once, why not twice?).
 



post887 said:


> Plus, to avoid mistakening, I am talking about the old set of dictionaries and origins.



 
How old is old? Is a thirteenth century dictionary old enough or is that modern? You would not find many books written in Arabic during the second century AD (is there even one?) and the further back in history you look the harder it is to find anything.
 



post887 said:


> Saying that Tavola (italian) or tablo (Greek) is the origin is merely suggestive, it could be taken from Persian which took it from Arabic (proto- form.), or any other way around.



 
Well, of course, Etymology is mostly guesswork; but one must admit that it's an educated guess. طاولة is quite a new borrowing and it was borrowed at a time when Arabs used to write a lot, especially about their own language, so the possibility that ابن منظور actually knows the exact origin of the word is very strong; it may have been borrowed during his lifetime. My point in bringing up the word is not the word itself, it's the fact that Ibn ManTHour actually knew about it so the borrowing is far from new (it's at least 800 years old); he also mentioned Italian while Outlandish claimed that Italian loanwords did not enter Egyptian Arabic (specifically) until the early 20th century (Ibn Manthoor is an Arab that lived in Egypt). That was my whole point.


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## Josh_

There is also the word صراط, found in the FatiHa of the Quran as  well as a few other verses, which many claim is from the Latin "strata."

Anyway, I'm curious about the claim that many orientalists like to imply that ancients Arabs were confined to the desert.  Now, if by "orientalists" it is meant 18th and 19th century scholars, perhaps (I really haven't studied enough to know), but I don't believe current scholarship suggests that Arabs were confined to the desert. In fact,  I think most agree that there was trade and other types of interactions, but again I haven't studied it enough to give a complete answer. 

I do know, however, that Rome had an Arab emperor, believe it or not, whose Arab lineage, according to the wikipedia article on him, seems to be generally accepted by historians.  I even have an old Roman coin with his picture on it.

Also, reading that wikipedia article we see that "Rome used the Ghassan tribe from the Azd of Yemen as vassals to keep the neighboring northern Arabs in check."

This indicates that Rome had many interactions with Arabs. You can also check the link to the Ghassans for more information concerning the interactions between Rome and the Arabs.


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## WadiH

We're not used to thinking of Latin or Greek as being among the languages that have influenced Arabic (we tend to be inclined to look first to Persian and Turkish, then to Hindi, Coptic, Syriac/Aramaic, and once in a while, Ethiopic).  But I guess it's not so implausible when you think about it.

By the way, Josh, the Ghassanids were vassals of the Eastern Roman Empire, whose language was Greek.


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## Mahaodeh

Josh_ said:


> Anyway, I'm curious about the claim that many orientalists like to imply that ancients Arabs were confined to the desert.


 
Ok, I guess I'll have to take back that part; I was trying to say شعوبيين not مستشرقين but I translated the wrong word.


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## post887

_Cont~_

Well, the fact that Bedouins had no interaction with other nations should be true by definition. Maybe it has been confused between the Arabs as being living in the desert, and being Bedouins. They are not synonyms nor opposites to each other. Bedouin is opposite to urban/civilized. The middle part of the Arabic Peninsula is a desert, but some Arabs were living in cities حواضر, surrounded by the desert, and had a normal contact through trading as you have suggested earlier. Some other Arabs were merely Bedouins, which means their living depended on pasture, they had no trade. This would apply to the near Pre-Islamic period, as far as we go back further, the criterion should be completely different, as we know nothing about their Civilizations and how the language were preserved/developed. The Ghassani tribe is rooted to Yemen but it was resident in Levant when they had contact with Rome. They were civilized. Though, it is really difficult to distinguish the nature of Arab life, because the word Bedouin has some times the indication of being combatant (aside part of their way of living), and some times of being not civilized.. while both are partly true, there is an obvious difference. Ghassani tribe was not a source for Arabic.

As to the loanword assumptions, what if we said سروال is Aramaic?  Well, it has been doubtable and suggested as an origin. Nevertheless, when the so called loanword is old as such a word, and the other words you mentioned فرس، روم ..., assumptions are absolutely argumental. As long as the lexicon of a language is being consistent, its content is an authentic part of it. Beyond that we are not able to determine which word belongs to whom. For an example, we know for sure روم is Arabic, which only drives us towards questioning if it is معربة or was actually taken by others before returned back while it was originally Arabic. Guess?

I totally disagree with assumptions of another origin of, or influence on, Arabic that induce me to believe without providing any proof. Because as much as I know Arabic is the oldest language ever, either as Proto-Arabic or as MSA that has been separately and on a secluded way, rolling down till the Islamic period through the stock of Quraish بني هاشم, possibly.

To my knowledge, Aramaic as Hebrew, are Proto-Arabic/Semetic. Ethiopic is also rooted to it (may be Coptic too). Hindi is Sanskrit, to which Latin is rooted (I think), but as it is assigned to outside the Arabic Peninsula it is most likely not the oldest language existed.

Arab authors often tend to record what they know without approving or making statements about its trueness. This was common in علم السيرة for example. So I would not take any testaments of the Arabic dictionaries for evident because of that (reliability doubt).

*صراط* is originally سراط from سرط. The replacement of SSad is emphatic, or maybe has another role (you can find its meanings in the dictionary.) This is one of the cases when opening the doors for Conjecture leads people to erroric assumptions. (one meaning of the root سرط is even used in the colloquial Arabic.)


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## berndf

*Moderator note:
A reply to the following quote started this new thread.*



post887 said:


> I totally disagree with assumptions of another origin of, or influence on, Arabic that induce me to believe without providing any proof. Because as much as I know Arabic is the oldest language ever, either as Proto-Arabic or as MSA that has been separately and on a secluded way, rolling down till the Islamic period through the stock of Quraish بني هاشم, possibly.


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## origumi

post887 said:


> To my knowledge, Aramaic as Hebrew, are Proto-Arabic/Semetic. Ethiopic is also rooted to it (may be Coptic too).


Aramaic and Hebrew are NOT Proto-Arabic. This is easy to demonstrate: Arabic has preserved Proto-Semitic features that are absent in Aramaic / Hebrew. How can it be their descendant?

Coptic is not Semitic, it's a descendant of Egyptian thus Hamitic.


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## Frank06

post887 said:


> To my knowledge, Aramaic as Hebrew, are Proto-Arabic/Semetic. Ethiopic is also rooted to it (may be Coptic too). Hindi is Sanskrit, to which Latin is rooted (I think), but as it is assigned to outside the Arabic Peninsula it is most likely not the oldest language existed.


*Equating (Proto-)Arabic with Proto-Semitic is an assessment based upon anything but linguistics. Saying that Hebrew and Aramaic go back to Proto-Arabic is, at best (or, rather, at worst) an ideological construct. Equating Hindi with Sanskrit is equally false.*

*It wouldn't be bad to do at least some basic reading. The language and linguistics related articles on Wikipedia are in general quite okay and the links they provide are often worth checking out. May we suggest that you start your linguistic quest there.*

*Please keep in mind that on WR and EHL, we're not dealing with politics, ideology or religion, but with linguistics. So please base your explanations on linguistic arguments.*

*The sub-topics (and off topic) Proto-Arabic = Proto-Semitic and Hebrew, Aramaic go back to Proto-Arabic/Semitic are hereby closed.*


*This thread is about "Mutual influences between Arabic and other languages", it's all in the title. *
*If participants in this discussion don't find it necessary to stick to this topic and keep going off topic, we'll close the thread.*

*I hope we're clear enough.*


*Frank*
*Moderator EHL*


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## Josh_

Wadi Hanifa said:


> By the way, Josh, the Ghassanids were vassals of the Eastern Roman Empire, whose language was Greek.


Well, my quote about Rome enlisting the Ghassan tribe for help was lifted directly from the wikipedia article on Philip the Arab that I linked to.

According to the Wikipedia article on the Ghassanids it says that their beginnings were around the 3rd century CE.  Also, further down the page it has sections discussing the Ghassanid kingdom during the Roman era as well as the Byzantine era.   So, if the article is accurate, then they had interactions with both.


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## Outlandish

I think there is a huge impact Arabic left on many African languages and the languages of Persia, India and other surrounding areas. I've so often heard Arabic words in Indian and Pakistani Movies and in African broadcasts.
Some of the words I heard are: laken لكن in Indian movies and it is the same as Arabic, meaning 'but'. 
I also heard the word 'bass' in Indian to mean بس 'stop it!' or "enough is enough"; I'm not sure which language borrowed it from the other. In Indian movies we usually hear words like 'mahboba', the same as the Arabic for female 'beloved', and the word 'Shukreia' used for expressing gratefulness is similar to 'shukran' and the root word 'shukr'. 
The Indian word for 'no', 'nahee', though not similar to the Arabic equivalent 'la', is at least similar to the verb used to "negate, deny" which is 'yanha' noun-'nahei'. 
I'm not sure whether this similarity is a metter of the impact of a language over the other or are they- the similar roots and vocab- intrinsic in all these languages at one time.


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## berndf

*Moderator note:*
*The title of this thread has been changed from "Mutual influences between Arabic and other languages " to "Influence of other languages on Arabic" because the title we (the moderators) chose when the thread was created from an existing discussion inadequately represented the nature of that discussion. Please, from now on, do not discuss the influence of Arabic on other language but only foreign influence on Arabic.*
*Thank you.*


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## Rajki

Arabic borrowed profusely from other languages.

Just a few common Arabic words of Latin origin:
'askar, baitari, barquq, birfir, bitriq, burkan, dinar, ismant, jinn, kirbal, kumruk, mandil, qaisar, qallaya, qandil, qasr, qirsh, qitt, sajjala, satl, sirat


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## Mahaodeh

While Arabic did in fact borrow, I wouldn't say "profusely"; Arabic is rather conservative and tends to develop it's own new words.

Besides, of the list of words you gave, at least one is Ancient Egyptian (qitt), at least one is Greek (dinar), at least one is Persian ('askar) and at least five (jinn, qallaya, qasr, qirsh, sajjala) are actually Arabic!  This, of course, makes me doubt most of the rest.


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## Rajki

Mahaodeh said:


> At least one is Ancient Egyptian (qitt), at least one is Greek (dinar), at least one is Persian ('askar) and at least five (jinn, qallaya, qasr, qirsh, sajjala) are actually Arabic! This, of course, makes me doubt most of the rest.


 
As to qitt, there are no traces in Old Egyptian of such a word. In Late Latin, however, cat is cattus (cf. Italian gatto, Spanish gato).

Denarius was a Roman coin, the name is clearly Latin (from the Latin word deni). The Greeks used different names for their coins (e.g. drakhme).

Persian 'askar starts with 'ayin, which means that it is a borrowing from Arabic (there is no 'ayin in "original" Persian words). Army in Italian is esercito, in Spanish ejercito. These come from Late Latin exercitus. Arabic borrowed 'askar from one of these words.

Arabic jinn < Latin genius, qallaya < cella, qasr < castrum, qirsh < grossus, sajjala < sigillum.

If there are better (=more convincing) etymologies than these, this thread is the best venue to present them.


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## Frank06

*Hi,*



> If there are better (=more convincing) etymologies than these, this thread is the best venue to present them.


*No, it isn't .*
*We can discuss general issues in this thread. For more detailed explanations on the etymology of individual words, we do prefer new threads. "Prefer" should be understood as "we kindly ask you to open a new thread" or "we urge you to do so" .*

*Otherwise said, we can indeed discuss the etymology of any of these words (and please, please, do!!!).*
*The new threads can be linked, however, to this "mother thread". If necessary, we'll add links in this thread to new, related threads. *



Rajki said:


> As to qitt, there are no traces in Old Egyptian of such a word. In Late Latin, however, cat is cattus (cf. Italian gatto, Spanish gato).


*The etymology of "cat, qitt, etc." has been discussed **here**. For further discussion, please go to that thread.*



Rajki said:


> *Denarius* was a Roman coin, the name is clearly Latin (from the Latin word deni). The Greeks used different names for their coins (e.g. drakhme).
> Persian *'askar* starts with 'ayin, which means that it is a borrowing from Arabic (there is no 'ayin in "original" Persian words). Army in Italian is esercito, in Spanish ejercito. These come from Late Latin exercitus. Arabic borrowed 'askar from one of these words.
> Arabic *jinn* < Latin genius, *qallaya* < cella, *qasr* < castrum, *qirsh* < grossus, *sajjala* < sigillum.


*The etymology of any of these words presented here is interesting enough to deserve a new thread on it's own. *
*Again, we'll provide cross-references and links.*

*Groetjes,*

*Frank*
*Moderator EHL*


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## berndf

Mahaodeh said:


> Besides, of the list of words you gave, ... at least one is Greek (dinar)


It might have entered Arabic through Greek but its origin is Latin. The _Denarius_ was first struck in the 3rd century BC with a value of 10 Asses, hence the name which is derived from _decem=ten_.


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