# Persian/Turkish/Arabic: Influences



## Bienvenidos

Hey all:

It's kind of shocking how close these languages are, and how they all have influenced English vocabulary. For example, I've just found out that the
English sherbert comes from the Turkish _serbet,_ from the Persian/Farsi _sharbat,_ and from the Arabic _sharba(t)_. Does anyone know how these terms became so similar, or how these languages came to share such similarities (aside from common geography).

*Bien*


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## cherine

I'm not expert in etymology, but what I know about these languages is that they were shared by the same big State that was the Arabic civilisation, for many centuries (enough time to exchange lots of things, no ?  )
There was also the Ottoma empire, which extended over very large boundaries, with a complete freedom of movement between the different countries -which were called "welayat" (=states?)- so a person born in Egypt could spend his last years in Turkey, Iran, Iraq....

A slightly off-topic note : I also learned that many words spoken in colloquial Arabic in Egypt are from _Italian_ origin ! Yes  because Egypt had so may Italians living here for many years, and some of the Italian words were borrowed in the daily usage.

So, after all, it's not that astonishing that these languages borrowed/lended words from and to each others.


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## Bienvenidos

cherine said:
			
		

> I'm not expert in etymology, but what I know about these languages is that they were shared by the same big State that was the Arabic civilisation, for many centuries (enough time to exchange lots of things, no ?  )
> There was also the Ottoma empire, which extended over very large boundaries, with a complete freedom of movement between the different countries -which were called "welayat" (=states?)- so a person born in Egypt could spend his last years in Turkey, Iran, Iraq....
> 
> A slightly off-topic note : I also learned that many words spoken in colloquial Arabic in Egypt are from _Italian_ origin ! Yes  because Egypt had so may Italians living here for many years, and some of the Italian words were borrowed in the daily usage.
> 
> So, after all, it's not that astonishing that these languages borrowed/lended words from and to each others.


 
Italian! Wow! The Ottoman Turks were a strong force in Asia, and I suppose that was a big influence, as you have mentioned. I'm wondering if anything more "ancient" than that had an influnece (Alexander the Great). Most Afghans have some sort of Greek heritage due to Alexander the Great's invasion of Afghanistan. Maybe some Greek words are of Farsi origin/vice versa!

Thank you again Cherine for your wonderful comment. 

*Bien*


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## mansio

I would say that Turkish has been greatly influenced in its vocabulary by Arabic and Persian, and Persian by Arabic.

On the other hand I do not know the extent of the influence of Persian on Arabic. I believe it must be little.


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## cherine

I don't know if it's little, but Persian (Farsi) did influence Arabic in certain domains. I just learned today, by pure coincidence, that many of the vegetables' names in Arabic are borrowed from Farsi, spcially those plants that were not grown or known by Arabs :
toffaa7 تفاح apple
gargeer (or jarjeer) جرجير watercress
tamaatem (or Bandora) طماطم/بندرة Tomato
batteekh بطيخ watermelon

And many others in this field. Also, in some other fields, I'll let you know as soon as I learn anything new.


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## Flaminius

As per Cherine:
 toffaa7 تفاح apple
 batteekh بطيخ watermelon

These almost coincide with the Hebrew words, respectively תפוח (tapuach) and אבטיח ('avatiach). 

I would be interested to know the effect of Turkic (not necessarily Turkish) languages left on Persian.  With many Turkic dynasties reigning over as Shahs, I would imagine the influence to be rather great.


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## mansio

I think those Turkic Shahs adopted Persian very quickly. Our kings of Frankish (Germanic) origin spoke Old French and the Mandchu emperors of China spoke Chinese.

Tomato is an Amerindian word from Mexico.


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## Bienvenidos

cherine said:
			
		

> I don't know if it's little, but Persian (Farsi) did influence Arabic in certain domains. I just learned today, by pure coincidence, that many of the vegetables' names in Arabic are borrowed from Farsi, spcially those plants that were not grown or known by Arabs :
> toffaa7 تفاح apple
> gargeer (or jarjeer) جرجير watercress
> tamaatem (or Bandora) طماطم/بندرة Tomato
> batteekh بطيخ watermelon
> 
> And many others in this field. Also, in some other fields, I'll let you know as soon as I learn anything new.


 
Surprisingly I don't recognize any of those words. Perhaps they are variants of Old/Middle Persian and have been swept out of Modern Farsi dialects. Here's the thread where Tisia and I have listed the names of Farsi fruits and vegetables, with some of their names written in Farsi.

*Bien*


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## mansio

Naranj is a Sanskrit word from India that was borrowed by Persian.

Burtuqal seems to have a very complicated origin according to the Online Etymology Dictionary. The city of Porto in Northern Portugal was called Portus Cale by the Romans. From the name of that city derives the name of the country Portugal. During the Muslim occupation the citrus fruit that were grown there were named in Arabic burtuqal, from the name of the country.


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## cherine

Bienvenidos said:
			
		

> Surprisingly I don't recognize any of those words. Perhaps they are variants of Old/Middle Persian and have been swept out of Modern Farsi dialects. Here's the thread where Tisia and I have listed the names of Farsi fruits and vegetables, with some of their names written in Farsi.


Yes Bienvenidos, thanks for noting this, and for reminding me of that other interesting thread.
Allow me to profit from this post :


			
				from that post said:
			
		

> Spinach in Persian is *اسفناج* (esfanaj). This is the word used in Fus7a, in colloquial Egyptian we call it sabanekh سبانخ
> Banana - *موز (*Mouz) , *muz* same in Arabic


(what's in blue is my addition)
I think we can find more similarities. I'll keep you informed of anything new I can find or remember.


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## Bienvenidos

cherine said:
			
		

> I think we can find more similarities. I'll keep you informed of anything new I can find or remember.


 
Thanks Cherine 

*Bien*


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## la tierra

mansio said:
			
		

> Naranj is a Sanskrit word from India that was borrowed by Persian.
> 
> Burtuqal seems to have a very complicated origin according to the Online Etymology Dictionary. The city of Porto in Northern Portugal was called Portus Cale by the Romans. From the name of that city derives the name of the country Portugal. During the Muslim occupation the citrus _fruit that were grown there were named in Arabic burtuqal_, from the name of the country.


 
hey
burtuqal must mean "orange", am I wrong? because orange in turkish is "portakal". they have very similar pronounsations so probably "portakal" derive from "burtuqual".

also "muz" means banana in Turkish like Arabic, I haven't heard before, that "muz" were "muz" also in Arabic


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## Bienvenidos

I'd just like to point out that in Afghan Farsi, banana is not *muz*, but in the Iranian dialect, it is. So I guess the term, like many others, is the same in Iranian, Arabic, and Turkish! What an influence! 

*Bien*


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## cherine

This is true. There's a whole thread dedicated to the word burtuqal and it's origin. As for the word muz or mawz it's obvious that it's common betwee Arabic, Farsi (and now we learn that it's used in Turkish too) 
Cool.
What else guys ? I'm sure there are more common words between these three languages.

Yes, I remember now, the word neina, teita, teiza (three words that used to be used in Egypt for "mother" and/or "grand mother) these are borrowed from Turkish, right ?
I said used to be, because neina and teza are not so common anymore, but almost all Egyptian kids call their grandma "teta"


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## Bienvenidos

I love discussing things with you, Cherine! 

Well, let's see: what could influence the vocabulary in all three languages, making them similar/the same? I'm thinking of maybe trading (i.e. the name for cloth, other common trade items). We've covered fruits pretty well  

And we could always start new threads on individual language questions. It would be wonderful if we could merge a Farsi forum with/into the Arabic forum or something, maybe we'd get more traffic to our posts  And with traffic comes insights :-D :-D

Well here's the word for cloth: tikuh (tick - uh)

I saw in another thread HANDAZAH, which is Arabic for Geometry and Farsi for "measurement". 

I'll probably think of better terms once I've had some ice cream.  (Ice cream in Farsi is ice cream, such a borrowed term!) 

*Bien*


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## SofiaB

This is a site on Farsi used in Arabic http://www.mihanfoundation.org/liter...terature2.html Also I think Hindi-Urdu should be added to this list since Arabic and Farsi have contributed many words and also Turkish and other Turkic languages are in the language.


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## Bienvenidos

SofiaB said:
			
		

> This is a site on Farsi used in Arabic http://www.mihanfoundation.org/liter...terature2.html Also I think Hindi-Urdu should be added to this list since Arabic and Farsi have contributed many words and also Turkish and other Turkic languages are in the language.


 
Thanks for sharing the link. 

*Bien*


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## la tierra

cherine said:
			
		

> This is true. There's a whole thread dedicated to the word burtuqal and it's origin. As for the word muz or mawz it's obvious that it's common betwee Arabic, Farsi (and now we learn that it's used in Turkish too)
> Cool.
> What else guys ? I'm sure there are more common words between these three languages.
> 
> Yes, I remember now, the word neina, teita, teiza (three words that used to be used in Egypt for "mother" and/or "grand mother) these are borrowed from Turkish, right ?
> I said used to be, because neina and teza are not so common anymore, but almost all Egyptian kids call their grandma "teta"


 
you are right, there is a lot of smilar word in Farsi, Arabic and Turkish. However actually I don't have so knowledge about Farsi and Arabic languages, but I have infered from the example you gave that although they are influenced rather with each other, some of them has lost their meanings and earned another meaning. For example "teyze" means "aunt", whose pronounsation is similar to "teiza", and "nine" means "grandma" also whose pronounsation is similar to "neina".


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## mansio

In French teyze, aunt is tante and children say tata or tati for auntie.


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## Bienvenidos

mansio said:
			
		

> In French teyze, aunt is tante and children say tata or tati for auntie.


 
Actually, a lot of Farsi words come from French. I'm not sure which ones though. 

*Bien*


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## mansio

Many Farsi words are familiar to Europeans because they share the same Indo-European origin. 
I remember dokhtar which is similar to daughter or German Tochter, setare = star or French astre, mah = month or French mois, na = no, French non, do = two, French deux, panj = Greek pende (5), madar = mater in Latin, etc...


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## cherine

Bienvenidos said:
			
		

> I love discussing things with you, Cherine!
> 
> Well, let's see: what could influence the vocabulary in all three languages, making them similar/the same? I'm thinking of maybe trading (i.e. the name for cloth, other common trade items). We've covered fruits pretty well
> 
> And we could always start new threads on individual language questions. It would be wonderful if we could merge a Farsi forum with/into the Arabic forum or something, maybe we'd get more traffic to our posts  And with traffic comes insights :-D :-D
> 
> Well here's the word for cloth: tikuh (tick - uh)
> 
> I saw in another thread HANDAZAH, which is Arabic for Geometry and Farsi for "measurement".
> 
> I'll probably think of better terms once I've had some ice cream.  (Ice cream in Farsi is ice cream, such a borrowed term!)
> 
> *Bien*


 
Thank you Bien, pleasure is all mine 
Handasa is indeed the Arabic word for geometry.  You talked about ways/means of mutual linguistic influences and you mentioned trade. What about science ? daily life elements ?
I'll try my best to find more concrete examples.
The problems is that there are words mutually exchanged or used, so we can't really tell which language took from which. But this interesting thread is a good incitement for us to do some search


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## Bienvenidos

cherine said:
			
		

> Thank you Bien, pleasure is all mine
> Handasa is indeed the Arabic word for geometry. You talked about ways/means of mutual linguistic influences and you mentioned trade. What about science ? daily life elements ?
> I'll try my best to find more concrete examples.
> The problems is that there are words mutually exchanged or used, so we can't really tell which language took from which. But this interesting thread is a good incitement for us to do some search


 
I opened some new threads:

Farsi/Arabic/Turkish - Colors

Farsi/Arabic/Turkish - Daily Life Terms

Farsi/Arabic/Turkish - Professions



*Bien*


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## TommyilRomano

Bienvenidos said:
			
		

> Actually, a lot of Farsi words come from French. I'm not sure which ones though.
> 
> *Bien*



Isn't the Turkish word for Elevator (Ausonsir [Sp?]) borrowed from the French.


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## cherine

I think it is. In Egypt we say asanseir أسانسير (surely borrowed from French), while the FusHa word is mis3ad مصعد


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## Bienvenidos

In Farsi, elevator is a borrowed word from English (as the names for most modern devices are). The word is *ellavaytorr.*

*Bien*


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## Honour

TommyilRomano said:
			
		

> Isn't the Turkish word for Elevator (Ausonsir [Sp?]) borrowed from the French.


it certainly is. The word for lift in Turkish is the asansör (read as ascenseur)


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## Bienvenidos

I just want to note that, as we have mentioned before, the large majority of terms that will probably be the same are those of "traveling influence", meaning thousands of years ago, when Old Persian was around, these people traded, and moved, and explored, encountering different groups of people, and different languages. Eventually, they started to borrow words from each other, and we still have those words in our respective langauges today.

*Bien*


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## Tisia

Bienvenidos said:
			
		

> Actually, a lot of Farsi words come from French. I'm not sure which ones though.
> *Bien*



Here are few common words between Persian and French:
*Persian--->French--->English*
maghazeh->magasin->shop
asansur-->ascenseur->elevator
ki------->qui-------->who
urjans-->urgence---->emergency
pa----->pied-------->foot (Kurdish people in western Iran call it _pié_)
baad--->vent------->wind(Kurdish people in western Iran call it _va_)
shic---->chic------>classy, stylish
karde postal->carte postale->postal card
bulvar--->boulevard->boulevard

...and many other words i could name plus country names that are called in the French way like* Germany* is called *alman* becuse of its French equivalent *Allemagne*.

Tisia


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## mansio

Magasin is one of the many words that Arabic gave to French in the 14/15th century.


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## Outsider

Here's a previous thread where _burtuqal_ was mentioned.


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## Tisia

mansio said:
			
		

> Magasin is one of the many words that Arabic gave to French in the 14/15th century.


.....yes it comes from  the Arabic word _makhazin,_ pl. of _makhzan_ (storehouse).

Tisia


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## Bienvenidos

Tisia said:
			
		

> Here are few common words between Persian and French:
> *Persian--->French--->English*
> maghazeh->magasin->shop
> asansur-->ascenseur->elevator
> ki------->qui-------->who
> urjans-->urgence---->emergency
> pa----->pied-------->foot (Kurdish people in western Iran call it _pié_)
> baad--->vent------->wind(Kurdish people in western Iran call it _va_)
> shic---->chic------>classy, stylish
> karde postal->carte postale->postal card
> bulvar--->boulevard->boulevard
> 
> ...and many other words i could name plus country names that are called in the French way like* Germany* is called *alman* becuse of its French equivalent *Allemagne*.
> 
> Tisia


 
That's very interesting, Tisia  I had no idea how many French words were in Persian (Farsi), but now I realize how close they are. I've also had people ask me before if I speak French, because some Farsi words, as you've mentioned, sound like the French equivalents. If you can think of any more, please share 

*Bien*


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## mansio

Some Persian words look like French (or English, German, Greek) without being borrowings from French. As I said before it is because the two languages share a common Indo-European ancestry. It is the case for example of "pah" foot, pied.


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## panjabigator

cherine said:
			
		

> I think it is. In Egypt we say asanseir أسانسير (surely borrowed from French), while the FusHa word is mis3ad مصعد



what is FusHa?  I noticed in the spelling of the second word, the second letter is what we called in urdu "swaad" ص, so perhaps it's of Arabic origin only.


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## mansio

fuS.Haa (big letters are emphatic letters) comes from the phrase "al-3arabiyyatu l-fuS.Haa" "the eloquent Arabic language". It stands for "Classical Arabic" in the Arabic language.


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## darush

cherine said:


> There was also the Ottoma empire, which extended over very large boundaries, with a complete freedom of movement between the different countries -which were called "welayat" (=states?)- so a person born in Egypt could spend his last years in Turkey, Iran, Iraq....


Iran was not a part of Ottoman empire


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## colognial

mansio said:


> I would say that Turkish has been greatly influenced in its vocabulary by Arabic and Persian, and Persian by Arabic.
> 
> On the other hand I do not know the extent of the influence of Persian on Arabic. I believe it must be little.


 Hi, mansio. There has certainly been a bit of traffic going the opposite way, especially when you consider the influence that is bound to have existed just across the border among Arabic-speaking peoples such as those living along the Persian Gulf Coast or in Iraq. I am not at all Arabic literate, but I have occasionally bumped into Persian-origin words just looking over Arabic texts; the word 'mehrjaan' meaning 'festival' comes from 'mehrgaan', originally a harvest festival in Ancient Iran. I believe the word 'barnaamaj' (or maybe 'baramaj') meaning 'programme' is a version of 'barnaame', a Persian word, though I'm not quite certain about this.


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