# Arabic loan words



## Qcumber

Barring Arabic terms recently borrowed through English, like "Ayatollah", what Arabic loan words are there in Tagalog?


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## Chriszinho85

Hello Qcumber.  I actually remember reading an article that mentioned a couple of Arabic borrowings into Tagalog.  Okay...I found it.  You can read it here.  It says that the Arabic word _aqala_ (_akala_ in Tagalog) meaning _intelligence_ was borrowed into Tagalog changing its meaning into _a concept, notion, hunch_.  It also mentions how many other loan words were borrowed via Spanish.  One of these is Arabic _kafir_ which became _cafre_ in Spanish then to _kapre_ in Tagalog, the name of a mythical giant.  The article is very interesting and talks about other loan words from different languages into Tagalog.


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## Qcumber

Chriszinho85 said:


> Hello Qcumber. I actually remember reading an article that mentioned a couple of Arabic borrowings into Tagalog. Okay...I found it. You can read it here. It says that the Arabic word _aqala_ (_akala_ in Tagalog) meaning _intelligence_ was borrowed into Tagalog changing its meaning into _a concept, notion, hunch_. It also mentions how many other loan words were borrowed via Spanish. One of these is Arabic _kafir_ which became _cafre_ in Spanish then to _kapre_ in Tagalog, the name of a mythical giant. The article is very interesting and talks about other loan words from different languages into Tagalog.


Thanks a lot Chriszinho85 for this article. It is not a scholarly one, but all the same an interesting one written for the English-speaking general public.

The only silly part is when the author asked readers to imagine how Tagalogs would say "722 million dollars" in the 17th century while everybody knows the only currency then was the Mexican Peso. This is all the more surprising as even today the Philippine currency is called "Peso".

Another passage that shows Mr. Michael TAN is definitely not a linguist is _kay lungkot_ (*káy lungkót* "how sad!"). This is not 17th-century Tagalog, is it? Doesn't he know the genuine Tagalog version is *áng lungkót!*? Later, probably in the 19th century, exclamative *áng* was replaced by exclamative Spanish *qué* spelt _kay_ (*káy* [kei]) in Tagalog.


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## Chriszinho85

Qcumber said:


> Another passage that shows Mr. Michael TAN is definitely not a linguist is _kay lungkot_ (*káy lungkót* "how sad!"). This is not 17th-century Tagalog, is it? Doesn't he know the genuine Tagalog version is *áng lungkót!*? Later, probably in the 19th century, exclamative *áng* was replaced by exclamative Spanish *qué* spelt _kay_ (*káy* [kei]) in Tagalog.


Haha...you're right.  I didn't even notice that!  In case you want to read Part I of the article, you can read it here.  Just scroll down to the bottom of the page.


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## Qcumber

Chriszinho85 said:


> Haha...you're right. I didn't even notice that! In case you want to read Part I of the article, you can read it here. Just scroll down to the bottom of the page.


Yes, the first part and the other article are interesting. 
One can see Dr. RUBRICO is a scholar because she supplies a bibliography while Mr. TAN doesn't.

P.S. M. Tan didn't say how he translated "722 million".
A decade ago, I found an article on how numbers were expressed in Old Tagalog.

POTET, Jean-Paul (1992)
"Numeral expressions in Tagalog"
pp. 167-182 in _Archipel_ # 44, Paris

I have just read it again, and if I apply the rules given by the author, "722 million" would have been expressed as:

*maika-walóng bahálà't maika-tatló káti't maika-tatlóng ángaw-ángaw*
(8 - 1) x 10 power 8 "and" + (3 - 1) x 10 power 7 "and" + (3 - 1) X 10 power 6  

In other words, in this old system, you wrote 8 to express 7, 7 to express 6 etc. Weird!


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## Chriszinho85

I was reading the Wikipedia article about Tagalog, and it listed some borrowings from other languages.  It says that the words _hukom _and _salamat_ were borrowed from Arabic.   After I saw _salamat _listed there, I finally made the connection!   I don't think it was a direct borrowing because I had read that the word was borrowed from Malay.


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## Qcumber

Chriszinho85 said:


> It says that the words _hukom _and _salamat_ were borrowed from Arabic. After I saw _salamat _listed there, I finally made the connection!  I don't think it was a direct borrowing because I had read that the word was borrowed from Malay.


It's pretty obvious most if not all Tagalog borrowings from Arabic came though Malay.
By the way, how could you prove that Tagalog _salámat_ "thank you" is borrowed from Arabic?


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## ajaxs21

will there is another word which my girl friend said to me once it was "Hiya" which mean something like shame and its means no doing things that will make u or your feel shame"


*Click ----> *Please apply standard language forms! *  <---- Click*


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## Chriszinho85

Qcumber said:


> It's pretty obvious most if not all Tagalog borrowings from Arabic came though Malay.


I don't know too much about Malay nor Arabic, so it isn't that obvious to me.  But didn't the Tagalogs have relations with Arabic traders? So there could be direct borrowings from Arabic, right?


Qcumber said:


> By the way, how could you prove that Tagalog _salámat_ "thank you" is borrowed from Arabic?


I don't know how you could prove that _salamat_ is borrowed from Arabic, but I was just surprised that I never noticed the similarity between Arabic _salaam_(not sure about spelling) and _salamat _before.


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## Qcumber

Chriszinho85 said:


> I don't know how you could prove that _salamat_ is borrowed from Arabic, but I was just surprised that I never noticed the similarity between Arabic _salaam_(not sure about spelling) and _salamat _before.


I discussed this problem in the Arabic forum, and, as I suspected, it's almost impossible to relate Tagalog *salámat *"thank you" with Arabic *šukran* شكرا  "thank you". As regards Arabic *salaam* سلام   "hello", I fail to see how it could be interpreted as "thank you".


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## Chriszinho85

Qcumber said:


> I discussed this problem in the Arabic forum, and, as I suspected, it's almost impossible to relate Tagalog *salámat *"thank you" with Arabic *šukran* شكرا  "thank you". As regards Arabic *salaam* سلام   "hello", I fail to see how it could be interpreted as "thank you".


Interesting…but _salamat_ doesn’t necessarily have to be related to Arabic’s word for _thank you_.  There’s a similarity between Malay _selamat_ and Tagalog _salamat_, and the meaning could have changed when it was incorporated into Tagalog.  Don’t you think?


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## Qcumber

My opinion: Malay selamat [sә’lamat] "safety, hello", derived from Arabic salaam [sa'la:m], is not related to Tagalog salámat [sa’la:mat] "thank you".


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## pareanom

It makes sense to me that _salamat_ ("thanks") in Tagalog and other Philippine languages derives from the Malay _selamat _("safe" and found in various expressions of well-wishing).  In traditional Javanese culture, a ritual meal is called a _slametan_ (from the same root); giving thanks to the spirits is one of the purposes of such a meal.  Wishing that one's benefactor enjoy safety or peace seems an appropriate way to express gratitude.

BTW, it is not necessary to posit direct contacts between Arab traders and early Tagalogs to account for Arabic loanwords. All such loanwords can be more convincingly argued to come via Malay, which was not only the trade lingua franca of Southeast Asia but also the language of the Tagalog aristocracy (of Brunei lineage) before the Spanish conquest.


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