Speaking of Words
By Michael Ferber
All languages borrow words from neighboring languages, and if a language has great geographical spread, as English has, it will absorb countless numbers of them. On top of the West Germanic vocabulary of Old English (or Anglo-Saxon), English has borrowed words from Old Norse, two kinds of French (Norman and Parisian), Latin, Greek (mainly passing through Latin), and, especially in America, Native American languages and Spanish. But we have borrowed words from many other languages, some of which we may not suspect. Arabic is one of them.
We usually say we “borrow” foreign words, or that certain words are “loan-words,” but these terms seem silly when you think about them. We don’t really borrow words, we take them and keep them; we don’t give them back, whatever that might mean. But those are the standard terms, and I will use them here. I should add that I know only a smattering of Arabic, so if an Arabic-speaking reader finds mistakes here, please let me know.
Some Arabic words in English are still visibly Arabic, such as several words beginning with mu-, which is a prefix meaning “person.” So a Muslim, which is still sometimes spelled “Moslem,” is “one who submits.” Nearly all Arabic words are built on a three-consonant root, where the variables are vowels that can be interspersed among the fixed consonants, plus prefixes. The S-L-M root means “submit,” though it may have other connotations such as “peace”: salaam means “peace,” as does the closely related Hebrew shalom. Abraham, the Qur’an tells us, was the first muslim, because he submitted to God’s command to sacrifice his son. Islam is built on the same root.
A muezzin (there are variant spellings of many of these words) is the crier who summons the faithful to prayer, while a mujaheddin is one who engages in jihad. Muhammad, the name of the Prophet, is built on the H-M-D root, meaning “praise,” so the name means “the praiseworthy one” or something similar.
We have also borrowed a few ma-words. Ma– means “place,” so a madrasa, a school, is a place to study, built on the same root as darasa, “to study.” Mosque comes to English, somewhat garbled through French and Italian, from masjid, “place of worship,” from the same root as sajada “to bow down, prostrate oneself.” Less obviously Arabic is magazine, which comes via French and Italian from makhzan “storehouse,” akin to khazana “to store up.”
Several loan-words begin with al-, which means “the”: alchemy, alcohol, alcove, alfalfa, algebra, algorithm, and alkali. It is a little surprising that alcohol is Arabic, since Muslims are not supposed to drink it, but the Arabic source al-kuhl meant “the kohl,” an eye-cosmetic, made of a substance that could be turned into alcohol. Algebra comes from Arabic al-jebr “the uniting” (referring to one of the methods of algebra), while alcove comes via Spanish alcoba, from Arabic al-qubbah “the vault.” Algebra and algorithm should remind us that we owe a lot of our mathematics to Arab scholars; after all, we use Arabic numerals for all our calculations, though the Arabs got them from India.
Some al-words are not transparent in English. Arsenal, for instance, we get from Italian arsenale “naval dockyard” (especially the one in Venice), which comes from Arabic [dar] al-sina’ah “[house] of manufacture.” Artichoke, from Italian articiocco or arciciocco, in turn from Spanish alcarchofa, is ultimately Arabic al-kharshuf, meaning “the artichoke”! Adobeis Spanish, but the Spaniards took it from Arabic al-toba “the brick.” In at least one case the initial a– vanished completely: the musical instrument lute comes via French from Arabic al-‘ud “the wood.”
There are many more loan-words that do not belong to these categories, such as cotton and giraffe, admiral and gazelle, elixir and ghoul. A particularly interesting one is assassin, which is ultimately from hashshashin, plural of hashshash, which means “hashish addict.” A sobering thought.
Certain words in economics or commerce are Arabic in origin, such as tariff and hazard. Possibly also risk. The historical linguist Calvert Watkins has argued that risk comes to us from Arabic (through French and Italian), but it can be traced farther back.
He cites Arabic rizq and/or rezq “fortune, luck, lot, portion,” which derives from Syriac ruziqa “daily bread or allotment,” which comes from Middle Persian rozik “daily provision, daily sustenance,” from roz “day,” from Old Persian raocah– “light,” from Proto-Indo-European leuk-os “light,” whence come lucid, illustrate, and even light. Who’d a thunk it? I’m not sure I do think it, but it’s an ingenious etymology.
There is one etymology we can certainly dismiss, though I have seen it confidently asserted on some websites. Sheriff does not come from sharif, which means “noble” in Arabic, and sometimes applies to descendants of Muhammad. It would be very odd if it did, as sheriff is found in Old English and there were no Muslims in England in those days. It derives from scirgerefa, which is a compound of the old forms of shire and reeve, a reeve being the chief royal representative in a county or shire.
We should also mention chess.
It is from Old French esches, plural of eschec “check” (the move in chess); its older form eschac comes from Arabic shah, from Persian shah “king.” Chess is really “checks,” that is, “kings,” a Persian invention, though probably based on an Indian game. (The last Shah of Iran, by the way, was checkmated in 1979.)
Checkmate comes from Arabic shah mat “king is dead” (mat seems originally Arabic, not Persian). And the chess piece rook also passed through Arabic from Persian, though we are not sure what it meant; it may derive from Sanskrit ratha, meaning “chariot.”
If you want more Arabic words, there are almost as many as there are stars in the sky, or at least prominent stars, for nearly all of them have Arabic names. Aldebaran, for instance, the brightest star in the constellation Taurus, means “the follower,” because it follows, or rises shortly after, the Pleiades; while Altair, the brightest star in Aquila, means “the flying [eagle].”
The two brightest stars in Orion are Betelgeuse and Rigel. The Arabs called Orion “the central one,” or “the giant,” as it very large and lies right on the celestial equator. Betelgeuse is his “hand” and Rigel is his “foot.” The striking row of three stars that make up Orion’s belt are Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka. Alnitak means “the girdle,” Alnilam means “the string of pearls,” and Mintaka means “belt,” as if each of the three means what it takes all three to represent.
If learning Arabic and learning astronomy are both on your to-do list, here is an efficient way to learn both at once. Classes meet shortly after sunset on cloudless nights all year round.
I am happy to hear from readers with questions or comments: mferber@unh.edu
Michael Ferber moved to New Hampshire in 1987 to join the English Department at UNH, from which he is now retired. Before that he earned his BA in Ancient Greek at Swarthmore College and his doctorate in English at Harvard, taught at Yale, and served on the staff of the Coalition for a New Foreign Policy in Washington, DC. In 1968 he stood trial in Federal Court in Boston for conspiracy to violate the draft law, with the pediatrician Benjamin Spock and three other men. He has published many books and articles on literature, and has a deep interest in linguistics. He is married to Susan Arnold; they have a daughter in San Francisco.
