Did you know that lots of English words are originally Arabic?
Dozens and dozens of words used daily in the English language are originated from the Arabic language, or might even come from other languages and pass through Arabic into English. We will give you some words and if you ask for more we will make it a series, giving you a few words everyday for your general information.
Arabic Speakers Worldwide If Arabic is considered a single language, it counts more than 300 million first language speakers (according to some estimates, as high as 340 million)
Don’t we all love reading a MAGAZINE?
مخازن makhāzin (from khazan, to store), storehouses. Used in Latin in 1228 in Marseille. It is still used in that meaning in French, Italian and Russia. In English a magazine was an armory, a gun power store, and later a vessel to store bullets. A magazine in the publishing sense of the word started out in English in the 17th century meaning a store of information about military or navigation subjects.
A GIRAFFE; what a lovely creature!!
زرافة zarāfa, giraffe. The Arabic dictionary of Al-Jawhari said al-zarāfa is "a type of creature". Two Arabic dictionaries of the 13th century speak about the neck of the creature.
HUMMUS, I am sure we all know it!
حمّص himmas, chickpea(s). Chickpeas were called himmas in medieval Arabic. Himmas was later borrowed into Turkish as humus and entered English from Turkish in mid 20th century. Hummus means mashed chickpeas mixed with tahini and certain spices.
ADOBE???
الطوبة al-ṭūba | at-tūba, "the brick". This Arabic word came from the Coptic language, according to Al-Jawhri dictionary. The first record of the word in a Western language is in 12th century Spanish. The word entered English from Mexico in the 18th and 19th centuries.
COFFEE; can’t live with it can’t live without it!
قهوة qahwa, coffee. The early 17th century West also has numerous records in which the word-form was directly from the Arabic, e.g. Cahoa in 1610, Cahue in 1615, Cowha in 1619. The change from 'W' to 'V' in going from Arabic qahwa to Turkish kahveh can be seen in many other loanwords going from Arabic into Turkish such as Arabic fatwa became fetva in Turkish.
*Source is Wikipedia
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