Word etymologies
I’ve always found word etymologies really interesting, and I’ve often noticed a similarity between some words in English and Arabic but I always thought that the words were adopted by the Arabs from English colonization and the like. Little did I know that far before colonization took place, many Arabic words had been introduced to the Western world back from the 11th to 13th century during the Islamic Golden Age. This really isn’t surprising what with all the translations that took place but it’s sad that I automatically assumed that we adopted the words that are present in both languages from the West and not the other way around. There are numerous examples but I selected a few that struck me:
– Sugar comes from the Arabic word “sukkar”
– Coffee comes from the Arabic word “qahwa”
– Zero comes from the Arabic word “sifr”
– Cotton comes from the Arabic word “qutn”
– Admiral comes from the Arabic word “ameer el bihar” (Prince of the Sea)
Cool, huh?