Talk:Influence of Arabic on other languages

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An Arab told me that the word chemise (shirt) came from Arabic. Another one told me that soap and table came from Arabic. I thought these words came from Latin. So I did some research.

Chemise comes from the Latin camis which comes from Celtic camis (hem) and from the semitic root QMS (sewing) which give the Arab word qamis (shirt).

Genius comes from the Latin genius (hidden spirit) which contains the Semitic root JNN (hidden) which also give janin (hidden child = fetus) or junun (hidden mind = madness).

Table comes from the Latin tabula (board). The Latin word for table being mensa. The Arabic word for table is tawila which comes tawil = length.

The Arabic word for Soap is Saboun. Soap, Seife, Savon... are supposed to come from an Indo-European root. But it seems that the Phoenicians brought it to us about 5000 years ago. The Phoenician language is certainly the ancestor of Arabic.

Alps come from the Latin albus (white) which contains the Semitic root lb or lbn (linked to white) which also gives the words halib (milk) and laban (yogurt). Laban gave Lubnan (Lebanon).

Altitude and altar contain the Semitic root 3alia (high)

I could go on for hours. Here is a good site with where the author shows the Semitic roots in more than 10 languages from Dutch to Japanese. http://www.alislam.org/topics/arabic/

We totally under estimate the influence of Arabic. The author of these books is a Muslim scholar. There is certainly a religious bias. Arabic like we know it today has existed since the 2nd century. But it seems that an older Semitic language (which might also have been called Arabic) is in deed the base of all other languages.

I have a book with all French words coming from Arabic. I'll try to compile a list. 78.29.225.78 (talk) 04:03, 2 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

..E.g. *Alface, alquimia, safari, azimute, álcool and much more.

• View the portuguese article in Wikipedia: http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lista_de_palavras_portuguesas_de_origem_árabe
• and englsch article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Portuguese_words_of_Arabic_origin
• Portuguese is very influencied by arabic language.

--201.19.130.32 00:34, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Why is there no sub section for spanish? I think that arabic has had alot more influence on spanish then it has on english. —The preceding

The article is very small. --201.19.130.32 00:28, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't this page a little Eurocentric? Why are a great many Romance languages (as well as English and Turkish) given their own sections while other languages are merely mentioned? Arabic's had a HUGE influence on spoken Persian. Shouldn't that be worthy of a section, hell, and ARTICLE in its own right? I'd do it, myself, but I'm afraid I might mess things up. Any takers? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.62.186.233 (talk) 17:31, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is run by a pack of fascists who fear what they don't understand. There used to be an article on Muslim languages, but it has been deleted and replaced with this eurocentric nonsense. It was deleted because people felt there was no such thing as a "Muslim language" a sort of logic that if applied to the article on Jewish languages, would lead to an equally speedy deletion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.136.231.156 (talk) 10:02, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

thats because their is no such thing as a muslim language the only Holy language in Islam is Arabic, while in Judaism their is the Yiddish, Hebrew, etc...

i DO Agree that their MUST be an Article About Arabic's Influence over not only Persian But, Hindi, Urdu, Swahili, Ethiopic, Russian, Greek, Central Asian Lanuages, Armenian, Cyriotic, Maltese, Hebrew... etc...

See: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Sugar GSMR (talk) 15:28, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Languages evolve slowly and continuously over long periods of time, they don't suddenly spring into existance. It is therefore wrong to talk about the "inception" of a language, unless one is speaking about an invented language like Esperanto. The evolution of a language into another language is a long and continuous process that happens over many, many generations; the users of a language don't notice the change happening and it is only scholars who have a perspective over many centuries that can point out the change. The names scholars use to identify these changes can make it look as if languages changed or appeared suddenly, but these names are merely to highlight the changes that have happened over a very long period of time.