As you may have guessed from my earlier post on the phrase “Hermetically sealed”, recently, I’ve been researching both Alchemy and Hermeticism. Although they’re very interesting subjects in-and-of themselves, one fascinating facet of their study is the relative abundance of words of Arabic origin.

That might be expected, given that alchemy itself is of Arabic origin, both the practice and the word itself (from al-kimiya), but there are a surprising number of Arabic words which have found their way into English. I’d like to share a few of the more interesting or unexpected ones. As a simple disclaimer, I’m not an Arabic speaker, so I’m relying on other sources for transliterations and word meanings. Corrections are always welcome. Unless otherwise noted, all etymologies are from the Oxford American Dictionary included in OS X.

All about al

Very frequently, Arabic loanwords into English will begin with the letters “al-”. This is because, in Arabic, al is the definite article marker, just like “the” in English. Thus, in Arabic, “the art of transmuting metals” would be al-kimiya, al ‘the’, and kimia ‘art of transmuting metals’. As is frequently the case with word borrowings, this definite al has been combined with the original word, giving us ‘alchemy’.l-ġawl

However, there are many other loan words in English that begin with the Arabic al:

Algebra - From Arabic al-jabr ‘the reunion of broken parts,’ ‘bone setting,’ from jabara ‘reunite, restore.’
Albatross - From late 17th cent.: alteration (influenced by Latin albus ‘white’ ) of 16th-cent. alcatras, applied to various seabirds including the frigate bird and pelican, from Spanish and Portuguese alcatraz, from Arabic al-ġaṭṭās ‘the diver.’
Alcohol - Either from Arabic al-kuḥl, a powder of Antimony Sulfide, or from al-ġawl, ’spirit’ or ‘ghost’ (which is apparently the same source from which we get the words “Spirits” (referring to alcohol) and “ghoul” for a ghost). See the Wikipedia article for the fascinating etymology.
Aldeberan - This star is named after the Arabic word al-dabaran, ‘the follower’

Unexpected Arabic

However, not all Arabic words have the telltale al-. There are a number of words that I found while researching for this article which I would never expect to have derived from Arabic. Here are a few of them:

Arsenal - from French, or from obsolete Italian arzanale, based on Arabic dār-aṣ-ṣinā’a, from dār ‘house’ + al- ‘(of) the’ + sinā’a ‘art, industry’ (from ṣana‛a ‘make, fabricate’ ).

Orange - Orange, as I’ve discussed before, is derived from the Arabic nāranj

Apricot - from Portuguese albricoque or Spanish albaricoque, from Spanish Arabic al ‘the’ + barḳūḳ ‘Apricot’

Assassin - from French, or from medieval Latin assassinus, from Arabic ḥašīšī ‘hashish eater.’

Magazine - from French magasin, from Italian magazzino, from Arabic makzin ‘storehouse,’ from kazana ‘store up.’ The term originally meant [store] and was often used from the mid 17th cent. in the title of books providing information useful to particular groups of people.

Sofa - from French, based on Arabic ṣuffah. A full explanation can be found here.

Sugar - from Old French sukere, from Italian zucchero, probably via medieval Latin from Arabic sukkar.

Zero - from French zéro or Italian zero, via Old Spanish from Arabic ṣifr ‘cipher.’

We’re all one big family

As corny as it sounds, this is proof that in this world, no one culture or language is an island. No matter how distant a culture or people may seem, there’s usually some small thread that ties us together.

Right now, tensions between Westernized countries and the Arab world are mounting and people are starting to question if these cultures have anything at all in common. That’s a silly sentiment, though. Next time you want to reassure yourself that we’re all cut from the same cloth, just grab yourself an Arabic speaker, hop on the sofa, and have yourself some oranges and sugar. You’ll find yourself communicating better than you could have ever imagined.

Update: A number of readers have commented and emailed to expand upon the etymologies here as well as to mention a few other Arabic derived words that I’ve missed. So, make sure to check out these wonderful comments, and feel free to add your own.

I do apologize for the lack of posting. Sadly, I’ve been rather afflicted with illness for the last week or so, and am only now feeling human enough to return to posting. However, once you’re truly obsessed with language, not even a bout of pneumonia can stop you from noticing interesting language use.

The difference between having an issue in your chest and having a chest full of issues

During the course of this bout of illness, I (unfortunately) developed a mild case of Costochondritis. Costochrondritis is a sharp pain in the chest that happens after trauma, strain, or sometimes for less-than-clear reasons. In my case, an unusually rough bout of coughing in a very strange position did the damage. However, this is a language blog, not a medical blog, so let’s take a look at the word “costochondritis”.

Medically, costochondritis is an inflammation of the Costal cartilages, and actually, that’s well reflected in the Etymology (origin) of the word. “Costo-” seems to pretty straightforwardly reference the Costal cartilages. “Khondros”, the Greek root for “Cartilage”, is the second element of the word. Finally, “-itis” indicates an inflammation. Thus, we end up with a word which, when you translate the roots, means, literally, “Costal Cartilage Inflammation”. Makes sense.

When I first heard the “-chondr-” root in the middle, my mind jumped to the only other word I knew with that root, hypochondria. Hypochondria is a condition where somebody constantly believes that they’re ill or is always preoccupied with their health. It’s a legitimate (and serious) psychological illness, but it’s a very, very different sort of problem than costochondritis (and has nothing to do with cartilage), so I was having trouble figuring out how they could be related linguistically.

Snapshots in time

The origins of words capture not just the history of a language, but the history of the people who speak it as well.

Sometimes, this is fairly obvious. Spanish has a very large number of words derived from Arabic, so one could pretty safely infer that Spanish-speakers have had a great deal of contact with Arabic speakers throughout time.

Sometimes, words can be relics of past cultural movements that have since been supplanted. The term “Yule” (which now refers to Christmas) is actually the old term for the Pagan winter solstice celebration which is the foundation for the modern Christmas holiday. In a widely accepted term for a Christian holy day, its Pagan origins are kept just a scratch beneath the surface, held forever by etymology.

Finally, sometimes, words reflect a past understanding of the world which we might not still have today. If a disaster area is described as being “pandemonium”, we understand it to mean “it was chaotic”. Literally, the world comes from the Greek roots “pan-” ‘all’ and “daimon” ‘demons’. Back in their day, such chaos might have been viewed in the metaphor of rampaging demons, whereas we might not see that.

A very humor-ous origin

So, what do Costochondritis and Hypochondria have in common?

Well, it turns out that hypochondria is, in fact, derived from the same root, and is a combination of “hupos” (’under’) and “khondros” (’cartilage’). It literally means “below the (chest) cartilage”.

It came to mean what it did because back when the word was formed, the predominant medical theory was Humorism. They believed that there were four bodily fluids (’humours’), Blood, Yellow Bile, Black Bile, and Phlegm. Because hypochondria was considered to be a sort of melancholy, it was associated with an imbalance of black bile, produced at the spleen, which, tying everything back together, is located right below the chest cartilage.

So, even in a modern medical term, vestiges of this ancient Greek theory of medicine still show up. Similar sorts of effects from this theory have persisted in the older psychological terms referring to somebody as sanguine (’full of blood’), bilious (’full of bile’), or phlegmatic (’phlegm-ful’).

Embedded history

Languages are always changing, as are the cultures that use them. However, when new words are created, they often provide a snapshot of the culture at that time. With time, people start to forget how exactly these words arose, but a little bit of digging for these origins can help you see not just the past of the word, but the past of the people who created it.