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hello everyone welcome to the Laing
focused channel and my name is Paul
today we're going to talk about the
influence of Arabic on Spanish and
Portuguese you know one of the
fascinating things about languages is
that they don't exist inside a vacuum
they grow and develop and they're shaped
by the events that affect their speakers
as different communities of people come
into contact with each other their
languages influence each other one such
case is the effect or the influence of
Arabic on Spanish and Portuguese Spanish
and Portuguese both developed on the
Iberian Peninsula and began as romance
dialects that developed from vulgar
latin in other words regional spoken
dialects of Latin distinct Romance
languages had begun to arise by
approximately the 10th century by which
point an early form of Castilian today
often referred to as just Spanish was
being used as well as old Portuguese
also known as galician-portuguese but
during that time period when these
dialects were developing into distinct
languages much of the Iberian Peninsula
was under Muslim control which began
with the Umayyad conquest in the year
711 a series of Muslim kingdoms ruled
within changin borders until the Year
1492 these Muslims of Berber and Arab
ancestry who ruled and settled on the
peninsula were referred to collectively
as Moors the southern part of what is
now Portugal was under Muslim rule for
around 500 years while the northern part
returned to Christian rule much sooner
Portugal was fully recovered from the
Moors by the Year 1249 in Spain as well
the South remained under Muslim rule for
much longer than the north Spain was
fully recovered from the Moors in 1492
with the reconquest of Granada the last
remnant of Muslim rule during the dead
conquista or reconquest the Castilian
language spread towards the south
and came into contact with southern
Romance dialects that had been more
influenced by the Arabic language of the
Muslim rulers these dialects are
collectively referred to as mozarabic
dialects some of this influence was
absorbed into Castilian after hundreds
of years under Arabic
speaking Muslim rulers why aren't Spain
and Portugal Arabic speaking countries
today it's largely because they didn't
stay conquered they kept pushing back
against the Muslim armies and taking
back areas that had been conquered and
in the end the whole Peninsula came back
under Christian rule the only area where
Arabic became the main language of all
social classes was in the small kingdom
of Granada but they're like everywhere
else on the peninsula Muslims were
violently forced to convert and
assimilate and eventually all former
Muslims or people who practiced Islam
and secret were expelled so Arabic
didn't have that much of a chance to
gain a permanent foothold but it did
have a significant impact on Spanish and
Portuguese in particular and vocabulary
especially nouns Spanish and Portuguese
were both influenced in similar ways and
in many cases they borrowed the same
vocabulary from Arabic but because parts
of Spain were under Muslim control much
longer than Portugal there is more
Arabic influence on Spanish most sources
say there are around 4,000 Spanish words
of Arabic origin and around a thousand
Portuguese words of Arabic origin though
a lot of these have fallen out of use
it's also important to note that many of
the Arabic based words also have native
Spanish and Portuguese equivalents which
might be used in different contexts or
with different shades of meaning Arabic
influenced the vocabulary of various
facets of life words related to
residence and architecture in Spanish
battle meaning neighborhood in
Portuguese by from the Arabic word badly
in the Andalucian dialect of Arabic this
word meant the outskirts of the city or
the less civilized parts of the city
the original classical Arabic word means
wild or savage in Spanish fonda in as in
hotel there is no equivalent word that's
used in Portuguese this comes from the
Arabic word fundal meaning in or hotel
and there are parts of a building or
home in Spanish sat.1 meaning hallway
this word has fallen out of use or is
considered old-fashioned in many
spanish-speaking countries but it's
still used in some countries and
sometimes by older people or in rural
areas there's a cognate word in
Portuguese Sagwa
my understanding is that this word is
not
really used in Portugal anymore but is
still used in Brazil though that seems
to depend on the age and region of the
speaker these words come from the Arabic
word Astana meaning pillar and this
influence continues onto objects within
the home dasu meaning cup in portuguese
dasa from the Arabic word Gaza many
Spanish and Portuguese words of Arabic
origin begin with Allah or ah
this usually derives from the Arabic
definite article al al alone meaning
cotton and in Portuguese al GU don't
this comes from the Arabic word al-kitab
note that the definite article can be
used to make a now definite or to refer
to a noun in a general sense this is
probably why the definite article
sometimes became an inseparable part of
the Spanish or Portuguese word like in
these two words here this word is of
course related to agriculture the Moors
had a significant impact on agriculture
and cuisine on the Iberian Peninsula
this influence is reflected in
vocabulary related to food safety
meaning oil there's also a Portuguese
equivalent as eight which means olive
oil specifically from the Arabic word as
eight meaning oil this Arabic word comes
from the same root as the word for olive
the obvious connection here being olive
oil as a tuner as a tuner from as they
Doudna a saffron meaning saffron a kind
of spice and in portuguese mr. frohm
this comes from arabic quran which means
saffron works like these that begin with
ah but not with Allah are often a result
of assimilation of the L sound the love
sound or lamb in Arabic Arabic has two
categories of consonants son letters and
moon letters when the son letters are at
the beginning of a word they cause the
look sound to assimilate one of the son
letters is Zion the first consonant in
the Arabic root word of the past three
examples another food word al-abadi
cookie meaning apricot this word does
have an old Portuguese equivalent but it
seems that it's entirely out of use now
this comes from the Arabic word alibi
oak meaning plum
and a Portuguese word Alf us meaning
lettuce this comes from the Arabic word
and less meaning lettuce and there's no
Spanish equivalent for this Portuguese
word Sanna Audia slaughter meaning
carrot these words come from the Arabic
word is fun Arya this isn't a very
common word for carrot anymore but it is
still used in some regional dialects
Albin Nia Oh Monica meatball these words
come from the Arabic word Ali wound oka
which means hazelnut a word which
actually entered Arabic from ancient
Greek Ponty can carry on a rose bush
meaning rice this word came from the
Arabic word arrows which ultimately
entered Arabic from ancient Greek Alisa
just as some of these Arabic words
ultimately came from ancient Greek some
of them ultimately came from Persian or
Sanskrit Asuka Asuka meaning sugar from
the Arabic word Asuka
the Arabic word came from the Persian
word Shekhar and the Persian word came
from the Sanskrit word chakra
meaning ground or candied sugar
originally grit or gravel nangka l'tesia
orange these come from the Arabic word
nod and which came from the Persian word
Narang which came from the Sanskrit word
Naga meaning orange tree this is not the
usual modern word for sweet oranges but
an old word that referred to bitter
oranges before sweet oranges existed in
the Mediterranean region the modern word
for sweet oranges is Budokan
which actually comes from the name of
the country Portugal by the way there
are also words that are a full Arabic
origin but that entered Spanish and
Portuguese indirectly and not as a
result of Muslim control on the Iberian
Peninsula
for example toss a good fit meaning
coffee in Arabic aha this word was
actually borrowed from the Italian word
Cafe which came from Ottoman Turkish
cafe which came from Arabic another area
in which Arabic influenced the
vocabulary of Spanish and Portuguese is
mathematics since Islamic civilization
contributed much to the advancement of
mathematics during the Middle Ages
perhaps the most famous example is
algebra algebra these come from the
Arabic word algebra meaning reunion or
resettling of broken parts a word used
in the title of the scholar al-khwarizmi
is influential work I'm algebra 1 mu
Karbala which translates as the science
of restoration and equating like with
like the name of that scholar Awad is me
also gave rise to the word a little
algorithm or algorithm in English cifra
digit or numeral and there's also a
cognate word in Portuguese these come
from the Arabic word Siffin meaning
empty or zero this influence extends
into astronomy and the sciences so they
meaning mercury but this is an older
word for mercury and it seems a lot of
people these days have never heard it
this comes from the Arabic word as
though this Arabic word too is an older
word for mercury and not the common one
that's used today Kimia alchimia alchemy
the pursuit of trying to transform base
metals into gold these come from the
Arabic word alchimia ultimately from
ancient Greek Kamiya Ellickson illa
shoot elixir a liquid medicine this
comes from the Arabic word a league
field which Arabic actually got from
ancient Greek say on most of these words
relating to mathematics and science
actually entered spanish and portuguese
through medieval latin rather than
directly from andalucian arabic since
their academic words they entered the
academic language first rather than the
everyday spoken language
another element of Arabic that
influenced Spanish but not so much
Portuguese is demonym x' the words used
to refer to someone's nationality or
place of origin demonym x' in spanish
typically end in an o' like italiano or
s ha bonus but for demonym relating to
the Arab world the Arabic demonym suffix
E is often retained for example Meraki
Iraqi Omani Bahraini coup by D but
that's not the case for all of them
Palestine o Syria Lebanese in Portuguese
they generally use the tip
portuguese suffix moluccan Eirik in
toponyms place names these are arguably
not really part of the Spanish or
Portuguese languages they're just place
names but they show us just how much of
a linguistic footprint was left by the
Moors perhaps the most famous is alum
mana the fortress in Granada Spain which
was built by the Moors it's name comes
from the Arabic word Alhambra meaning
the red one referring to the color of
the stone structure another place you've
probably heard of he would have battle
Gibraltar this name comes from Arabic
double dark meaning mountain of Tariq
Tariq refers to Tariq I bin zayed the
commander who led the initial invasion
of the peninsula in the year 711 algarve
a region in southern Portugal this comes
from Arabic al haram meaning the west
why is it named after the word for West
and not south well I guess the Moors
named it when they controlled a larger
area and this region was located in the
western part of the area they controlled
these place names of Arabic origin are
not limited to the Iberian Peninsula
maybe you've heard of Guadalajara in
Mexico its name comes from the Arabic
term well hi Jarrah
which means valley of stones in terms of
syntax there seems to be little or no
influence of Arabic at least none that's
provable there are some hunches for
example in Spanish VSO word order is
used more often than it is in other
Romance languages and Arabic happens to
be VSO but there's no proof that this is
due to Arabic influence it's clear that
virtually all of Arabic influence lies
in the area of vocabulary and over the
centuries a lot of that vocabulary has
become obsolete and as different
languages like French and English have
come into vogue different types of
loanwords have come to influence both
languages more but still words of Arabic
origin are an important part of both
Spanish and Portuguese and are used on a
daily basis the question of the day for
native speakers of Spanish and
Portuguese what words of Arabic origin
do you most commonly use or hear and for
speakers of Arabic if you're familiar
with Spanish and Portuguese do you
notice a lot of Arabic words in them how
about in English or other Western
languages if you
recognized the arabic voice in this
video that's because it was maja from
the channel learn Arabic with maja she
has a great channel full of useful
Arabic lessons and actually her channel
was one of my main inspirations for
starting Lang focus a few years ago so
she is my senpai so if you're learning
Arabic or if you'd like to learn Arabic
be sure to check out her channel and
also be sure to check out the various
languages social media accounts and once
again thank you to all of my wonderful
patreon supporters especially my top
tier patreon supporters right here on
the screen
many many special thanks to them and to
everyone thank you for watching and have
a nice day
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