ARABIC Influence on Spanish & Portuguese!

[Music] 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 [Music]

Channel: Langfocus

Views: 896,683

Rating: 4.9305954 out of 5

Keywords: polyglot, linguist, linguistics, Spanish language, Portuguese language, Castilian language, Arabic language, Arabic words in Spanish, Arabic words in Portuguese, Arabic vocabulary in Spanish, Arabic vocabulary in Portuguese, How similar are Arabic and Spanish?, How similar are Arabic and Portuguese?, Are Spanish and Arabic similar?, Al-Andalus, Granada, Emirate of Granada, Alhambra, Umayyad Conquest, Islamic Conquest, Muslim Spain, Moors, Moorish Spain, Arabic in Spain, Reconquista

Id: -3QML3tfBNQ

Length: 14min 14sec (854 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 04 2019