English words with Arabic roots
The influence of Arabic on European languages is mainly focused on Spain, Turkey and France, but there are also some common English words with Arabic roots.
Al is an Arabic definite article, of course. So we have Al Jazeera, the Arabic news channel, so-called after the peninsular of Qatar where it is based. Jazeera means peninsular.
Al-Qaeda means the base.
Alcohol derives from the Arabic kohl which is a substance used as a dark face powder. The connection is tantalisingly elusive.
Amiir al-bahr is Arabic for chief of the ocean. From this the English word admiral emerges. It seems odd that we abandoned the part of the phrase which was the most relevant! Bahr means sea or ocean. Where would an admiral be without that?
The Birdman of Alcatraz
The 1962 film starred Burt Lancaster. It told the very fictionalised story of Robert Stroud, a murderer, who was imprisoned in Alcatraz, the former island jail in San Francisco Bay. Stroud became an expert in canaries and kept 300 in his first penitentiary, Leavensworth. Stroud was also fond of sparrows.
He became an ornithologist and wrote a famous book about diseases in canaries. He killed a few humans, but saved many birds. Oddly, he had no birds at Alcatraz, but it’s a great title for a film! The Birdman of Leavensworth? Don’t call us…
The Arabic word al-qadus means a mill wheel with big buckets attached. The Spanish thought it a useful word to describe pelicans! Those huge bucket-like bills. Their word is alcatraces. When Spaniards came across the small island in the Bay they found it inhabited by pelicans. Stroud would have been in heaven. Alcatraz was born. The prison came in the mid-nineteenth century, and was abandoned in the 1960s.
English al over the place
Though English words with Arabic roots do appear, the principal roots of English are Anglo Saxon, Greek, Latin, French and Scandinavian. English is the richest and most promiscuous language in the world. Words have been borrowed, assimilated and adapted from maybe a hundred countries. And English has been exported to many more.
Invasion, colonisation and war are responsible. The English language is not of itself special. It is simply the result of happenstance and avaricious accretion.
Some closing thoughts
Book people, publishers, editors, proofreaders, authors, librarians and booksellers are often fascinated by the roots of language. Etymology is engrossing because it weaves the science of language development with the art of social history.
Today I learned, or perhaps relearned, that the word penguin is Welsh and means white head. But penguins have black heads, don’t they?
A joke? A mistake? Alas, we shall probably never know.