Arabic definite article
The English word "artichoke" was borrowed in the sixteenth century from the northern Italian word (the standard modern Italian being ). The Italian term was itself borrowed either from Spanish (today usually ) or directly from the source of the Spanish word—medieval Andalusi Arabic (, including the Arabic definite article ). The Arabic form is still used in Maghrebi Arabic today, while other variants in Arabic include , and Modern Standard Arabic . These Arabic forms themselves derive from classical Arabic (), but the origins of that word are not clear. Other languages which derive their word for the artichoke from Arabic include Israeli Hebrew, which has the word ().