Talk:List of Arabic loanwords in English

message: The whole page is peppered with misleading generalisations such as "English comes from Spanish". or "English comes from French"...it makes the list look amateur and unreliable. Of course it is entirely true that English is PARTIALLY, significantly rooted in French and Latin languages -- but to say, broadly and sweepingly "English comes from Spanish" is absurd,unscholarly and amatuer. Tidy up anyone?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 163.152.211.207 (talk) 11:07, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: [Untitled]

message: The following Persian words which were wrongly listed as the words of Arabic ORIGIN were ommited by me from the list:
; zircon : from Persian Zarnikh
; vizier : From middl-ePersian Vichir
; spinach 
; Orange  
; lemon 
; lilac  
; lime 
; julep : from Persian Gulab
; guitar from Persian sitaar (thrre snares)
; galingale
; check  
; checkmate 
shah."
; candy from Persian Qand
; borax : from Persian Burah
; azure : from Persian Lajevard
; algorithm : from Persian Khwarazmi
: Almost all of these should be restored.  Most English borrowings from Persian are via Arabic, and some of these - algorithm, for instance - are purely Arabic. - Mustafaa 17:22, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Persian words

message: There are some parts of this list which are proper names and therefore oughtn't be here - I'm thinking of the names of Stars. These are not English but English transliterations of the Arabic, as opposed to words which have been taken into the English language such as admiral. GraemeLeggett 18:39, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Names or Words 

message: Candy
: I've made my frist Wikipedia submission by adding candy to this list and I've noticed it has be removed. I'm not at all interested in any sort of "editing wars" so I'd prefer to simply write my source and ask why it was unacceptable. The American Heritage Dictionary (entry "candy") states the current etymology/spelling of candy is via Middle English candi via Old French sucre candi (or Old Italian zucchero candi) via Arabic sukkar qandy.  This is very likely from the Persian qand which in turn is possibly from the Sanskrit khanda and/or from an older, Dravidian word. Is this in dispute? Does the OED disagree with this etymology?
::Your etymology is correct. However, we've had words like this in the past, and ultimately they were not kept on the page. With 'candy', its ultimate origin was not in Arabic, and English didn't borrow it from Arabic. It passed through Arabic on its way to English, but that's not really enough to say that it's an English word of Arabic origin. Depending on how you look at it, it's an English word of French origin, or an English word of Sanskrit (or Dravidian) origin. YBeayf 01:52, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I can see how this would be appropriate. Having the simple rules that either the words enters English direct from Arabic, or the words' etymologies are traced back only as far as Arabic. Perhaps this should be stated at the top of the page? It would be more clear for visitors looking for information or for prospective submitters, like myself, to understand which words should be on this list. (Sorry, but I forgot to sign my previous comment.) Jestem 18:36, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

text: There is certainly a mistake in Antimony, because the Arabic cited  انتيمون reads 'antimun', and nothing like 'ithmĩd'. However, the OED reports a conjectural derivation of 'antimony' from Arabic 'uthmud', earlier 'ithmid', itself possibly from Greek 'στιμμι', also the origin of 'stibium'. So if that conjecture is borne out (I haven't checked any more recent references than OED1), the article is correct except for the erroneous Arabic citation. In any case, this is the derivation of the English word 'antimony', and says nothing about whether a different Arabic word - 'kohl' might be more prominent - as it certainly is today; the interwiki link to ar.wikipedia is to كحل,  'kahl'.  --ColinFine 00:28, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Contended Words 

message: I found an article on "Merriam-Webster" online dictionary discussing the origin of this word. Here is the link: http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/wftwarch.pl?010206
:
:I dispute this, as both "crimson" and "kermes" ultimately come from Sanskrit. They passed through Arabic on their journey to English, but that doesn't mean they are of Arabic origin. YBeayf 06:02, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The American Heritage dictionary of the English language states the word crimson is from "Middle English cremesin, from Old Spanish cremesín, Old Italian cremesino or Medieval Latin cremesnus, all from Arabic qirmizy, from qirmiz, kermes insect."  And for the word kermes, it says that it probably came from a Sanskirt word.  You people decide what it is, I find this all confusing. --Inahet 06:53, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Added ''Crimson'' to the list 

message: I have capitalized each word as per the general convention in a dictionary entry. --Bhadani 07:07, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Capitalized

message: According to the sugar article, it was derived from Sanskrit through Arabic. --24.16.148.75 19:11, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sugar 

message: I created List of exported Arabic terms and recently discovered this. Is there any merit at all in my article, or should it just be outright merged? Is this a Sub-article to my article? --Striver 10:30, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: merge

message: Is it possible that arrack is from ʻaraq directly, and not al-araq? The etymology now is only one word.
-Misha
216.254.12.114 15:50, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arrack 

message: Instead of "words of Arabic origin", it would be correct to say "words borrowed from Arabic". As was pointed out over a year ago, the *origins* of some words *immediately borrowed* from Arabic by one or another European language are actually not Arabic, but Persian, Latin, or Greek (some words borrowed from Arabic had actually been earlier borrowed by Arabic from Latin or Greek). Hurmata 09:47, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  How about changing the very name of this entry? 

message: I think it is ill advised to copy etymologies from OED or another dictionary, except in unusual cases. This is needless duplication. I suggest that the value of this Wiki entry is to reveal the influence of the Arabic language on English vocabulary. We do not need to spent oodles of time reproducing etymologies that people can readily find at http://dictionary.reference.com. 
I *do* think we should mention when Arabic itself borrowed a word that English has borrowed from Arabic. At any rate, those OED etymologies that somebody put in the 'A' section use *highly* nonstandard transcriptions. 'k with subscript dot' is only appropriate to occasional specialist discussions; the proper romanization for general use is 'q'! Hurmata 13:08, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Etymologies 

message: This is inherently difficult because out in the world of Arabic studies there isn't uniformity. There are many points for which rival alternatives are equally worthy. I made a start at standardizing the transcription: long vowels represented with macrons (double letters, aa, ii, uu, would be equally well advised, in my opinion); 'q' for k-dot; '7' for glottal stop. The cayn/9ayn is especially troublesome because out in the world there are close to half a dozen choices. 'C' is objectively the best (it best mimics the shape of the Arabic letter, it requires no special typewriting, and it isn't psychologically disruptive as '9' is, '9' being a numeral already), but tradition is strongly against 'c'. Hurmata 13:08, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Transcription/romanization 

message: Twice this morning, I have gotten logged out of Wikipedia without my realizing it, then I post some changes. But it looks like up until now, nobody else has edited the page. Hurmata 16:44, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Forced logouts Dec. 2, 2006 

message: "KazakhPol" deleted line spaces in between letter sections of the list. And left the mysterious comment, "transliterated words don't belong in the list". What precisely is KP referring to, and why not? Do they really mean that the "al-qubba" that accompanies "alcove" doesn't belong? *That*, "al-qubba", is a transliteration. Did KP use the words that express what they really mean? 
Incidentally, the decision to give the Arabic scripts for the entries was made by my predecessors. I have accepted it, checking many of them and correcting several. Hurmata 03:45, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Response to remark about transliteration

message: More than half of the words listed here are just as easily derived from Hebrew. What kind of list is this and how is it sourced? frummer 23:37, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Free for all list!?

message: A user who did not log in, "89.148.43.17", restored sections which have been heavily edited during more than a month's time. In so doing, this user (1) deleted the fruits of days worth of article research done *offline*; (2) did not bother to respond to previous entries in this Discussion page -- nor to respond to paragraphs in the article's introduction -- that justify the past weeks' edits. 
I have resorted to doing a revert because my attempt to use Wikipedia's new "Undo" editing feature failed. 
As for point (1), I did substantial research for the entries for "alcohol" and "kohl", consulting Priesner and Figala (which I added to the References) and other *historiographic*, not *lexicographic*,  sources. This goes way beyond sitting at a computer and going from one online dictionary to the next. I discovered information you will not find in a book which is just a dictionary of English or a dictionary of Spanish.
Just in the last week or two, I have reported in the Discussion page of a different article, the article on Arabic loanwords in Spanish, on the following discovery: etymologies from different major dictionaries often disagree with one another. I may have made some of these remarks on this page as well. At any rate, I have argued, repeatedly, against presenting detailed etymologies except in special cases. Specifically with regard to the mass cutting and pasting of etymologies available online, there are two obvious objections: 
(i) Wikipedia's mission includes trying diligently to confirm information before posting it; but there are many discrepancies between the etymology offered by different online dictionaries for a given word.
(ii) It is a waste of time and effort to reproduce this instantly available material -- which is copyrighted material, of course, by the way. 
All a contributor need do for a given entry is to cite one -- or more -- dictionaries. Don't put in detailed etymologies unless you are offering information that's hard to access or unless the meaning in today's English diverges from the meaning of the Arabic source word. I, for example, consulted a book on the history of alchemy written in German in order to write the entries for "alcohol" and "kohl", AND, the meaning that "alcohol" has for us, the Arabs did not use it that way centuries ago. Hurmata 20:50, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Disrespectful edits on 6 Jan 2007

message: --CopyToWiktionaryBot 08:44, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  2007-03-1 Automated pywikipediabot message 

message: I noticed this on here, and I think I should present this excerpt from the Genie page.
Genie is the usual English translation of the Arabic term jinni, but it is not an Anglicized form of the Arabic word, as is commonly thought. The English word comes from French génie, which meant a spirit of any kind, which in turn came from Latin genius, which meant a sort of tutelary or guardian spirit thought to be assigned to each person at birth (see genius). But this has nothing to do with the jinn of Islam, as this might suggest. The Latin word predates the Arabic word jinni, and the two terms have not been shown to be related. The first recorded use of the word in English was in 1655 as geny, with the Latin meaning. The French translators of The Book of One Thousand and One Nights later used the word génie as a translation of jinni because it was similar to the Arabic word both in sound and in meaning; this meaning was also picked up in English and has since become dominant.
I had always assumed that it was a direct loanword; however, this raises some doubt.
I saw that it wasn't cited to an online source, so I checked the Online Etymology Dictionary, and sure enough...:
genie
    1655, "tutelary spirit," from Fr. genie, from L. genius (see genius); used in Fr. translation of "Arabian Nights" to render Arabic jinni, pl. of jinn "spirit," which it accidentally resembled, and attested in Eng. with this sense from 1748.
My question being: does the actual etymology, which is not related to the Arabic except by coincidence, disqualify the word from presence on this page? Or should it just be noted that the similarity between the two terms has caused a false etymological connection which seems to be apparent to the uninformed?
Considering the mental association between the word and its Arabic meaning (thanks to Arabian Nights and Alladin and such), it might be acceptable to leave it in, but clarification of the unlinked etymology would be necessary.
I don't know though, as it seems to be more of a convenient coincidence which crossed the two separate words. Considering the etymology given, it would be more suited on the respective language word list (French or Latin, although a Latin page would be ridiculous).--C.Logan 23:10, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "My question being . . ." The answer is: basically YES. The point of this page is to identify words which owe their existence to the influence of Arab speaking culture or Arab speaking societies. The only reason to list a word *not* meeting that description would be this situation, that people *suppose* it does meet that description.  Hurmata 02:58, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That makes sense. But I think a note should be added; just because people assume something by majority, doesn't mean it's true. If the word Genie did not actually come to us in English through Arabic influence, but in actually only acquired that relationship later, then it should be noted on the page. Obviously, the current mental image is definitely more akin to the Arabic meaning, but that doesn't mean we should ignore its actual etymology... or else, we're basically spreading false facts, here.--C.Logan 04:08, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Genie 

message: 1. Somebody is mining the Online Etymological Dictionary for words that are *suspected* of being from Arabic and adding them to the list while *stripping off* words like "perhaps" and "suggested" that indicate the speculative status of the claims for them to be Arabic loanwords. Most of these "perhaps" entries come from the "Online Etymological Dictionary", which cites the same source for them, "Klein 2001". Therefore, whoever this contributor is is too credulous, not applying scrutiny and skepticism to the fact that there is a new work is proposing a bunch of speculative additions to the inventory of Arabic loanwords in English. This new work, "Klein 2001" could be valuable scholarship revealing fresh finds, or it could be incompetent speculation. 
2. By the Wikipedia principle of minimizing duplication of information, all information about star names of Arabic origin should be contributed to other articles. Wikipedia has an entire article, List of traditional star names. Star names are also listed in articles linked to at Star#Star designations. I suggest that contributors put their star name etymologies in the "List of traditional star names". As the article is composed right now, it is in table format. You would need to add a column to the table in which to place the etymology. 
3. There has also been a stream of off topic entries. Terms from Islamic law and Arabic toponymy DO NOT BELONG. This is not a dictionary of Arabic. This is not a tutorial on Middle Eastern history and culture. This is not a tutorial on Islamic law. 
Whoever is inspired by Klein 2001 needs to quit using it as filtered by the "Online Etymological Dictionary" consult Klein 2001 directly and exercise due diligence to make a judgement of how *reliable* it is. In the current climate, it would obviously be chic and/or attention getting to claim Arabic provenance for things not previously thought to have any. Hurmata 15:06, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm on your side here. Ahmedrefat has been adding loads and loads of information- most of which questionably relevant (i.e. star names, Islamic culture terms), or doesn't even match up with the 'cited' source. For instance, several of the references he included, upon inspection, led to dead searches ("No matching terms") on Etymology Online. If this was done intentionally, Ahmedrefat's research methods are questionable. I've taken some effort to remove any additions which I have found to have no support. There should be more clarification on what's included, and your efforts have helped to establish this better.--C.Logan 16:49, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Recent off topic or unsubstantiated edits: star names, etc.

message: Is algebra really from Arabic? I seriously doubt that, considering it is also a word in Latin!
:Yes, it is. There are a lot of entries here based on tenuous evidence and OR (I know, because I spent some time a while back deleting most of it), but algebra is one entry which is not disputed in any way. I may be wrong, but I believe the Latin form is derived from a transliteration of Al-Khowarizmi's work.--C.Logan 22:41, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Algebra 

message: (The following question was added to the article by 70.168.214.227 on 17 June. I have moved it to here as it does not belong on the article page).
"What about marsh? does this come from Hairoglypophs or Cairoglyphs M- Mann, A - Travels, SH - Shallow water.  Water can be a boundary (a river) it can even mark a map. Marsh, Maurs, Moors, Mose, it all sounds related. Is it?"
:A quick look at any etymological dictionary will show you that 'marsh' comes from Middle English 'meresc' traceable to an Indo-European root. I am not aware that anybody has ever suggested an Arabic connection for it. 
:The fact that certain words sound similar today is not a reliable indicator that there is any connection between them: you need to examine older forms. I don't know what you mean about Hieroglyphs: There is no connection between hieroglyphs and Arabic, no connection between hieroglyphs and splitting an English word up into its separate sounds, and I don't know where you got those 'meanings' (man, travel etc) from. --ColinFine 23:04, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Marsh 

message: Amarillo ( a spanish word ) is not of Arabic origin according to all Spanish sources. Theories linking it to Ambar are not generally accepted.
See here:
http://culturitalia.uibk.ac.at/hispanoteca/Foro-preguntas/ARCHIVO-Foro/Amarillo.htm
Etymologyonline is not much good, it seems.
--Guzman ramirez 22:57, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: amarillo

message: The origin of the english word "cat" is the arabic word "qat", pronounced with the glottoral "q". The old french - probably the "Gaullois", learned it from the english (or the celts), and pronounced it "tchat". The evidence of the original arabic emphatic "t" is still stuck at the tail of the word "chat" whose pronounciation has been modified by decision of the French Académie who "modernised" the french language. In old english, there even existed the word "catte" for the female cat (read it catté with a stress on the tt). This gave the corresponding french word "chatte" (read it tchatta), which corresponds to the arabic word "qattah". For those puzzled, the letter "c" used to be pronounced "tch" in old french, as some communities, living on the coast of the mediterranean, still do. Pheniki (talk) 13:30, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Except that in Arabic it is قِط qeţ not qat --Alif (talk) 16:56, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Where do you get this nonsense, Pheniki? The OED says s.v. 'cat', "The name is common European of unknown origin: found in Lat. and Gr. in 1-4th c., and in the modern langs. generally, as far back as their records go." So yes, its ultimate origin is unknown, and it could indeed be from a Semitic language - even, conceivably Phoenician, though not Arabic as the term is usually used, because the word is too old in European languages for that. But the French word came utterly regularly from Latin 'cattus' (compare 'chanter' from 'cantare') not from English. And there is absolutely nothing about the 't' or 'tt' in the European words that suggests an Arabic 'ṭ' --ColinFine (talk) 21:29, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Origin of cat 

message: An admirable list, but maybe instead should be moved to Wiktionary? Just for principles... Said: Rursus ☻ 17:28, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: ...but you got to convince hundreds of editors who have been editing these 40+ articles - umm, lists. -- FayssalF - Wiki me up®  17:48, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Move to Wiktionary? 

message: Wherever there is the word typhoon, there is some link to Arabic Toufaan, then the claim goes on that it is of a non-Arabic origin; Even the source provided in this page, it claims that toufan طوفان actually means typhoon in Arabic when actually, in Arabic a typhoon is I'saar إعصار. Regardless of whether there is a connection between the two and with all due respect to the source, toufaan in Arabic is not an typhoon but a flood - you can check all available dictionaries and check the Quran, where the word has been used to refer to Noah’s flood!.
Dictionaries give the etymology in the following way (my words after checking several dictionaries): it is derived from the root taafa, "to circulate, to encompass, to surround". Toufaan is heavy rain or heavy flooding or both and it was called so because the water surrounds and encompasses everything.  Whether typhoon is of Arabic origin or not, I don't know, but toufan is indeed Arabic and has a different meaning from that mentioned in the article is incorrect.
--Maha Odeh (talk) 07:57, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Typhoon 

message: Most anglo-saxon politiciens and lay-people, like you and I, must be puzzled as to origin of the name "Chacellor" given to the British Minister of Finance and to the German Prime Minister. The answer will be puzzling too, unless you have some knowledge of the arabic language. 
As I mentionned in earlier topics, the english language is intimately linked to the language of the phoeniciens who were speakers of arabic (some 6000 years ago ?). Now, let us give our explanation with respect to the origin of the word "chance". The word "chance" comes from the arabic word "kenz", pronounced "chance" by those who pronounce the letter "k" "tch" (like the french cat --> chat), which means "treasure", and when people used to say they did not have a "treasure" (kenz), they meant they did not have a chance (our modern word): "I have no Kenz" = "I have no chance".
As to the word "chancellor", it is just the keeper of the "kenz", commonly named the "Treasuror" or "Trésorier", in french, which luckily for us and history, has been conserved by the British and German state institutions. Pheniki (talk) 20:58, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: And so-called Phoenicians are so completely bamboozled about it that they make up any sort of nonsense they like the sound of. 'Chancellor' and 'chance' have nothing to do with either other, or with Arabic. According to the OED, 'chancellor' is from "L. cancell{amac}rius usher of a law court, whose station was ad cancellos at the bars or grating which separated the public from the judges", and 'chance' from "Late L. cadentia falling, f. cadent- falling, pr. pple. of cad-ěre to fall". --ColinFine (talk) 23:17, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  The origin of Chance and Chancellor 

message: I removed the following:
Camera
        From the Arabic Word Comrah 'قمرة'
because I do not believe it is correct. I think the derivation of the English 'camera' via the Latin 'camera' and Greek 'kamárā' is well-established at this point. Defixio (talk) 03:29, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I have just removed it again. --ColinFine (talk) 21:57, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Camera

message: I've always been led to believe that "mummiya" is the Arabic for bitumen (pitch), not a mummified body; it was applied to Egyptian mummies because bitumen was once believed to have been used in the mummification process. If someone knows this to be true, they should correct the article.
2 November 2008  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.238.110.66 (talk) 15:52, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Mummy

message: Isn't Satan derived from the Arabic (and originally Hebrew) for 'adversary' or 'enemy', not specifically 'evil'? I realise these meanings are related, so someone with more knowledge of Arabic should correct the article if it is actually inaccurate.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.238.110.66 (talk) 09:54, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It does not. It comes via Greek from Hebrew. Why on earth should Arabic be involved? And why should Arabic-speaking Jews have difficulty with [ʃ] when both Arabic and Hebrew have the sound? --ColinFine (talk) 22:01, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

text: How is that possibly relevant? "Satan" ws recorded in English in around the year 900, long before Arabic learning reached Western Europe (see the OED). But even if it had been recorded only much later, this would still not be relevant: Biblical Hebrew was studied by Christian scholars throughout Europe for religious reasons. Arabic was unknown in Western Europe until it started to filter in from Moorish Spain, and even then was almost entirely secular, as religious material would have been regarded as heretical. --ColinFine (talk) 23:23, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Satan

message: The original meaning of the word "burden" can be traced back to the arabic word "burda'a" which is the straw-stuffed heavy duty cushion that is usually put on the back of a mule or a donkey. This is supported by the well known expression "I carry a heavy burden on my back". The word "burden" in english seems to be pronounced in the way the morrocan berbers do.Pheniki (talk) 09:32, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Baloney. It can be traced back to the Indo-European root 'bhar-'. No more to do with Arabic than any of Pheniki's wild imaginings. --ColinFine (talk) 22:07, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Meaning of the word "burden" 

message: "To carve" or the action of "carving", like "carving on wood" or "carving the meat", can be traced back to the arabic word - from the time of the phoenicians who were speakers of arabic - "qarraf", to strip the wood off, from which came the spice name "qarfa" (cinnamon)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinnamon, which is the bark of a tree.Pheniki (talk) 09:52, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Hogwash. It's common Germanic, and probably related to the Greek root 'graph-'. I wonder when the time was of 'the phoenicians who were speakers of Arabic', since history does not give any hint of their existence. --ColinFine (talk) 22:20, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Origin of the verb "to carve" 

message: The Arabic comes from the Ancient Egyptian tbt meaning "brick". Pamour (talk) 09:04, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Adobe 

message: I've removed the following:
* 'banana' - without evidence, there is no reason to suppose that this came from (or even through) Arabic. The OED says it's from Spanish or Portuguese, from a language of the Congo.
* 'cover' (I'm sure I've removed this one before). Nothing at all to do with Arabic. 
Also undid a recent edit adding 'Yasmine' in the entry for 'jasmine'. 'Yasmine' doesn't exist in English except as a name: the English word that is being explicated is 'jasmine', and added an alternative etymology (from the OED for 'mafia'. --ColinFine (talk) 23:09, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spurious items removed June 14 2009 

message: I think the word "earth" should be included in the list. Earth in Arabic (pronounced earth in Arabic too) means inheritance, heritage, legacy, patrimony, succession.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.68.33.100 (talk) 17:29, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: This has been discussed here at least twice (see above). There are a few scholars who argue that 'earth' is ultimately a borrowing from Semitic, though this is not generally accepted by Indo-Europeanists. But even if it is true, it cannot be a loan from Arabic as it is too old: it would have to be from an earlier Semitic language. --ColinFine (talk) 22:41, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

text: Arabic Language says that the earliest inscriptions are 4th century. If you have reliable sources that demonstrate that Arabic goes back another 1600 years before that, please reference them. Otherwise your unsubstantiated claim will not be accepted. --ColinFine (talk) 23:49, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Earth is an arabic word 

message: A number of entries have been changed by User:140.254.63.2 in the last few minutes. All are unreferenced, and several are wrong. I am removing most of them. Specifically:
* The etymology of 'artichoke' from Arabic al-xurshūf is well-established. The alternative 'ardi shok' is fanciful, and would only make sense if the word had been borrowed directly into English, which it was not. 
* 'Aardvark' has nothing whatever to do with Arabic, and is transparently Afrikaans. 
* 'Coffin' has nothing to do with Arabic.
* 'Guitar' is from Greek: the same word may well have been borrowed into Arabic.
* There may possibly be some Arabic in the history of 'rice', but more likely not. The English word is from Latin, in turn from Greek, probably from something else, but there is no reason to think Arabic is involved. (The OED says that the Spanish and Portuguese words are from Arabic).
* Sesame is from Latin. Some connection with a Semitic language is likely, but there is no reason to suppose it is Arabic rather than, say, Aramaic.
We say arabic because it is the only language that been spread out by muslim people when came to europe accros spain. --76.68.25.174 (talk) 22:47, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: What has that to do with anything? Some words of Semitic origin entered European languages from Moorish Spain, and hence from Arabic; but others came through Greek or Latin, often in the days long before Islam, when Aramaic was widely spoken in the Middle East, and Arabic, if it even existed, was a minor language of a few nomadic tribes. --ColinFine (talk) 23:53, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

text: No. If you think that some of the points I made above are incorrect, it is up to you to provide a different account, with reliable sources. Of course there are words of Arabic origin in French and Spanish, but the words I listed above are not among them (or not demonstrably so: as I say, 'rice' may possibly have been borrowed from Arabic). --ColinFine (talk) 21:21, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spurious entries removed 22 July 2009 

message: Removed from the main list:
* "sesame". The OED says "prob. of oriental origin, but the relation to the Semitic forms (Syriac shāshmå, Jewish Aramaic shumshemā, Arab. simsim) is not clear."
Removed from the 'possibly Arabic' section:
* "camera" (again). The only reference given (Chambers) does not mention Arabic, so the supposed connection with Arabic is unreferenced.
* "date": the OED does not mention a Semitic origin. The source referenced (Online Etymology Dictionary) says "Possibly from a Sem. source (cf. Heb. deqel, Aram. diqla, Arabic daqal "date palm") and assimilated to the Gk. word for "finger." - i.e. it does not say that it derives from Arabic, merely that it might derive from a Semitic source. 
I've also rewritten the entry for 'caramel' somewhat. 
--ColinFine (talk) 00:50, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removals Jan 2010 

message: At the moment the page is saying English "lilac" is from Arabic ليلك līlak, but it is not saying what the Arabic word meant. "Lilac" is almost the only word on the list with that status ("cork" is another one). I haven't been able to find any source citing an attestation of the word in Arabic except at a date that's considerably after the word got established in the Western languages. I believe the word is not from Arabic at all, in view of what's said about it at http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2006145
A summary of the main points at that wordreference.com link are: (1) There is hard evidence that the lilac plant originated in the Balkans (particularly in higher elevation areas in the Balkans). (2) Lilac plants "are natives, mountain dwellers, of the colder regions requiring a length of cold weather to set their fat buds for bloom." (quoting http://books.google.com/books?id=rYatjOH-LbAC). They don't thrive in Arabic-speaking lands because the winters aren't cold enough. (3) The historical record of the introduction of the plant to Western Europe is that it came from gardens in Istanbul in the late 16th century. The early records are in Austria and northern France (and not Spain). (4) The plant was not called "lilac" during its introduction to Western Europe in the late 16th century. The "lilac" word dates from 1605 in French and this appears to be the earliest attestation of the word in any Western language. (The Spanish word "lilac" is from French according to the official dictionary of the Spanish language). (5) In French and the other Western languages, the use of "lilac" as a color doesn't happen until more than a century after the use of "lilac" as a garden plant, and the color sense is a derivative of the plant sense. (5) No etymology source I've seen is citing an instance of the word in Arabic before the early 19th century. (6) The Greek word for indigo is "loulaki" and the Albanian for indigo "llullaq". Because the lilac plant originated in the Balkans, a word semantically and phonetically similar to loulaki | llullaq in use in the Balkans is a candidate for the word's origin. But the word's origin is basically obscure.
Given all the above, I propose to move the entry for "lilac" from the section headed "Loanwords listed in alphabetical order" to the section headed "Words that may (or may not) be Arabic loanwords". There is one problem with this proposition, which you can see in the first paragraph at http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2006145. As I said already, the entry for "lilac" at the moment it is not saying what the supposed Arabic word meant. My review of many etymology sources leaves me unable to add that piece of info. I take that to be another sign of the weakness of the supposed Arabic ancestry. Seanwal111111 (talk) 20:29, 11 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  The word LILAC 

message: Mood Sally added the following 13 words on 21 Aug 2011 in good faith and I deleted them. An explanation for the deletions is called for.
The following three words are not of Arabic ancestry according to the etymology dictionaries.
::cumin : كمّون kammūn. 
::cable: كَبْل kabl, meaning "thick rope" and "huge constraint".
::camel: جمل jamal, pronounced gamal in Egypt and Yemen.
The following five words are rarely used in English, their English usage is usually confined to Arabic or Middle Eastern historical or cultural contexts, and English has other words that are usually used in their stead. Many other rare words that belong in the same category are already excluded from the list.
::casbah: قصبة qaṣabah, meaning "palace's center", "most of the city", and/or "fort's midmost".
::fakir : فقير faqīr, meaning "poor" person or "beggar", and used for describing Sufi ascetic dervishes
::fellah : فلاح fallāḥ, meaning "farmer" and "peasant"
::dragoman : ترجمان tarjumān meaning "translator" and "interpreter"
::bint: بنت bint, meaning "girl", or "daughter"
::::______________________
::caliph: خليفة khalīfa, meaning "successor" or "representative".
Caliph is already mentioned under sultan, where it is noted that the use of the word in English is largely confined to Middle Eastern history.
::Gibraltar : جبل طارق Jabal Ṭāriq, meaning "Tariq's mountain", named after Tariq ibn Ziyad
Gibraltar is a proper geographic name, and the list excludes such names.
::betelgeuse: إبط الجوزاء Ibţ al-Jawzā', meaning "the armpit of the Orion", a name of a bright star.
Betelguese is a star name, and the list excludes such names.
::camise: قميص qamīṣ, meaning "shirt"
Camise is very rarely used in English, as reflected by the fact that it doesn't have a page a Wikipedia. The word Chemise meaning shirt is common enough in English, and does have a page at Wikipedia. But Chemise is not from Arabic -- see http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/chemise
::calabash : قرع يابس qarʿa yabisa, meaning "dry gourd"
English Calabash is from Spanish. The Spanish is of uncertain ancestry. Arabic ancestry is possible. The word is not very rare in English, and its meaning does not belong in one of the excluded categories, so this word could be included under "words that may (or may not) be Arabic loanwords".
Seanwal111111 (talk) 20:38, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deletion of additions made today by [[Special:Contributions/Mood_Sally|Mood Sally]] 

message: This list breaks the WP:Wikipedia is not a dictionary rule. It should be removed.Provocateur Provocateur (talk) 00:29, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: If you think that then you should nominate the article for deletion. Op47 (talk) 18:56, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: This, and all similar articles on the etymological origins of words, are about a concept: that of linguistic origin. They are not about the meaning and/or usage of the individual words on the list. As such, they don't violate the policy. Grutness...wha? 06:02, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a dictionary