dreamer_easy: (miscellaneous)
[personal profile] dreamer_easy
How many English words can you think of, just off the top of your head, that come from (a) Arabic (b) Nahuatl?

Date: 2006-11-10 12:45 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] matthewwolff.livejournal.com
Do "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9... etc." count?

Date: 2006-11-10 12:52 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kateorman.livejournal.com
*grin* I was thinking of words, but that's superb. :-)

Date: 2006-11-10 01:26 am (UTC)
ext_54569: starbuck (Default)
From: [identity profile] purrdence.livejournal.com
In my Japanese class, the kids were having a bit of a hard time that the numbers being used in English (1, 2, 3 etc) are used in Japanese too - and they're written exactly the same.

"Miss! (*grrrrr*) They've pinched our numbers!" one student said, with a bit of xenophobic indignity.

I looked him straight in the eye and said "And English 'borrowed' them from Arabic."

Didn't hear a peep from Little Mr Xenophobe again that lesson.

Date: 2006-11-12 06:57 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] matthewwolff.livejournal.com
Of course technically the Arabic was borrowed from Sanskrit.... ;)

Date: 2006-11-10 12:49 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] antikythera.livejournal.com
When I think of Arabic words my brain is drowned in a list of star names. I know there are other modern English words that are derived from Arabic, but I just start thinking Altair, Betelgeuse, Deneb...

How about zenith?

I'm not sure about Nahuatl, but it makes me think of ahuacatl. It was bastardized into the European languages as avocado and called the 'lawyer fruit' (from avocat), but the original meant 'testicle fruit' because of the shape and the way it hung from the tree.

Date: 2006-11-10 01:07 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] bentleywg.livejournal.com
xoxoxo!

(Does the Mexican Santa Claus say "Xo Xo Xo"?)

Date: 2006-11-10 01:11 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] redstarrobot.livejournal.com
Only when he's at the theater and the play is late to start.

Date: 2006-11-10 02:15 pm (UTC)
ext_4110: mystical symbol thing (Default)
From: [identity profile] sheramil.livejournal.com
if you want to see just how many stars have Arabic names, check out the freeware solar system sim Celestia. it also has a star database. Alhajot rather than Capella. Suhel rather than Canopus. Alhabor rather than Sirius. Elgomaisa rather than Procyon. Alrukaba rather than Polaris. Calbala (the crab) rather than Antares (the ram).

Kate: i don't imagine you ever would be, but if you ever are stuck for a good name for an alien race, there's the likes of Asmidiske, Mebsuta, Aludra and Zubenelgenubi in that list.

Date: 2006-11-11 07:32 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kateorman.livejournal.com
Zubenelgenubi!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Date: 2006-11-10 01:04 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] http://users.livejournal.com/doctor_k_/
Assassin (bastardised Arabic)

Date: 2006-11-10 01:04 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] redstarrobot.livejournal.com
nadir
zenith
algebra
alchemy
ghoul
coffee, I think
(plus the obvious ones like minaret and so on, which aren't really derived English words so much as English usages of their words)

avocado
guacamole
chocolate
coyote
peyote
ocelot
tomato
tamale

Date: 2006-11-10 02:04 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] antikythera.livejournal.com
Thank you... see, I should have got the math and science ones, at least...

Date: 2006-11-10 02:51 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com
I should have alchemy, dammit!

Date: 2006-11-10 01:27 am (UTC)
ext_54569: starbuck (Default)
From: [identity profile] purrdence.livejournal.com
Harem.

Being 'topical', does jihad count?

Date: 2006-11-10 01:43 am (UTC)

Date: 2006-11-10 02:50 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com
Alcohol. Algebra. Bunch of star names (alnilam, mintaka, algol, betelgeuse). Algorhythm? (However it's spelled.) Al From Off Of Quantum Leap. Er... Hummus. Jellybaby (It SOUNDS Arabic! Djel'i'baybi or somethin'.) Whatever they extract tonsils with probably has an Arab name since they invented it. Alcopops! Um. Assassin. Burqa has to count as being in the English language by now. Umm... err... lots of Spanish place names. Al-andalus, Alicante, Al...Benidorm. Um. Mosque is SO an English word. Minaret? That sounds more French though. NOT Alphabet even though it SOUNDS Arabic. All the numbers but not the words for them.

Date: 2006-11-10 03:08 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] stephen-dedman.livejournal.com
Coffee!

More at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Arabic_origin
(deleted comment)

Date: 2006-11-10 02:23 pm (UTC)
ext_4110: mystical symbol thing (Default)
From: [identity profile] sheramil.livejournal.com
which was stolen from the original tlhingan, "SaQ magh", "cry betrayal!"

Re: Nahuatl

Date: 2006-11-10 07:02 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kateorman.livejournal.com
Google means never having to think of anything off the top of your head, ever again!

Re: Nahuatl

Date: 2006-11-10 07:24 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] mrteufel.livejournal.com
It becomes an extention of your BRAAAAAAIIINNNNN!

Re: Nahuatl

Date: 2006-11-10 07:31 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kateorman.livejournal.com
I think of it as my Skrode.

Re: Nahuatl

Date: 2006-11-10 07:48 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] mrteufel.livejournal.com
ok, I'll bite. What's a Skrode?
(It doesn't Google well, and Dictionary.com's never heard of it.)

Re: Nahuatl

Date: 2006-11-11 07:33 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kateorman.livejournal.com
In Vernor Vinge's novel A Fire Upon the Deep, the Skrode Riders are intelligent seaweed people with a long-term memory extension cum billy cart, the Skrode. :-)

Re: Nahuatl

Date: 2006-11-11 07:23 pm (UTC)
pedanther: (Default)
From: [personal profile] pedanther
Yeah, but the thing about letting machines do your thinking for you, you can get in real trouble if the software engineer isn't trustworthy.

Date: 2006-11-10 07:09 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] browneyedgirl65.livejournal.com
Christ, I'm not sure how many words around here are from Spanish or nahuatl. The little of the latter I learned were things like coatl (snake), chapultepec (grasshopper) and lots of place names
tenochitlan (orig name before mexico city), popocatepetl (volcano near mexico city). chocolate is obvious but already suggested. Oh, mescali, peyote, those should be from here. Not sure if nahuatl or other, though, there's a passle of indigenous languages around here...

Date: 2006-11-10 08:22 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] leoniedelt.livejournal.com
Dunno. I've been ganking most of my names and nouns from Hebrew. :)

Date: 2006-11-10 11:30 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] drhoz.livejournal.com
gibberish. From Al-Jibr, an infamously hard-to-follow mathematician.

and axolotl.

Date: 2006-11-10 02:12 pm (UTC)
ext_4110: mystical symbol thing (Default)
From: [identity profile] sheramil.livejournal.com
gah, the only nahuatl word i can think of right now is "maquahuitl". thank you very much, William S Burroughs.

Date: 2006-11-15 02:59 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] gooofy.livejournal.com
"apricot" is from Arabic "albarqūq" which is from Greek "berikokkia" which is from Latin "præcoquus" so maybe it doesn't count. But it's cool anyway.

Date: 2006-11-15 05:22 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kateorman.livejournal.com
That's so cool. Apparently Malay and Indonesian, lacking a word for "brown", both incorporated "chocolate" from either English or Dutch, making it a very well-travelled word. :-)

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