796: alcohol and Arabic Words in Spanish Feb 11, 2017

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In English, a few words beginning with 'al-' notably come from Arabic, in which this is the definite article. 'Alcohol', for example means literally 'the kohl'. Spanish has far more Arabic-influence dating back to Moorish occupation. There are hundreds of Spanish words which are easily identifiable as having come from Arabic, usually through the 'al-', though not always as in the case of the pretty informal, 'fulano' meaning 'so-and-so'. Many other Arabic words found in Spanish are formal and also used for governmental positions and laws, similar to many French loan-words in English, which you can see more about below. Funnily enough, a Spanish word for 'gibberish', 'algarabía' comes from the Arabic, "al-'arabiya" which means 'Arabic'. Those of you familiar with Spanish might think from this information that the singular masculine definite article, 'el' comes from the Arabic article, but in fact like most if not all Romantic articles, it comes from the Latin, 'ille, illa, illud' meaning 'that'.

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