An Arabic word I learned from the protest signs.

[Recursion]

You can usually tell a lot about what words one language borrows from another: they are usually words that describe a technology or concept that was unknown by the borrowing culture.

For example, other than the obstinate French, pretty much everyone in the world uses phonetic approximations of "computer" and "Internet" in their own language. In the case of Arabic:
الكمبيوت (al-kambyuuta; Arabic lacks a "p"), and
الإنترن (al-intarn; the missing "-at" at the end keeps it from conflicting with some grammar rules)

The words English has borrowed from Arabic are mostly scientific/industrial as well, though from an earlier age, eg "alcohol", "zero", "cipher" (same root as "zero"), "magazine" (originally in the business sense of a storehouse), "borax", "tariff". Also, oddly enough, "jar", which I would have assumed was Latin. But anyways, these both reflect the vast technological superiority of the middle east to Europe before, say, the 16th century.

But anyways, it's not just technology that encourages loanwords; politics do too. One that I had known was:
الديمقراطي (al-daymukratia), "democracy". One I hadn't known until today, and a much more sad comment on our contributions to Middle Eastern culture than the previous, is this:
دكتاتور (diktaator). I leave the translation to you.

[jobycom]

1. Democracy comes from ancient Greek. Arabic probably got it from Greek.

Although without doing the research, it's possible they got it from Europe. After the fall of Rome, the Europeans obsessed about what we now call ancient Greece. They studied Plato because of his connection to Paul and thus to Christian theology (which is probably more Plato than Jesus in some ways). They had, however, lost the works of Aristotle until the twelfth century or so, when he was re-introduced (they knew who he was, they had just lost his writings) through Arabic. I don't know the history of that word, but obviously its origins were in Athens, and both Europe and Arabic culture valued Athenian learning, so they may have both picked it up from ancient Athenian texts, or Europe could have picked it up along with science, math, and love songs, from the Muslims in Spain and Sicily, or it's possible that the Muslims picked it up later from the Europeans.

A weird parallel is zero. Rome, and thus Europe, had no concept of the zero, as you can tell by there being a 1 AD and a 1 BC, but no zero point between them. The Arabs also had no zero--they picked it up when they conquered India, who came up with it on their own or through contact with China (I'm not sure). But Arabic culture never really picked up the zero beyond their scholars and academics. When the European scholars began learning from the far superior Muslim scholars, they did learn about the zero, and its use spread quickly from academics to the populace, especially for use in trade and business. Through trade, it then began spreading from the Europeans back to the Muslim traders, and thus into common knowledge in Arabic culture, where they thought the zero was a European acquisition.

No idea how "democracy" and "dictator" spread. I'm sure it's been researched. I just dictionaried "dictator" and it has Latin origins, so they probably did learn the term from the West.

One more tidbit, just to demonstrate the complete superiority of Arabic/Persian/Muslim culture to Europe in the Middle Ages. Gerbert of Aurillac (later Pope Sylvester II) studied mathematics in northern Spain, in monasteries near the border with Muslim Spain. When he became Pope right around the first millenium, his mathematical skills and scientific knowledge were so far advanced beyond his fellow Christians that he was considered to be a wizard, and some thought he had dealings with the devil. He seems to have been able to work with Arabic numerals and zeros and the abacus (all concepts we got from Muslims), and this was incomprehensible to everyone else. A hundred years later Arabic/Muslim learning had become so commonplace that there was a backlash against it, as the Church and many Christian scholars fought the intrusion of concepts like logic and philosophy and theology into their concept of learning, which was based more on revealed texts than human reasoning. That's a little over-dramatized--a lot of Christian scholars at the time welcomed logic and used it extensively. But Muslim thought had created a revolution in European thought, and a lot of concepts we think of as Western--everything from Gothic architecture to love poetry and our whole concept of Romantic love--were heavily influenced or outright borrowed from Muslim/Arabic sources.

Oddly, we in the West commonly acknowledged this as recently as a hundred years ago, but sometime around the age of Darwin there was a Christian backlash that tried to forget all Muslim debt.

[Recursion]

4. "Dictator" was a roman political position

If that year's consuls were not up to solving a problem, one Senator could be made "dictator" (literally, speak-doer) for a limited period of time. Which worked until it didn't, and gave rise to people like Sulla who were "dictators" in the sense we mean it now. "Republic", incidentally, comes from res publica, and didn't at the time refer to a form of government at all, just the existence of one.

I don't know the history of that word, but obviously its origins were in Athens, and both Europe and Arabic culture valued Athenian learning, so they may have both picked it up from ancient Athenian texts

There's very little actual discussion of δημοκρατία in Aristotle's Politics, and it's not presented as a very good thing. Obviously Arab scholars would have been familiar with this book, but at the time they used I think the Arabic for "rule of the mob" (and "mob" escapes me at the moment). But in a modern context, you don't hear about it until the Ottomans start falling, which is why I'm pretty sure this form comes directly from English and/or French.

That's an awesome story about Sylvester, btw, thanks!

[Zephie]

2. K&R, very interesting information

Thank you.

[pokerfan]

3. Naming rights

Neil DeGrasse Tyson: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vrpPPV_yPY#t=18m19s

[woo me with science]

5. Great post. Thank you! nt