Why is it that English is surfeited with scientific, geographic, and mathematical terms derived from Arabic? While there are many names derived from Hebrew, and no small number of colorful terms from Yiddish, it's Arabic that informs English from Amber to zero. I know the answer would make a doctoral dissertation, so please provide a short answer - one I might possibly understand.

Interesting question, Geoff. Unfortunately this is way too sophisticated for me. Z? Goofy? Bob? Anyone else?

Because Baghdad was a hoppin' place between 800 and 1100.

From antiquity to the present day the Arabs have been great traders, and trading routes to Africa, India, and east Asia/China were Arab-controlled. That meant that Arabic words were used to describe items and goods originating in those areas which weren't known in Europe before.

During a period of relative stagnation in Europe (around 800-1500) the Arabs also had many scientists and scholars, paricularly in the fields of mathematics and medicine, and their discoveries meant that several Arabic words came to Europe and England.

Neveu and arnie, you make sense. I had also thought it might have to do with their having preserved the Greek learning that disappeared in Europe during the Dark Ages. Maybe a nexus of the two factors?

Another question: How many Indian/Pakistani/Bangthedishi languages are strongly influenced by Arabic?

I think there are many Arabic loanwords in Persian, which made their way into Urdu, Hindi, Panjabi and the other Indic languages. The Panjabi word Khālsā comes from Arabic.

During the Moghal Empire the Perso-Arabic script started to be used for Urdu. It's also used for other languages in Pakistan and northern India, and of course Iran.

For this reason some people think Persian and Urdu are closely related to Arabic - they're not, they just use the same script and have some loanwords.

The Arabic script influenced the Thaana script, which is used in the Maldives.

This cool map shows the states and countries of the subcontinent written in their scripts. As you can see a lot of the languages in north India and Pakistan use the Perso-Arabic script. Thaana is in the lower left.

All the other scripts of the subcontinent (except for Chinese) are descended from Brahmi.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: goofy,

The Moghals were, of course, followers of Islam. As well as being Persian, with its many Arabic loan words, they would also have a knowledge of Classical Arabic, as that is the language of the Qur'an. At its height, the Moghal Empire ruled over almost all of the Indian sub-continent.

The two main languages in the area noadays are Urdu and Hindi. According to Wikipedia

quote:

Although Persian was the dominant and "official" language of the empire, the language of the elite later evolved into a form of Hindustani today known as Urdu. Highly Persianized and also influenced by Arabic and Turkic, the language was written in a type of Perso-Arabic script known as Nastaliq, and with literary conventions and specialized vocabulary being retained from Persian, Arabic and Turkic; the new dialect was eventually given its own name of Urdu. Compared with Hindi, the Urdu language draws more vocabulary from Persian and Arabic (via Persian) and (to a much lesser degree) from Turkic languages where Hindi draws vocabulary from Sanskrit more heavily.[16] Modern Hindi, which uses Sanskrit-based vocabulary along with Urdu loan words from Persian and Arabic, is mutually intelligible with Urdu.[17]

quote:

Originally posted by arnie:
The two main languages in the area noadays are Urdu and Hindi.

If you mean the area bordered on the north by Himachal Pradesh, on the west by Pakistan, and on the south by Rajasthan and on the East by Uttar Pradesh, then yes. Although I remember reading somewhere that Urdu is the native language of a very small percentage of the population of Pakistan.

Indian currency has 15 languages on it, you can see them on this image. I don't know why there's no Hindi.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: goofy,

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During a period of relative stagnation in Europe (around 800-1500) the Arabs also had many scientists and scholars, paricularly in the fields of mathematics and medicine, and their discoveries meant that several Arabic words came to Europe and England.

Astronomy, too. According to Neil deGrasse Tyson, about 2/3 of the named stars have Arabic names.

Well, neveu, it has been awhile. We've missed you!

I don't know why there's no Hindi.

Because, it's written big on the bill (image) along with English.

Since I've actually used the money you'd think I would know that.

quote:

Originally posted by Geoff:
Why is it that English is surfeited with scientific, geographic, and mathematical terms derived from Arabic? While there are many names derived from Hebrew, and no small number of colorful terms from Yiddish, it's Arabic that informs English from Amber to zero. I know the answer would make a doctoral dissertation, so please provide a short answer - one I might possibly understand.

The Muslims made very selective use of The Glory That Was Greece. They loved the mathematics, specially geometry, Logic and medicine and ignored the plays and the visual arts. What they chose to translate with additions from India (the concept of Zero) and China was bequeathed to the West.

Also, not all of the Arabic or Persian loanwords came directly from those two languages, but from intermediary languages: cf. algebra and algorithm both came to European languages from Latin (translations of Arabic and Persian words from a book written in Arabic by a Persian mathematician).