Familiar
Language

You know,

as muslim knowledge spread into Europe and Britain,

many Arabic words found their way into the English language,

words that are still in common use today.

These are not just the obvious names of Mediterranean foods

like "hummus" and "falafels"

and "halwa" meaning sweet,

but also fruits, like the apricot "al-barquq",

the lemon "limun"

and lime "lim",

and the orange "naranj",

with the tangerine named after the Morrocan city of Tangiers "tanger".

The Arabs also grew sugar cane,

which gave us not just the name sugar "sukar"

but also the words for syrup and sherbet and sorbet from "sharab",

and of course you could use sugar to sweeten your coffee "qahwa"

or make candy "qandi" (meaning sugared).

And there were flavours

that could be added to food,

like caraway and jasmine and tarragon "tarkhun",

or the chocolatey flavour of carob,

foods that might contain aubergines or artichokes,

or Popeye's favourite, spinach "isbinakh".

And saffron is used as a flavour, but is also a colour,

like azure and lilac and crimson "qurmisi",

all of which might be seen in fabrics like cotton "qutn",

gauze "qazz", or damask

which came from Damascus "dimashq",

and you might use your fabric to make a sash,

a ribbon of fine cloth "shash"

originally wrapped to make a turban,

or you might decorate your clothing with sequins "sikka",

named after the minting die used for gold coins.

Or your threads may be coarser,

and knitted together as macrame "miqrama",

or fluffy like mohair "al-mukhayyar",

which might even be made into a jumper "jubba".

And there are some jumpers of the animal world,

like gazelles and gerbils

that take their names from the Arabic,

along with the rather more stately giraffe "zarafa",

as well as some fish, like tuna,

and birds, like the albatross,

and the rook, which gets its name from a mythical bird

told of in the Arabian nights.

Of course, in the 1001 nights there are all sorts of Arabic names that we will recognise,

like sheikhs and sultans and viziers,

along with harems and genies "jinn",

and assassins "hashishiyya",

who did their deadly deeds after smoking hashish,

perhaps smoked in a hookah "huqqa",

a water pipe that can still be seen in Arab cafes today,

and also if you look very carefully

being smoked by caterpillars on top of small mushrooms.

Nowadays, people still go on safari

from "safar", meaning to travel,

and of course they might travel in a caravan,

setting up camp in a different place each night as they go.

And science still uses lots of Arabic words,

from azimuth to nadir to zenith,

and words in chemistry "al-chimie"

from boron and borax from "buraq"

to camphor and talc,

alkali "al-qali",

and of course alcohol from "al-kohl",

which originally meant a very fine powder,

though it might have been made into an elixir "al-iksir".

Then there's algebra and algorithms

from Al-Khwarizmi,

which might be used to decipher a code or cipher

from "sifr", the word for zero.

Arabic words also spill over into the military,

like admiral "al-amir"

and arsenal,

and magazine from "makhasin",

meaning a storehouse as might be used for ammunition,

and Arabic words are common for everyday things around the house,

like another word for storage, the jar "jarra".

or you might be lying on a sofa "suffa"

or a mattress "matrah",

perhaps in an alcove "al-qubba"

listening to the traffic outside from "tafriq",

meaning people and vehicles coming and going.

You might be having a day that is just average from "awar",

meaning anything slightly damaged or not quite perfect.

Or you might be reading a scary story about a ghoul "ghul",

or an Egyptian mummy from "mumiya",

meaning embalming fluid or an embalmed corpse.

Like scary stories, language can be full of surprises,

and sometimes what we think of as Scottish

can have come from far away,

and sometimes what is foreign is more familiar than we thought.