Talk:List of Spanish words of Arabic origin

Inclusion criteria etc.
them entered Spanish from an intermediary (example: albergue is ultimately from Germanic, but entered Spanish by way of Old Provencal). Names of ancient tribes, names of languages, and words denoting a person's ethnic group or nationality are included. Words not included, among others, are personal names, place names, names of mountains, rivers, cities, etc. as the list would become too expansive and there are other lists which can cover these lexical items. Many of these words have related forms (estampar and estampada) which are not included here unless, for various reasons, their relationship to each other is not obvious. Many of these words also contain Latinate affixes (example: in "alcantarilla," -illa is a dimunutive suffix) and components but have at least one component from another language (example: béisbol). Latin contained many words of Ancient Greek by the the time the Romans became involved in Iberia and those words are not included here except when 1. they were introduced to Spanish through a language other than Latin (example: albaricoque is from Ancient Greek but enter Spansih through Arabic) or 2. the word is attested in Greek, but is thought to stem from some other language (example: celta). Words which derived from attested Latin words are only included when 1. The Latin word is known to derive from another language except Ancient Greek (example: barca) 2. The Latin word is thought to have dervied from another language (example: batir). The Greek and Latin words will be grouped under "uncertain derivation." Some of the words grouped under "uncertain derivation" are documented, but are examples of onomatopoeic creations which can't be definitively attributed to a particular region or timeframe.--Hraefen 15:38, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
 * These words are grouped by the source language, even though many of

Other theories
a competing theory, feel free to add information about this alternate theory after the word and add your reference to the list of references, but do not remove this word from this list because it is sourced. Rather, follow the procedure stated above, and then add the word to "List of Spanish words of X origin." (along with reference)--Hraefen 15:38, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
 * There are often competing theories for word origins. If you know of

Defintions, subdivision, etc.
words may need to be subdivided into languages within a language family. I will be doing both of these tasks as soon as I can get to it.--Hraefen 15:38, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Definitions are currently not given, but they will be. Some of these

Arabic words
I have just found this page, I was trying to create another page of similar content. Doing so is very hard, it is nearly impossible to find all words of arabic origin and have never found a complete list anywhere. What is the aim of this article? Is it supposed to include all Spanish words of arabic origin or just an example of some? In any case, the list, in its present state offers only a fraction.--Guzman ramirez 09:32, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
 * The aim of the list is to have as many directly adquired arabic words in the Spanish as possible, provided they made its way to Spanish directly (not through another language). Mariano (t/c) 10:26, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Well Mariano, there are a number of mistakes in this list. I have tried to correct some striking ones (albergue and azteca) but there are many others. One mistake is confusing mozárabe with arabic. Words can be of mozárabe origin but still have latin roots since Mozárabe is primarily a romance language. An example of this is "Jota" (the aragonese dance), which is also on the list. I had started making a list of arabic words on another page which will have to be merged with this one. But in my opinion the list is so long that it will be impossible to fit it into one article. For example, I found nearly 600 words stemming directly from andalusi arabic starting with A... It may be possible perhaps if we make columns, but I dont know how to do that. Apparently there are around 5000 words in the Spanish language of arabic origin. In any case, I would really like to participate in this attempt since I think (not sure) it has never been done before.--Guzman ramirez 11:26, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
 * OK, I guess I need to bring my breve diccionario with me to work. All of the Spanish etymology pages show a word's ultimate deriviation and Arabic words that came to Spanish through an intermediary language do belong on this list.  All of the words on this list have at least one source for sure that claims they are entirely or partially of Arabic origin (some have non-Arabic elements in them of course).  the proper thing to do here is to cite a source that says a certain word has a different possible derivation and note it on the list.  You can also add it to a differnt Spanish etymology and link one to the other in the text.  But please do not remove words, because they are sourced.  We'll find a way to allow for all theories to be expressed.--Hraefen 20:34, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Hraefen, I just left u a message on your user page. I repeat the proper source to be used is www.rae.es. You can check all the words I removed on that site. It is the only real valid source regarding Spanish etymology.

I was thinking(that is the way I was proceeding on the page i created before I came to this one) that since there is such a HUGE number of Spanish words of arabic origin, we should limit the list to those that came directly from arabic. For example, what is the point of including words such as Sofa (which exists in every European language anyways and did not enter Europe through Spain?) Think that we are going to end up having thousands of words on this page and it is better to be "purist" and restrictive in our listing... Well thats my opinion.

Perhaps you should check out the methodology I used in the article I created ( which we will have to eventually merge into this one): "Spanish words of Arabic origin".

Creating it was my mistake I should have checked that there were no similar pages already in existence, but I already have close to 1000 words and I am still half way through the letter B... --Guzman ramirez 20:51, 6 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia, so we do not need to limit the length. And words like sofa should be included.  The word does exist in other European languages, but it still exists in Spanish.  So be bold, and include it all.  After the A section, the number of words of Arabic origin drops off dramatically.  Also, since you're new to Wikipedia, you might want to read WP:Verifiability to understand why relying on "the only real valid source regarding Spanish etymology" (I've already stated my disagreement with that statement) is not only unnecessary, but is a surefire way to start a silly edit war.  We need to allow for multiple views to be expressed, and treating the RAE as infallible does not allow for this. --Hraefen 17:06, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

ok maybe you are right. But another reason I wanted to exclude them (just to plead my case, I will never get involved in an edit war) is because I thought eventually, the words could be translated into English and an arab etymology be provided. And words such as Sofá (sofa) or Beduino (Beduin), would look bad on such a list. Maybe its just esthetics... Btw are u sure there is no limit on the size of articles?

There are some really beautiful etymologies: "Marrano" (pig, pork) from Arabic "Moharram" (forbidden). I read this one the other day somewhere... It is a very commonly used word, I wonder how many Spanish-speakers know its origin? --Guzman ramirez 22:06, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
 * If the page gets over a certain length (I think 32 kb), the edit screen will give a notice to this fact. Even then it's not crucial to split into two pages, but it may be something to think about if it continues to grow much larger after the .  And if Spanish speakers are anything like English speakers, they don't (in general) know a whole lot about the etymology of their own language.  Hmmm... I guess that's why we're cool.  --Hraefen 19:11, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Standard written format for all entries
Hello everyone!

I think all entries should adhere to a standard written format to make list overlookable and easy to navigate (see List of Arab scientists and scholars). I suggest a format like this:

*álgebra - Algebra; from al-jabr( الجبر), meaning reunion.


 * Notice the kursive form of al-jabir and reunion.

I changed all entries in this article to this format. Tell me what you think. jidan 16:06, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

By the way, i'm an arabic native speaker. If only a spaniard could write the meanings of these words in english, I can then write the orignial arabic word in Latin and arabic script. jidan 16:14, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Another thing Jidan, you will not be able to discern the arabic root of most of the Spanish words only from their meaning in English. The reason is that firstly, the words may have been corrupted significantly and secondly many derive from anachronisms in arabic with which you may not immediately be familiar with. I can give you the arabic root (roughly) and then you could write it properly. An example of this is Jaqueca (migraine). Jaqueca (pronounced Khakeka) is derived from Shaqeeqa which I think is an anachronism in Arabic. The more common word being Suda3 nisf. (I may be wrong on this I am not really an arabic speaker.)

Anyways we can work it all out between the 2 of us!:-)

--Guzman ramirez 17:44, 5 May 2006 (UTC)