Arabic influence on the Spanish language overwhelmingly dates from the Muslim era of the Iberian Peninsula between 711 and 1492. The influence results mainly from the large number of Arabic loanwords and derivations in Spanish, plus a few other less obvious effects.
History
The Spanish language, also called Castilian, is a Romance language that evolved from the dialects of Roman Vulgar Latin spoken in the Iberian Peninsula. The first examples of language with some features specific of modern Spanish are ascribed to documents from various monasteries in the area of Burgos and La Rioja in what is now northern Spain. However Toledo, in central Spain, which became the capital of the early Kingdom of Castile during its southward expansion, is where Spanish began to appear in a written form recognizable today. The preexisting Mozarabic dialect of this region (i.e. the Romance present during Muslim rule) is therefore likely to have also had an influence on modern Spanish. The lexical influence of Arabic reached its greatest level during the Christian Reconquista, when the emerging Kingdom of Castile conquered large territories from Moorish rulers, particularly in the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries. These territories, which included the former Taifa of Toledo, had large numbers of Arabic speakers as well as many who spoke local Romance dialects (Mozarabic) heavily influenced by Arabic, both influencing Castilian. It is possible that Arabic words and their derivatives had also already been brought into Castilian by Mozarab Christians who emigrated northwards from Al Andalus in times of sectarian violence, particularly during the times of Almohad and Almoravid rule in the 12th and 13th centuries. As such, Arabic can be considered to have had a formative influence on the Spanish language. The degree to which the Arabic language percolated through the Iberian Peninsula varied enormously from one period and area to another and is the subject of academic debate. However it is generally agreed that in much of the peninsula Arabic was used among the local elites, both Muslims and Christians, and that the prevalent vernacular in many areas was Mozarabic, a continuum of Arabic-influenced local Romance dialects. Only the southern third of the peninsula became totally Arabized as both Mozarabic and Christianity were extinguished following the Almoravid and Almohad periods. Much of the Arabic influence upon Spanish came through the various Arabized Romance dialects spoken in areas under Moorish rule, known today by scholars as Mozarabic. This resulted in Spanish often having both Arabic- and Latin-derived words with the same meaning. For example, aceituna and oliva (olive), alacrán and escorpión (scorpion), jaqueca and migraña (migraine), alcancía and hucha (piggy bank), ajonjolí and sésamo (sesame) etc. The influence of the Arabized Mozarabic and of Arabic itself is more noticeable in the Spanish dialects from regions with a longer history of Moorish domination than in those where it was shorter-lived. For this reason the dialects of the southern half of the country, known collectively as castellano meridional or Southern Castilian, seem collectively to show a higher degree of preference for Arabisms. Northern Spanish dialects tend to prefer Romance synonyms to terms of Arabic origin, such as the Romance calendario v. Arabic almanaque, hucha v. alcancía, espliego v. alhucema etc. Because Canarian and all Hispanic American dialects are mainly derived from Southern Castilian, Spanish words of Arabic origin are common in most varieties of Modern Spanish. A number of words were more recently borrowed from Moroccan Arabic, principally as a result of Spain's protectorate over Spanish Morocco in the 19th and 20th centuries, although these are of minor significance. The Spanish spoken in the Canary Islands has also adopted a small number of words from Hassaniya Arabic, principally from Canarian sailors who fish in proximity to the Saharan coast as well as by those Canarians who returned from Western Sahara after the Green March of 1975.
Lexical influence The influence of Arabic on the Spanish language is fundamentally lexical but its other influences are also briefly examined in this article. It is estimated that there are about one thousand Arabic roots and approximately three thousand derived words, making a total of around four thousand words or 8% of the Spanish dictionary. See Influences on the Spanish language for more on how the number of Arabisms in Spanish has been estimated. The exact number of words of Arabic origin and their derivatives in Spanish is not known, and many words not included on this list are regionalisms: words that are used in certain parts of Spain and/or Hispanic America but are generally unknown elsewhere. The high point of Arabic word use in Spanish was in late medieval times and has declined since then but hundreds are still used in normal conversation. The large majority of these words are nouns, with a number of verbs and adjectives derived direct from these nouns, e.g. alquilar (to rent) and alquilado (rented) from alquiler (rent), most of which are excluded from this list. There is also one preposition: hasta (until), and one adverb: he. There has been little influence on the basic grammatical structure of the language. Many Arabic loanwords in Spanish start with a- or al-, where these sounds come from the Arabic article al- (giving just a- when the Arabic word begins with a solar letter). This initial a(l)- is an integral part of the word in Spanish; that is, it is not a morpheme.
List of words of Arabic origin This is an open list of Spanish words acquired directly from Classical and Andalusi Arabic, listed in alphabetical order. This list includes the Spanish meaning of the word as well as the Arabic etymology. No fixed standard of Arabic transliteration is used. Rationale for inclusion Due to the great influence of Arabic on Spanish vocabulary, this list is relatively restrictive:
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