Arabic has had a great influence on other languages, especially in vocabulary. The influence of Arabic has been most profound in those countries visited by Islam or Islamic power. Arabic loanwords have made their way into languages as diverse as Abkhaz, Afrikaans, Amharic, Albanian, Armenian, Assyrian, Azerbaijani, Balochi, Bengali, Berber, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chechen, Circassian, Croatian, English, French, Georgian, Greek, Gujarati, Hausa, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Kazakh, Kurdish, Kyrgyz, Macedonian, Malay, Mongolian, Montenegrin, Nepali, Odia, Ossetian, Pashto, Persian, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romani, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Sicilian, Spanish, Sindhi, Somali, Swahili, Tagalog, Tajik, Tatar, Tigrinya, Turkish, Turkmen, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uyghur, Uzbek, Visayan, Wolof, Xhosa, Yoruba, and Zulu, as well as into other languages within the countries where these languages are spoken. Some languages such as Maltese and Nubi outright derive from Arabic, rather than merely borrowing vocabulary. Arabic words were being used from the Iberian Peninsula all the way to Maritime Southeast Asia prior to the spread of European international words. Spanish has one of the largest Arabic-influenced vocabularies of any European language— around 8%— due to Arab rule mainly in Southern Iberia, a region that was known as Al-Andalus, from 711 until 1492; however, Spain's re-Christianization and resulting loss of contact with Arabic culture has led to a significant shift in both meaning and pronunciation of Spanish words of Arabic etymology. The terms borrowed range from religious terminology (like Berber taẓallit, "prayer" < salat), academic terms (like Persian manteq, "logic"), to everyday conjunctions (like Hindi/Urdu lekin, "but"). Most Berber varieties (such as Kabyle), along with Swahili, borrow numbers from Arabic. Most religious terms used by Muslims around the world are direct borrowings from Arabic, such as ṣalāt, 'prayer' and imām, 'prayer leader'. In languages not directly in contact with the Arab world, Arabic loanwords are often mediated by other languages rather than being transferred directly from Arabic; for example many older Arabic loanwords in Hausa were borrowed from Kanuri. Arabic has also influenced the names of the days of the week in a number of languages, Indonesian, Lezgian, Malagasy, Malay, Somali, Swahili, Tausaug, Yakan. Outside the Muslim world, there are more limited borrowings from Arabic, usually to denote vegetables and other articles in commerce, such as "aubergine", "alcohol" and also some other terms like "admiral". Among European languages, these mostly were transmitted through Spanish and Turkish.
Interlingua Dozens of Arabic words occur in Interlingua, frequently because their co-occurrence in such languages as English, French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese can be used to verify their internationality. Many of these words entered Interlingua's vocabulary through Spanish. Arabic words in Interlingua include "algebra", "alcohol", "cifra" (cypher), "magazin", "sucro" (sugar), "zenit", and "zero".
Austronesian languages
Javanese There are far fewer Arabic loanwords in Javanese than Sanskrit loanwords, and they are usually concerned with Islamic religion. Nevertheless, some words have entered the basic vocabulary, such as pikir ("to think", from the Arabic fikr), badan ("body"), mripat ("eye", thought to be derived from the Arabic ma'rifah, meaning "knowledge" or "vision"). However, these Arabic words typically have native Austronesian or Sanskrit alternatives: pikir = galih, idhĕp (Austronesian) and manah, cipta, or cita (from Sanskrit); badan = awak (Austronesian) and slira, sarira, or angga (from Sanskrit); and mripat = mata (Austronesian and Tagalog [Philippines]) and soca or netra (from Sanskrit).
Malay and Indonesian In Indonesian and Malaysian Malay, the loanwords from Arabic are mainly concerned with religion, in particular with Islam, but to a lesser extent Christianity. Nevertheless, some words have even entered the basic vocabulary; words of Arabic origin include dunia (from Arabic: دنيا dunya = the present world), Sabtu (from Arabic: السبت as-sabt = Saturday), khabar or kabar (خبر ḵabar = news), selamat/salam (سلام salām = a greeting), Jumaat or Jumat (الجمعة al-jumʿa = Friday), ijazah (إجازة ijāza = vacation), kitab (كتاب kitāb = book), nikah (نكاح nikāh = marriage or wedding), tertib (ترتيب tartīb = orderly) and kamus (قاموس qāmūs = dictionary).
Christian usage Ilah (Arabic: إله) is the word for God even in Christian Bible translations. Many early Bible translators, when they came across some unusual Hebrew words or proper names, used the Arabic cognates. In the newer translations this practice is discontinued. They now turn to Greek names or use the original Hebrew Word. For example, the name Jesus was initially translated as 'Isa (Arabic: عيسى), but is now spelt as Yesus. Several ecclesiastical terms derived from Arabic still exist in Indonesian and Malaysian clerical use. The Malay word for bishop is uskup (from Arabic: اسقف usquf = bishop, ultimately from Ancient Greek episkopos). This in turn makes the derived term for "archbishop" uskup agung (literally great bishop), which is combining the Arabic word with an Old Javanese word. The term imam (from Arabic: امام imām = leader, prayer leader) is used to translate a Catholic priest, beside its more common association with an Islamic prayer leader. Some Protestant denominations refer to their congregation as jemaat (from Arabic: جماعة jamā'a = group, community). Even the name of the Bible in Indonesian translation is Alkitab (from Arabic: كتاب kitāb = book), which literally means "the Book".
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