sorry missing the segnificance of Indo-european? But my other thought was could the influence be from the spanish? or rather the jeusits, coming to prague from spain and starting up their universities etc... would that be why tea is caj and pineapple is ananas? Also is ananas originally arabic or did the arabs borrow it from someone else? yes the history of langage is a fasinating thing.
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The grouping of languages into families, like Indo-European, is to due to their common heritage and the belief that they came from one proto-language. Arabic and Czech are in seperate families, but Persian and Czech are not. If Persian was influenced by Arabic, then Czech could be influenced through that connection, but I'm speculating. If there did not influence each other, they may have been influenced by another language.Originally Posted by Nightshade
The following is from Wkipedia, so take it with a grain of salt.
History of the idea of Indo-European
Suggestions of similarities between Indian and European languages began to be made by European visitors to India in the sixteenth century. In 1583 Thomas Stephens, an English Jesuit missionary in Goa, noted similarities between Indian languages, specifically Konkani, and Greek and Latin. These observations were included in a letter to his brother which was not published until the twentieth century.
The first account to mention Sanskrit came from Filippo Sassetti (born in Florence, Italy in 1540 AD), a Florentine merchant who traveled to the Indian subcontinent and was among the first European observers to study the ancient Indian language, Sanskrit. Writing in 1585, he noted some word similarities between Sanskrit and Italian (e.g. deva/dio 'God', sarpa/serpe 'snake', sapta/sette 'seven', ashta/otto 'eight', nava/nove 'nine'). However, neither Stephens' nor Sassetti's observations led to further scholarly inquiry.
In 1647 Dutch linguist and scholar Marcus Zuerius van Boxhorn noted the similarity among Indo-European languages, and supposed the existence of a primitive common language which he called "Scythian". He included in his hypothesis Dutch, Greek, Latin, Persian, and German, later adding Slavic, Celtic and Baltic languages. However, the suggestions of Van Boxhorn did not become widely known and did not stimulate further research.
The hypothesis re-appeared in 1786 when Sir William Jones first lectured on similarities between four of the oldest languages known in his time: Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, and Persian. Systematic comparison of these and other old languages conducted by Franz Bopp supported this theory, and Bopp's Comparative Grammar, appearing between 1833 and 1852 counts as the starting-point of Indo-European studies as an academic discipline.
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What specific words have you noticed. There never was much connection between Central Europe and the Arab regions, but there are some Moslems in Southeastern Poland and Ukrainya.
If "tea is caj and pineapple is ananas" are the limit of the similarities between Czech and Arabic, then the words probably came in with the products.
Ananas
caj
kava ( very close to the arabic word for coffee
and then the sounds of the letters many similarities, the czechs keep saying they are amazed i can pronounced the words with so little accent, and it isbecause the sounds are identical to ones found in arabic. But then german also shares alot of sounds and Im fairly sure there isnt alink between arabic and german.
Also the sentance structure is fairly similar, the way the words are conjucated or whatever its called and the order of the sentances and phrases..
Edit just seen second post: well yes that was my original conclusion but I said that I was just wondering which it was.
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I am not sure about Alagoas altough all the rest is correct. Must add also that the influence is not only because the iberic uniion period, since Brazil is the country that have more arabian (putting them all in the same bag) in the world, not being one arabian country. Also, the obvious influence with mathematic language.
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Search for information about Nostratic. It is a hypothesis that the Afro-Asiatic Langues, Indo-European, Finno-Urgric, and another language family are related, although less closely than languages within the families. There are two higher levels of relationship among languages. Those higher level relationships are not widely accepted in linguistics, but have noticed that there are some features of Chinese that seems related to Indo-European. Don't make too much of such apparent relationships, because all humans use the brain structure, which governs sentence structure and grammar, and vocal apparatus, which determines what sounds can be made, so all languages have fundamental similarities, The people who tried to find the original 'proto-world' language have come up with dozens of words that are found all around the world, and a remarkable percentage of them are considered obscene in English.
This site has a list and is skeptical about proto-world: http://www.zompist.com/proto.html
The subject was a special interest of mine for a time.
Thanks, I've been reading a lot of pro books and it is good to balance studies like this out with an argument.
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Yes! We have these fatheh, zam'meh, kasreh and sokoon but they are not written. Of course, in some parts it is not like Arabic and it is different.
Spain and Persia was influenced by Arabic in the same way, being conquered by Arabs and ruled by their Emirs for years.
We call coffee ghahve, too. Now where we get this word? I think it is the same word coffee but with different pronunciation, Am I right/?
It is the same for ananas!
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Well, in Lithuanian language coffee is called cava too although they make their coffee with ground roasted acorns!
Arabic has 'Aaraab' or 'zer', 'zabr', 'paish' 'sakin', then the first three are doubled to add an 'n' sound at the end of the alphabet thus 'alif zabr' (the tiny right slash on top) becomes 'Aa', 'alif zer' (the tiny right slash under) becomes 'Eee', 'Alif paish' (the tiny comma on top) becomes 'Ooo' whereas the smaller and open-topped comma of 'sakin' keeps the alphabet without an accent. These things are later developments as after the conquest of Iran, the Caliph ordered this addition to avoid mis-pronunciation of the Quranic language. Arabic is subtle as slight mis-pronunciation or even stress on the wrong syllabus can totally alter the meaning. Everyday Arabic is still the same and Arabic in newspapers etc does not use these pronunciation marks whereas Quranic Arabic does.
Arabs were traders. They were visiting India and China centuries before Vasco de Gama and Marco Polo. They took their goods everywhere and naturally the more exotic goods got Arabic names in certain places.
Spanish is hugely influenced by Arabic because of the highly diverse and vibrant society under the Moorish Caliphs whose rule lasted over 700 years. I am fascinated by that chapter in European history. When Germans were hunting Gypsies with dogs, Moors were welcoming them and letting them bring their exotic arts to their lands. I am fascinated by the history of the Romani Gypsy folks as well. Apparently they were low-caste Hindus from India. When Sultan Mehmmod of Ghazna attacked the Indian and sacked their temples and took away their treasures, only to come back next year, year after year (he attacked India 17 times!), the upper castes 'upgraded' the lower castes to the 'fighting castes' temporarily. Naturally they failed to stop the onslaught. But Sultan Mehmood, that great patron of arts, architecture and literature (oh yes, he had a huge number of very great poets in his court. He paid Firdousi with thirty camels loaded with pure gold for his Shahnameh which is dedicated to Mahmood). All this gold had to come from somewhere and all those palaces and architectural wonders needed cheap labor. The defeated armies of the Hindus were driven over the mountains to Afghanistan (that mountain range is still called Hindu Kush or 'Hindu Killer'). Most died on the way, some escaped and some reached the other side only to build palaces etc. Those who escaped just went away in any direction. Some decided to roam in Central Europe (mainly Romania), some went further. Another fascinating fact pops up here. Nations who were nice to these black-eyed, dark-skinned people received exotic arts and culture in reply. The French, the Spanish culture is all the more colorful because of the gypsy element. Nations who were hostile to them became monolithic, mostly white, and less vibrants. Germans hunted them with dogs, entire forests were burnt to 'smoke out' gypsies who were literally 'hounded' to death. This lasted over five centuries and culminated in the Gypsy holocaust at the hands of Nazis, one long, harrowing tale of prosecution of the innocent. Gypsies were welcomed in the Moorish Spain and France, specially the Southern regions. Some also moved in the British Isles via Scotland. Living in England, I know that these people are still hated here!
Is it relevant here? I think the great influence of the 'Indo'-European languages has something to do with the Gypsy Diaspora which had started in the 10th Century and the movement of these Indic people is still going on. With Romania set to join the EU, we are seeing more and more of these people on the streets. Their complexion, black eyes and language raise eyebrows but I really do hope they bring with them their great and 'outrageously' exotic traditions of singing, dancing and story-telling.
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As you said it didn't have these pronunciation marks, I think it is called Koofi, then they are added as you said mis-pronuncing a word which leads into another meaning, which is important in reading Quran.
How interesting! All languages influce each other in different ways.Arabs were traders. They were visiting India and China centuries before Vasco de Gama and Marco Polo. They took their goods everywhere and naturally the more exotic goods got Arabic names in certain places.
Spanish is hugely influenced by Arabic because of the highly diverse and vibrant society under the Moorish Caliphs whose rule lasted over 700 years. I am fascinated by that chapter in European history. When Germans were hunting Gypsies with dogs, Moors were welcoming them and letting them bring their exotic arts to their lands. I am fascinated by the history of the Romani Gypsy folks as well. Apparently they were low-caste Hindus from India. When Sultan Mehmmod of Ghazna attacked the Indian and sacked their temples and took away their treasures, only to come back next year, year after year (he attacked India 17 times!), the upper castes 'upgraded' the lower castes to the 'fighting castes' temporarily. Naturally they failed to stop the onslaught. But Sultan Mehmood, that great patron of arts, architecture and literature (oh yes, he had a huge number of very great poets in his court. He paid Firdousi with thirty camels loaded with pure gold for his Shahnameh which is dedicated to Mahmood). All this gold had to come from somewhere and all those palaces and architectural wonders needed cheap labor. The defeated armies of the Hindus were driven over the mountains to Afghanistan (that mountain range is still called Hindu Kush or 'Hindu Killer'). Most died on the way, some escaped and some reached the other side only to build palaces etc. Those who escaped just went away in any direction. Some decided to roam in Central Europe (mainly Romania), some went further. Another fascinating fact pops up here. Nations who were nice to these black-eyed, dark-skinned people received exotic arts and culture in reply. The French, the Spanish culture is all the more colorful because of the gypsy element. Nations who were hostile to them became monolithic, mostly white, and less vibrants. Germans hunted them with dogs, entire forests were burnt to 'smoke out' gypsies who were literally 'hounded' to death. This lasted over five centuries and culminated in the Gypsy holocaust at the hands of Nazis, one long, harrowing tale of prosecution of the innocent. Gypsies were welcomed in the Moorish Spain and France, specially the Southern regions. Some also moved in the British Isles via Scotland. Living in England, I know that these people are still hated here!
Is it relevant here? I think the great influence of the 'Indo'-European languages has something to do with the Gypsy Diaspora which had started in the 10th Century and the movement of these Indic people is still going on. With Romania set to join the EU, we are seeing more and more of these people on the streets. Their complexion, black eyes and language raise eyebrows but I really do hope they bring with them their great and 'outrageously' exotic traditions of singing, dancing and story-telling.
But what about other languages influence on Arabic!?
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For Machado's novels, seach Quincas Borba and The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas. It's good for starting.
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Last edited by Brasil; 06-13-2008 at 10:37 AM.
For a time I thought highly of the Proto-world idea, but the more I read and thought about it, the less confident I became in it. There are a few words that are nearly universal, 'mama' for example, but the widespread of those few words may be an artifact of the way the words are produced physically.
Some of the other relationships among apparently unrelated languages are true mysteries: 30% of the root words in one North American language family are Basque roots, and there is no historical explanation for that.
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