10 words of Arabic origin that the French often use

[jrineakter]

Tom: The words store, orange, zero, and there are more than 500 of them in the French language.

Emma: Dad is going to introduce you to 10 of them today.

Hello and thank you for joining us for this new video. And today, as you may have guessed, we are going to discover together 10 words that come to us from Arabic. As Tom told us, Arabic has greatly influenced the French language. The reasons are mostly historical. Are you ready to discover these 10 words? I am pretty sure that you did not know that some of them came to us from Arabic.

The first is the word "coffee." You must be familiar with this drink, which I personally love. It appeared in East Africa, in the Arab-Muslim world, and was then exported to Italy before appearing in France in the 17th century. Just like the drink, the word "coffee" has also traveled a lot. In Arabic, this drink was called "qahwa." In Turkish, apparently, it's "kahve" or "kahve." I'm not entirely sure of the pronunciation. In Italian, we had "caffè." And in French, we say "café."

It's always interesting to see how languages ​​and words in particular evolve according to geography and time. There are many words that are derived from the word "coffee". We have the coffee pot, to make coffee; the word "coffee" but which designates the place and not the drink, we say "I go to a café". We also have the word "decaffeinated", to say that there is no caffeine in a drink, etc.

Second French word that has an Arabic origin, the word "nénuphar". So, it's not a word that we use every day, but it's still part of the French language, and it designates a plant that has round leaves and that grows at water level. It's an aquatic plant. And we often see its leaves at the surface of the water. This word comes from the Arabic "nīnūfar".

Thirdly, a very used word, this one, the word "orange". You probably know this word, the word "orange", which corresponds to a fruit from the orange tree, and it is a fruit that we japan whatsapp number data consume a lot. Either we eat it like that, we cut it, we remove the skin and we eat the fruit, or we make juice from it, orange juice. This word comes from the Arabic word "naranj". It is in fact a bitter orange that we call "the bigarade". And the word "naranj" gave us the word "orange".

We can understand why the "n" that was at the beginning of "naranj" fell or was removed, since in French it is a feminine word, so we say "une", and it was difficult, I think, to say "une naranj", so we say une naranj, an orange. And over time, the "n" that was at the beginning disappeared and we now say "une orange".

And there are other fruits and vegetables whose name comes from Arabic in French. I'm thinking of the apricot, the artichoke, the pumpkin or even spinach.

Fourth word, the word "store". A store is a place where you sell goods, where you sell things. If you want to buy milk, fruit, vegetables, an orange, you can go to the store. The word "store" is borrowed from the Arabic "mahazin", which is the plural of the word "mahzan", which means "warehouse". And of course, I probably pronounce Arabic very badly.

Fifth, the word "skirt". The skirt is a feminine garment that is used for the lower body. It is borrowed from the Arabic "jobba". It is a long woolen garment worn by men. The word appears in French in the 12th century and is used for a man's garment. It is only in the 17th century that it begins to be used for a woman's garment.

Sixth, the word "mattress." The mattress is the part of the bed on which we sleep, on which we lie down. It is the part that is a little soft and comfortable. It is the mattress. There is a double influence of Arabic here for this word "mattress." First, the word "matrah" which means cushion, carpet, and the word "taraha," which means "to throw." Traditionally, the carpet and cushions were thrown where we came to sit, and these two words therefore gave rise to the word "mattress."

Seventh, it is not just one word here, it is about numbers, the numbers from zero to nine. Our current numbering system comes from Arab mathematicians. In Arabic, "ṣifr" means "empty", "nothingness". And ṣifr, that gave the origin of the word "number" which, originally, was used for zero. And there are other scientific words that have an Arabic origin, like algebra, algorithm or even alchemy.

We have three words left to see and, in my opinion, you don't know them or in any case there is little chance, in my opinion, that you know these three words. These are words of colloquial language, they are said to be slang words, and they are very often used by young people. So, some French people my age will even have difficulty understanding these words. And in any case, we won't use them. So, you will tell me in the comments if you knew these last three words.