How Arabic helped shape everyday English

Many English speakers use Arabic-derived words every day without realizing it.

In a new UCLA video, Kinda Al Rifae, a lecturer in Arabic at UCLA, highlights how centuries of scholarship, trade and cultural exchange helped carry Arabic vocabulary into the English language.

Al Rifae points to the Islamic Golden Age, a period when scholars across the Arab world made major advances in mathematics, science, medicine, literature and the arts. Their work was preserved in centers of learning and later spread into Europe, where many Arabic terms entered other languages and eventually English.

Some of those words remain deeply embedded in academic disciplines today.

The word "algebra," for example, comes from "al-jabr," meaning to restore or put back together, a reference to solving equations. "Chemistry" traces connections to "al-kīmiyāʾ," while "alcohol" comes from "al-kuḥl," a term that originally referred to a fine cosmetic powder before its meaning evolved over time.

Arabic also left its mark on literature and the arts. The English word "genie," popularized through "Kitāb Alf Laylah wa-Laylah" - known in English as "One Thousand and One Nights," the classic collection of Middle Eastern and South Asian folk tales - originates from "jinn," meaning an invisible spiritual being.

In music, "lute" comes from "al-ʿūd," meaning "the wood," while in architecture, "adobe" derives from "al-ṭūb," meaning brick and referring to sun-dried clay bricks used in traditional building.

Across disciplines, Al Rifae says, the Arabic language traveled alongside ideas, helping shape the vocabulary of modern life.