ENGLISH WORDS OF ARABIC ORIGIN: AN ETYMOLOGICAL SURVEY
ENGLISH WORDS OF ARABIC ORIGIN: AN ETYMOLOGICAL SURVEY
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2009-04
Authors
TANIMU, AHMED JIBRIL
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
This research work discusses the sociolinguistic phenomenon of
borrowing among languages whenever they come into contact. It
provides an insight into the notion of language borrowing and how it
affects the vocabulary build-up of a given language. This research
investigates the roots of some English words of Arabic origin and how
they made their way into the stock of the English vocabulary. The study
elaborates the meaning of language borrowing, its implications, reasons,
the role it plays in vocabulary build-up, etc. It also discusses the nature
of the relationship between the English language and Arabic and how
they came into contact. The research work is archival. The researcher
explains how he went about collecting the data that would be sampled,
presented and analyzed later, and the techniques applied in the data
collection and analysis. The research presents the data collected and
analyzes it by putting the data in tables. This tabulation categorizes the
meanings, routes, the nature of borrowing, and the approximate time of
the appearance of some of these loanwords in the English vocabulary.
The raw data of this research comprises a list of Arabic loanwords in the
English language. The findings of the investigation show how the English
and Arabic languages came into contact, and how Arabic words
influenced the English vocabulary, and it also indicates the major fields
of specialization from which most of the borrowed words originated. It
also examines the levels to which most of these loanwords got assimilated
into the borrowing language. It is generally an etymological analysis of
some Arabic originated words that became part of the English
vocabulary today
Description
A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF
ENGLISH AND LITERARY STUDIES, FACULTY OF ARTS,
AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY, ZARIA, IN PARTIAL
FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE
AWARD OF MASTER OF ARTS DEGREE IN ENGLISH
LANGUAGE.
APRIL, 2009
Keywords
ENGLISH WORDS,, ARABIC ORIGIN,, ETYMOLOGICAL,, SURVEY