Hello Laura,

The point was that the word flow was not Arabic to Spanish since the
subject was about Arabic words in Spanish.

I was already aware of the Spanish words from Arabic since I was a teenager
and I wasn't inferring otherwise.

Armando

On Sun, Sep 28, 2014 at 12:47 AM, wrote:

> Calzones and pantalones might be Latin in origin, but they're used in
> Arabic. So they got those words from the Spanish.
>
> There are indeed many Spanish words from Arabic, including our names:
> Guadalupe, Omar, Fatima, Lilia and Medina are just a few that come to mind.
>
> Arabic language influence on the Spanish language
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_language_influence_on_
> the_Spanish_language
>
>
>
> Laura Gonzalez

After researching the origin of the word pantalón I found that it is from
the name of one of the most important principal characters found in La
*Commedia
dell'Arte* from the 16th century. It is very doubtful that it made it into
Arabic from Spanish in the 16th century or after especially since from what
I can find pantalon or bantalun or بنطلون isn't even used in Morocco or
the Maghreb. They use sarwel for pantalón.

Armando

On Sun, Sep 28, 2014 at 12:47 AM, wrote:

> Calzones and pantalones might be Latin in origin, but they're used in
> Arabic. So they got those words from the Spanish.
>
> There are indeed many Spanish words from Arabic, including our names:
> Guadalupe, Omar, Fatima, Lilia and Medina are just a few that come to mind.
>
> Arabic language influence on the Spanish language
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_language_influence_on_
> the_Spanish_language
>
>
>
> Laura Gonzalez
>
>

I used to work with someone who had immigrated from Lebanon with his wife. One time, I walked into his office and he was on the phone with her, speaking in Arabic. At one point in the conversation, I was sure I heard the word "pantalones" distinctly. I thought it must be some other word that just had the same sound, as I don't speak Arabic. I asked him if he had been speaking to his wife about pants, and he said "Yes! You know Arabic?" I said no, the word for pants was the same in Spanish. We did a collective 'wow' and had a good laugh over that.

Last year, I went to the Middle East for a week for work. I wanted to learn a few words and phrases in order to get around, to ask directions, to shop, that kind of thing. I found that personally it was easier for me to learn Arabic words when I was using a Spanish-to-Arabic translator site. There are literally thousands of words that came into use in Castilian (typical Spanish) from the hundreds of years of Arabic rule of the Iberian peninsula. That and knowing that my family name seems to have deep roots in southern Spain (aka, Al Andalus) where the name Velez is spread throughout in names of towns, mountain ranges, and rivers, specifically names of places with towers (Ballis in Arabic) that had been established since the time of the Arabs, is what originally drove me to try and trace my family history. All very interesting stuff :)

Sandra Velez