There are also a few sounds that don’t exist in other languages, such as 'ح' , which is a ‘h’ sound as in ‘hubb’ (love). To get an idea of how this is pronounced, imagine breathing on a window pane to create a mist.
English has many words acquired either directly from Arabic or indirectly from Arabic words that have entered into Romance languages before passing into English. Examples include: racquet, alchemy, alcohol, algebra, algorithm, alkaline, (the article ‘al’ in Arabic denotes ‘the’), amber, arsenal, candy, coffee, cotton, ghoul, hazard, lemon, loofah, magazine, sherbet, sofa, tariff – and many more.
The algebraic letter ‘x’ that represents an unknown number, originates from the Arabic word ‘shay’ (thing), which eventually became translated to ‘xay’ in Spain, leading to its final abbreviation and use in algebra as ‘x’.
Even the number system used today was introduced to Europeans by Arab merchants.
Arabic Variations
