How do you say 'OIL' in Spanish? Arabic words in Spanish

Diseño del blog

3 noviembre 2021

Ana del Río

How do you say 'OIL' in Spanish?

Have you ever wondered why some words are so different in Spanish?

Here you have an example:

The Spanish word aceite comes from the Hispanic Arab -azzáyt-, this from the Classic Arab -azzayt- and this from the Aramaic -zaytā-.

That's the reason why is so different from other languages, as you can see in the picture above, in which the word in question comes from the Latin -oleum-.

To understand the appearance of arabic words in the Spanish language we should go back in time and remember one of the most important periods of the Spanish History: The Muslim ruled in the Iberian Peninsula between 711 and 1492. Almost eight centuries of Arabic presence in what today we call Spain and Portugal!

Now you understand the Arabic influence on the Spanish language and why we have a close cultural relation: the food, the architecture, the music, the dance and of course, the language. There are more than four thousand Spanish words with an Arabic origin, which means that 8% of the Spanish dictionary are arabisms.

Some other examples: alquilar (to rent), azúcar (sugar), algodón (cotton), zanahoria (carrot)…

In our school, we encourage our students to go into detail in the origin of the words and their evolution.

To know more about the incorporation and use of foreign words in Spanish, check out our last teaching materials:

Explore our shop for many other teaching materials:

Now, it's your turn:

How do you say 'oil' in your language?

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