And the Hi, I'm Peter Adamson, and you're listening to the History of Philosophy podcast, brought to you with the support of the LMU in Munich, online at

www History of Philosophy. net. Today's episode, philosophy's reign in Spain, Andalusia.

What do the following words have in common?

Alcohol, saffron, coffee, hashish, and artichoke?

Well, they could all be elements in a night to remember, or perhaps a night to try to forget.

But what I have in mind is that they all come to us from Arabic.

I've mentioned before my favorite of all etymology, which is that the word giraffe comes from the Arabic

Zerafa.

Not far behind is one I more recently learned about.

The word arsenal derives from the Arabic phrase, d'Aracina, meaning house of manufacture, in other words the place where you make weapons.

So rumors that arsenal comes from the old French for second best team in North London turn out to have been spread by nefarious Tottenham fans, as if there were any other kind.

These are only a few of the English words that derive from Arabic. Some

others practically contain all of world history in them. For instance, orange, which came

into Arabic from Sanskrit via Persian, or guitar, which has the same

origin as the word zither, namely the Greek kithara.

This passed into Arabic as Kitar, thence into Spanish as Gitarra, and then finally into English through French.

Notice the intermediary role of Spanish there, which isn't a unique case.

Words like Adobe, Obregine, and Tuna passed into our language from Arabic thanks to Spanish or Catalan.

And here's my favorite example that stayed in Spanish.

In Arabic, the word for until is Hata, which became

Asta, as in Asta la Vista, baby.

Well, I say it stayed in Spanish.

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