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The Emergence of Arabic Scientific Terminology at the Eastern Contact Zone: Calque and Loanword in Early ʿAbbāsid Time (750–800 CE)

  • Milad Abedi ORCID logo EMAIL logo and Johannes Thomann
Published/Copyright: November 29, 2024
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Abstract

Superstratum languages often become substratum languages after military defeats. This was the case with Middle Persian in the Islamic Empire. There were different phases of interference between Middle Persian and Arabic. For example, Middle Persian terms, especially in administration and technology, were borrowed into Arabic. Later, in the first decades of Abbasid rule, a new scientific terminology was developed in Arabic based on translations of Sanskrit and Middle Persian texts in the fields of mathematics, astronomy, and medicine. Besides that, some scientific concepts of Chinese origin were received too. Most of these early Arabic scientific texts are lost, having been replaced later in the 3rd/9th century by translations of Greek scientific works. However, many fragments of them are preserved in secondary tradition, and such materials have been only partially studied. This paper will discuss cases of Arabic borrowings, including calques and loanwords from Sanskrit and Middle Persian.


Corresponding author: Milad Abedi, Universität Zürich, Asien-Orient-Institut, Rämistrasse 59, 8001 Zürich, Switzerland; and UMR 8041 Centre de recherche sur le monde iranien, CNRS, Campus Paris-Villejuif 7, rue Guy Môquet, 94800 Villejuif, France, E-mail:

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank Dr. Agnes Korn (CNRS), Prof. Paul Wimder (UZH), and Prof Wolfgang Behr (UZH) for their welcome comments and corrections on the early version of this paper; all remaining errors are ours. The early version of this paper was presented at the third conference of the Doha Historical Dictionary of the Arabic Language, Doha Institute of Higher Education, Doha, Qatar, 10 May 2022.

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Received: 2023-09-27
Accepted: 2024-01-31
Published Online: 2024-11-29
Published in Print: 2024-11-26

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