Arabic countries occupied Spain for 700 years leaving an indelible impression, identifiable even to those without languages – but those who learn them both are a force to be reckoned with
Spain is known for some of the most beautiful architecture in the world. The old town of Córdoba and the Alhambra Palace are two striking examples of many, but what an unseasoned language learner may not know is this architecture was envisioned by the Arabian occupation of Spain that lasted 700 years.
The Moors, a group of Muslims who inhabited Spain, Portugal, southern parts of France and the island of Sicily invaded Spain in the 700s and reigned over the Iberian peninsula until the 1400s. Since the end of the occupation, their inspiration has remained a presence has remained in many facets of Spain’s bright and vibrant culture.
“It’s a huge chunk of Spanish history,” says Annabel Mitch-Gears, a graduate of Spanish and Arabic from Cambridge University. “The whole region of Andalucia is just an intermingling of the two cultures, lots of place names have Arabic influences and architecture too.”
Spanish and Arabic is an emerging subject in the world of U.K. universities, slowly but surely. With 20 graduating in the course from Cambridge University in 2018, the number is more promising than some other languages, such as Portuguese. Spanish is still performing as one of the three most popular languages to study in the U.K., with over 100 taking Spanish at Cambridge.
The people of Arabic-speaking countries are also more attuned to the idea of language learning. Annabel recalls a time on her year abroad in Alexandria where she talked with her Egyptian friends: “I sat in a cafe with some friends and they asked me, ‘what do you do at university?’ I said languages, and they were like, ‘what?’”
She says that because it is second nature, it is strange to Egyptian people that languages are even an option in university. “They just do languages alongside rather than it being the main focus.”
In the U.K. there has been a perpetual problem with the amount of interest in languages; unlike Egypt, we are not able to access language learning with such ease, leading to that dwindle in interest altogether.
“I see some frustration from students who want to study a language if they’re going for science [at school],” says Dr. Ana Claudia Suriani da Silva, a lecturer in the Spanish and Portuguese Department at University College London. “I think there should be some sort of encouragement or, you know, some rule just to make language compulsory.”
Laura Mulligan, a graduate of Spanish and Portuguese from Queen’s University Belfast explains how her university experience opened both the practical and cultural perspectives of the Spanish speaking world: “I’m teaching English at the Basque country in Spain,” she tells me. “I think without that experience of having learned not even just one language but two, I wouldn’t have the job and I wouldn’t be able to relate to my students.”
The fact that Arabic is not a language open to many school students further shows the lack of enthusiasm for languages outside the usual spectrum of German, French, and Spanish. Despite 400 million speakers worldwide, Arabic is rarely listed as a subject in schools available at A-Level.
“The fact that [Arabic] is not related to any languages that people traditionally have studied, it just seems really inaccessible,” Annabel tells me. “It’s just the different alphabet and you so quickly get over that.”
After 700 years occupation in Spain, the Arabic influence over the country still shows today in the Spanish language. Ojalá, which means hopefully in its native Spanish, comes from the expression ma sha allah, which means God shall will it in Arabic. In addition, aceite or oil comes from the Arabic word zayt, and perhaps the most well-known idiom, the word almohada, or pillow comes from the Arabic word al-mujadda – also meaning pillow.
While these linguistic similarities remain, the bulk of cultural similarities lie within the south of the country, which was the first part of the nation to be invaded by the Moors. City names such as Córdoba, Sevilla, Ronda, and even cities further north such as Barcelona and Galicia were originally coined by the settlers from Arabic-speaking countries.
Fast-forward to over 500 years after the end of their occupation in 2018, and we are left with a civilisation that, whilst still savouring the heritage from its Arabian settlers, celebrates a vibrant culture in its own right with the history that came after the Moors.
Today, Spanish has hundreds of millions of speakers worldwide, as does Arabic, and yet the number of speakers in the U.K. for both languages is still at lower levels than ever as the interest in languages dwindles.
However, there could be different ways to pick this up as the U.K. moves into a new political territory: “With Brexit there may be more interest in languages,” says Dr da Silva. “But it may be the other way around.” It does depend on how Brexit is received by the British public, which at the moment may not be in such positive light.
However, Spanish and Arabic are languages that transcend the lines of the European Union.
“I’d never heard anyone say that they did anything other than the standard European languages at school, which is fine, but the world’s bigger than Europe,” Annabel explains. Whilst Spanish is a romance language and is spoken in Spain, its reach is far more than that of German or even French. Arabic reaches from parts of Africa through to even western Asia.
When it comes to linguistically masterminding the next ten years, Mandarin would be a safe language to learn and is the most spoken language in the world with over a billion native speakers. However, if a language learner is armed with Arabic and Spanish, not only will they possess linguistic skills and cultural perspectives that stretch across the globe, but the two languages they speak will have far more in common than many realise.
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