Wednesday, March 6, 2002

Today is all about connections. What is the thread weaving through Egypt, Morocco, and San Antonio, Texas?

Approximately 40% of Moroccans, including most whom I met in Ifrane, speak one of the three major Berber dialects, Tachelhit, Tamazight, or Tarifit. The Berber languages belong to the Chamitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic languages (making them distant cousins to the Semitic languages, which include Aramaic, Hebrew, and Arabic). What other languages lie on the Chamitic branch? Egyptian: Old, Middle, and Coptic. The Berbers of Morocco speak what is linguistically the closest living tongue to that of the ancient Egyptians.

In the 8th century, the Arab conquest moved through Morocco and across the Mediterranean into Spain. From then until the 15th century, during the height of the Moorish civilization, Spanish borrowed many words from Arabic, which eventually came into English as place names, scientific terms, and other general vocabulary.

Two of those borrowed words, brought to what is now south Texas by 16th century Spanish colonists, have particular relevance today, the 166th anniversary of the famous battle at Mission San Antonio de Valero. The word "mosque" is a Spanish corruption of the Arabic word "musjad", and from the same root we get the name of one of the most prevalent trees here in south Texas, the mesquite (the "mosque tree"). Another common tree, which grew in abundance around the old mission, is the poplar; its Arabic name is "Alamo".