En réponse à Raymond Brown <ray.brown@...>:
>
> But no funnier than the way we westerners have borrowed Arabic words
> incorporating the Arabic definite article, e.g.
> alchemy <-- al ki:mia: "the chemistry"
> alcolol <-- al koh'l "the antimony powder"
> Aldedaran (the first-magnitude red star of the Hyades) <-- al dabara:n
> "the
> follower"
> algebra <-- al jebra "the resetting", "the combination"
> algorism/ algorithm <-- 'al Khwa:razmi "the man from Khwa:razm" (i.e.
> 9th
> cent. mathematician Abu Ja'far Mohammed ben Musa)
> alkali <-- al qali:y "the calcined ash"
> etc
>
True. And the tendency is there in French itself, where some words were renewed
by the incorporation of the article in the radical (I forgot the name for this
phenomenon). For instance "l'endemain" became "le lendemain".
Christophe.
http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr
Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.