[drANN!]

There is linguistic evidence that scientific and mathematical concepts unknown to Europeans found their way into Portuguese, Spanish, French, German, and English through Arabic-speaking people. While the Christians and Moslems were at war in Spain (for about 800 years starting in the 8th century AD) there was much cultural assimilation and new words came into the language to fill the cultural vacuum. More than 4000 modern Spanish words have Arabic roots, and almost all of these deal with technology (medicine, astronomy, algebra, and other sciences.) Most English words starting with "al" are of Arabic origin, too. Examples include alchemy, alcohol, algebra, algorithm, alkali, and almanac, to name a few. Regardless of whether one likes or dislikes the influence, pretending that it doesn't exist is counterproductive at best, or as the saying goes, it is better to walk forward through history with at least one eye open *smile*

[timestax]

That was Then, this is Now!