Re: almendra: Arabic root of Spanish word

hazchem wrote:
In my Spanish class last night we were learning the words for tapas
and we were told 'almendra' is the Spanish for 'almond'. This seems to
be obviously a word of Arabic origin, as are many Spanish words.

Not every Spanish word that starts with "al" is of Arabic origin. "Alto" and "alma" aren't. I see that in this case, the origin is likewise Latin, "amandala", which is supposedly a corruption of "amygdala", though I can't imagine a direct transition from stressed [mig] to stressed [man]. The dictionaries I consulted don't show any intermediate steps. Perhaps the [g] assimilated to the [d] first, giving *amindala, and then only the vowel needed to change. (By the way, do you have access to an English dictionary? There are plenty on-line: www.m-w.com [Merriam-Webster], www.bartleby.com/61 [American Heritage Dictionary], etc.)

I was thinking the 'al-' derives from the Arabic definite article,
while the 'me' could be a prefix meaning 'place of' or something.

Starting with that hypothesis is sort of like taking any word in English that begins with "be" ("better", "beckon", "beatitude", "beverage"), and letting your first guess be that it derives from "to be").
[...]

We also learned that 'olive' is either 'oliva' or 'aceituna'. I would
guess that 'oliva' comes from Latin and before that Greek and I know
'aceituna' comes from the Arabic zaytoun.

Yes, that's correct, except possibly for the Greek origin part, though the Greek word appear at least to be related.
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: almendra: Arabic root of Spanish word
    ... and we were told 'almendra' is the Spanish for 'almond'. ... be obviously a word of Arabic origin, as are many Spanish words. ... and "alma" aren't. ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: almendra: Arabic root of Spanish word
    ... be obviously a word of Arabic origin, as are many Spanish words. ... leaves the triconsonontal root NDR. ... Portuguese word is "amêndoa", which according to the Porto Editora ...
    (sci.lang)