Turkish words borrowed in Modern Arabic

Many words in modern Arabic dialects are originally Turkish. This articles discusses why this is the case, as well as gives lots of examples for such loan words and phrases.

Origins

This may sound strange for many, but since the 16th century, the Ottoman Empire had administrative control over most of the Middle East and North Africa, from Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Yemen, Hijaz, Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria.

Even after the Ottomans gave up control for the colonial powers of Europe in the 19th century, the cultural influence remained. Like most societies under colonial or imperial rule, Arabs looked up to Turkey and everything Turkish. Many things were borrowed, adopted, integrated, and imitated.

My knowledge of many of these words was when I encountered them when visiting Turkey twice in the 1990s as a tourist.

Words

Job Titles

Many job titles in modern Arabic are actually Turkish. It is relatively easy to detect those, since they end with the "-ji" suffix. In Egypt, the J sound becomes G (like in Garden). Many of those have become family names.

Military Ranks

Many military ranks of Turkish origins were in use in Arab countries until recently. Although the formal titles are now Arabic, the Turkish ones are still in conversational use.

Proper Names

Many proper names in modern Arabic are actually Turkish names. The strange thing about those is that all of them have Arabic roots, mostly from the Quran, Islam's revealed text, or from certain ideal values and qualities. Such borrowing then reverse borrowing is a very interesting phenomenon. All of these end in the ي Arabic letter (-i or -y when romanized), which approximates the Turkish sound. Others have the -t.