The fat on the milk

Ok, I definitely have to try to improve with these posts now, even if I don't really have any good connections around to upload photos with. I was thinking I should write a little something about the Arabic language. After all, that is why I am here and it is quite interesting. One of the interesting things about it is that is has a lot of loan words from both Germanic and Latin languages, mostly modern ones of course but also other ones.

For example there is a respectful title here used for older people who have performed the pilgrimage (الحج al-Hag), which is either حاج Haag for a man or حاجه Haagga for a woman. Native Swedish speakers will here of course readily recognize the Swedish word "hagga", which in Swedish, however, has lost its original respectfulness and instead come to mean something like "old nagging bitch". :-)

Spanish also has some loan words coming from Arabic, such as another title of respect, استاذ ustaaz, which really means professor and is very close to the Spanish honorific "Usted". Also, the Rock of Gibraltar gets its name from جبل طارق gabal Taariq, where جبل means mountain and Taariq is the name of the general who led the Muslim conquest of Spain in 711.

I will go on some other time to tell you what the fat on the milk is. ;-)