Arabesques- The adventure of the Arabic language in the West, by Henriette WALTER & Bassam BARAKE, Collection the taste of words

“ French word from Arabic: mazagran : earthenware glass in which coffee is served, named after the city of Mazagran, in Algeria. Nineteenth century.

Arabic word from French: bibronn : from the French biberon, “bottle with a pacifier for babies”. Also called bibroné (Lebanon), bibrounn (Algeria). »

Did you know that there are hundreds of French words in Arabic, hundreds of Arabic words in French? Distant in their origins, these two languages have intersected and enriched each other for more than a millennium. Cultural influences and historical references, etymological analyzes and playful anecdotes: here is the beautiful story of the encounters between East and West.

About the authors: Henriette WALTER & Bassam BARAKE

Henrietta WALTER

Henriette Walter is professor emeritus of linguistics, president of the International Society of Functional Linguistics and member of the Superior Council of the French language. With Éditions Robert Laffont, she has notably published Le Français dans tous les sens (1988, Grand Prize of the French Academy), L'Aventure des languages en Occident (1994, Grand Prize for readers of Elle 1995, special prize of the Committee of the Society of Literary People), The Adventure of Words from Elsewhere (1997), Shame on Who Thinks Badly (2001), The Sciences Explained to My Granddaughter (2009), with Pierre Avenas, The Fabulous History of names of fish (2012, Sea Literature Prize).

Bassam BARAKE

Bassam Baraké is a professor of French and Arabic linguistics at the Lebanese University of Beirut. He is the Secretary General of the Union of Arab Translators . He has published a book on the phonetics of Arabic and several French-Arabic dictionaries.