Talk:Etymology of Arab

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It's true that there's no etymological dictionary of Semitic, but there is a comparative grammar that's way more comprehensive than the ones mentioned in the article: Brockelmann's Grundriss der vergleichenden Grammatik der semitischen Sprachen, in two big, dense volumes (1908-1913).

A nonsensical article

This Wiki-article is based on hopelessly outdated sources, over a century old. As a result, most of what it says is nonsense. Any reader looking for an explanation of the origins and meaning of the word Arab would be best advised to visit a library. (P.s. - the root is '/r/b, which has to do with speech - Weber lists the primary meaning as "to utter".) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by PiCo (talk • contribs) 06:21, 7 February 2007 (UTC).

I came to notice Arab and Arvitians or Arvanites (Albanians in Greece) have quite a similar etymological appearance. Albanians are an Indo-European speaking people though, but their tribal origins is in Caucasian Albania, Kurdistan and Azerbaijan within a close distance from Arabic-speaking majority nations of Iraq and Syria. Is there a common link of Semitic Arabs with the Indo-European language speaking tribes of the Caucasus mountains over 3,000 years ago? One can look at Arav and Araya to find a closeness in how it's spelled, but Aryan stands for "high caste" or "noble" people. + Mike D 26 (talk) 16:33, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Arvanites has nothing to do with Arabs at all, arban- (arvan- due to Modern Greek influence) is simply a dialectal alternation of alban-, as explained in Arvanites#Names. Beware of soundalike etymologies, especially those based on such flimsy grounds as two letters (in this case, ar-) in common (Larry Trask made light of this in his The History of Basque, when he expressed amusement at the thought of people connecting him with Basques based on the letter combination sk in his name, and wondered why no-one had done it before, as Basques are routinely speculatively associated with various ancient and modern peoples with an sk or sc in their name, such as the Etruscans.) --Florian Blaschke (talk) 11:31, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

In roman time, the word had already the modern meaning.

During the Roman time, the term denoted an ethnicity as Gauls, Greeks or Jews, ecc. indeed there was a Roman Emperor with Greek name (at the time international language): Philip the Arab. His family was noble of Syria with cosmopolitan culture and in the same time desert nomad, he was indentified, and he identified himself as Arab. --Andriolo (talk) 21:08, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

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An attempt...Can someone check this? From the Phoenician perspective RB ...Erob, Europe where the sun goes down. RB ...Arob, Arab Where the sun goes up. Curiously close pronounciation.

עַל in hebrew sounds like Arub-Arab and means up, ontop in English. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:1810:A511:5A00:CC03:50C8:1E39:7095 (talk) 12:32, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

Talk pages aren't for speculation or research, they're only for discussions about improving the article (which can be done only by referring to information found in reliable sources, not by creating our own theories here). See WP:No original research. Largoplazo (talk) 17:52, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

Etymology of the word

It is from the Qahtani king Ya’rub (also spelled Ya’rab or ‘Arab), the son of Qahtan Ismail7Hussein (talk) 10:14, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Quran 9:90

The world does appear in the Quran 9:90 Leslirons (talk) 03:19, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

Isn't the word that I assume you're talking about أعراب, not عراب? Largoplazo (talk) 03:39, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

It is الأعراب Leslirons (talk) 03:52, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

Which is the definite article followed by أعراب, isn't it? "The Arab" would be العراب. Largoplazo (talk) 04:39, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

Right. Do you mean that the word mentioned in the Quran is different? Leslirons (talk) 03:19, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

أعراب (or الأعراب) is the word in the Qur'an. عراب (or العراب) is (the) Arab. The word in the Qur'an is different from the word for "Arab". 12:32, 8 March 2026 (UTC)