Words Arabic Took In
drachmē
الدِّرْهَم
dirham
Dirham is Greek drachmē, 'a handful'. It began as a weight and then named the silver coin. Ibn Durayd called it 'Arabised, spoken by the Arabs of old, for they knew no other word'; the editor F. Abdurrahim holds that it reached Arabic through Middle Persian. It is still the currency of Morocco and the Emirates.
- Came
- From Greek
- Original meaning
- a handful
- Meaning in Arabic
- a silver coin; a weight
«دِرْهَم معرَّب، وقد تكلّمت به العرب قديمًا إذ لم يعرفوا غيره.»
It then went on from Arabic into European languages.
F. Abdurrahim, in his edition of al-Mu'arrab (p. 307), gives the Middle Persian forms diram, draxm and drahm, the last being the one Arabic took. He cites al-Karmali, al-Nuqud al-'Arabiyya: it began as a weight, as the dinar was a mithqal of gold, and its value varied with time and place.
Abdelali Wadghiri, al-'Arabiyyat al-Mughtaribat (1/465–466): French took it in the 17th century and borrowed it again many times in different forms, the last in 1959 through Morocco. The source is Greek, but it is an old Arabisation.
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Sources
- ابن دريد، جمهرة اللغة ٢/١١٨٣
- الجوهريّ، الصحاح: «الدِّرهم فارسيٌّ معرّب»
- ابن منظور، لسان العرب ١٢/١٩٩
- الجواليقيّ، المعرّب، تحقيق ف. عبد الرحيم، ص٣٠٧
- عبد العلي الودغيري، العربيّات المغتربات ١/٤٦٥–٤٦٦
- Wiktionary: δραχμή
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