2 university students discover they have more in common than they thought just by saying 8 words.

Even our languages want us to get along.

 Lori White
11.25.15

History has a funny way of showing the present day what's up.

That's what happened when these girls got together for a little experiment.

Image via Annenberg Media.

One was a native Arabic speaker. The other was a native Spanish speaker. Both girls were students at University of Southern California.

Their classmates, who'd clearly noticed some subtle alliance between the Arabic and Spanish languages, decided to do a little experiment.

So they sat the ladies down and had them say a few Spanish and Arabic words at the same time. The results were ... verrrrry alliance-y:

GIFs via Annenberg Media.

Sounds just about like the exact same word!

Oops, they speak the same language! <3

There was a time in Spanish history where Arabs, Jews, and Christians were co-existing pretty peaceably ... and sharing a lot of culture to boot. Yes!

The southern part of Spain, known as Andalusia, was mostly ruled by Arabic speakers from around 710 to 1492. Christians and Jews lived in towns ruled by Muslim leaders.

While Christians and Jews weren't exactly on the same level as the leaders, they were able to co-exist fairly well. They worked together, studied together, learned together.*

*Except for the women, probably. But that's another story altogether! We're talking about 710 here.

And nowhere was that tenuous alliance and sharing of culture more evident than in the architecture of the time. If you look at the history of Granada, one of the main cities of Muslim Spain, you'll see architectural evidence of cultures mingling. Just look at the buildings: beautiful Muslim palaces on mountainsides, Spanish architecture below.

Picture by ME!

Religions able to exist together in the 700s?! IN SPAIN? Like, Spanish-Inquisition Spain?!

No one expected that, huh?


GIF via "Monty Python."

Least of all these two classmates.

And thanks to this amazing little language experiment, there's more evidence of a golden age of harmony and cultural exchange.

Because Arab folks, or Moors as they were called, lived in Spain for so long, the Arabic language had a huge influence on the pre-existing Spanish.

That's why there's so much shared culture, hidden inside words like "sugar," "music," and "PANTS"!

I love how harmony is hiding underneath the surface of something as basic and fundamental as language.

Harmony and commonality is all around us. We just have to let it in!

Hear the commonality for yourself here:

spanish language languages arabic
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