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I have heard that the 'Al-' prefix has some kind of significance if put in a person's name. A while ago Private Eye criticised Mohammed Al-Fayed for using 'Al-' and I was wondering on what idea this was based. I heard it is considered by some to be an Arabic construct which means importance or respect - similar to 'san' in Japanese but used as part of a name - but I have also heard that it doesn't carry any specific meaning when affixed to an Arabic name, could this be explained in the article, or just to me if it is thought inappropriate for encyclopaedic entry. Obi-w00t 18:20, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
The article is nice as it goes, but what I want to know is if there is, as I suspect, a connection between the Romance "a la" and which is found in variations in Italian, French, etc.
I know that Arabic was heavily influenced by Greek and Latin of the Roman Empire; I also suspect that this "al-" thing is derived in from Latin. I do not believe that it is the other way around, simply because the Arabs did not conquer and rule all of Italy and France, as they had Spain and Portugal.
Also, the Hebrew is "Ha". Why are the Hebrew and Arabic words for "the" so different? I believe that "ha" and its variations are the Semitic originals, and that the Greeks and Latins copied "ha" from the Semites, while the Arabs copied "al-" from the Latins.
Can the true facts be verified?
Regards,
WikiSceptic 05:18, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
You may find this discussion I had with a fellow user of some relevance to your question:
[START]I have a question about the article 'el', which language borrowed from which? Or is it just a mere coincidence that 'el' in both Arabic and Latin translates to 'the'? --Inahet
The change from ille from a demonstrative to the various definite articles in the Romance languages is par for the course, and does not require Arabic input. For example "the" in English was originally the masculine form of "that" (which was neuter); Greek 'ο changed from a pronoun (he, that) in Homer to an article in classical Greek; the Hebrew prefix ha- is likely to be related to the Aramaic pronoun hā (that).
On the other hand, the coincidences between the two language families in what consonants have pronominal force are spooky. Examples:
-l- (found in ille and its derivatives; and in al-, elleh (these), ula'i, etc.)
-h- (found in "he", 'ο etc; and in ha-, hā, hadha)
-dh- (found in "this", "the", and their Germanic cognates; and in hadha, zeh etc.)
-nu- (found in nos; and in -nu, the Hebrew suffix "our").
Still, not enough to base a theory on! -- Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) ( talk) 16:14, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
As a Levantine Arab,someone who consideres themselves an Arab, a Semite, and a member of the Mediterranean cultural and historic heritage... And considering that Arabs as some of the most major contributors to what we today collectively know as "The Mediterranean" and many other modern ideas we take for granted, I find the conversation which Wikispeptic started here very offensive and very flawed. I have no reason to believe that Wikiskeptic is anything more than a Racist, over-essentialist, Orientalist. Why do you assume so easily that there is no way Arabic could have had an influence on Romance Languages? And what makes you so confident to assume that it is most likely Arabic that would have taken it from Latin (especally considering Arabic, is a language which is renknown worlwide for having some of the fewest foreign borowwings and without dispute one of the purest Semitic languages and best views into the supposed "proto-Semitic" language (unlike Hebrew which relied on heavy foreign borrowings in its reform stage).... I find it very very very offensive that it would come so natural for you to assume such a thing, and for no one to have set you straight immeditately and shut you up for such a racist assumption, and it really does show the extent of your supposed "historical knowledge" and the world view which you have, and the tainted Eurocentric ahistoric lenses with which you see the world. Since all history shows the influences were quite in the opposite direction from which you like to believe, Don't worry your entire heritage will not be dissolved because of the scary hairy "Arabs"!!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.224.137.191 ( talk) 02:29, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
Is the way the intro is currently written, with the usage examples incorporated into the prose, acceptably encyclopedic? Or does it sound too much like an attempt to teach the language? Any thoughts would be great. - Fsotrain09 22:04, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
ALL IN ALL THE TONE IS EXTREMELY DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND AND EXTREMELY ELITIST IN ITS CHOICE OF WORDS< NOT EVERYONE READING THIS ARTICLE IS A LINGUIST!!! FURTHERMORE AS A SPEAKER AND WRITER AND READER OF ARABIC< IT IS OBVIOUS THAT THIS ARTICLE CAN BE RE-WRITTEN IN A MUCH MORE INFORMATIVE MANNER, AND MUCH MORE COMPREHENSIVE WORD ORDERING> SENTENCE FORMAT> AND CHOICE OF VOCABULARY —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.224.137.191 ( talk) 02:33, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
The article explains nicely the assimilation of the article to a following "sun letter". However, a question of mine did not get answered: What are the rules for the vowel of the article? In some words, e.g., Hizb ut-Tahrir, the vowel shifts from a to u without any change in the written Arabic form حزب التحرير (ḥzb altḥyr). Can someone explain? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.73.12.254 ( talk • contribs).
An article about an Arabic prefix is not the place for porn. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lolilikepigslol ( talk • contribs) 22:49, 8 December 2006 (UTC).
Since al- is an article, is it correct to alphabetically sort by the noun, ignoring "al-"? In Arabic and in English? — Michael Z. 2007-07-29 20:58 Z
Can al- come before plural nouns, as the can in English? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fishal ( talk • contribs) 23:11, August 28, 2007 (UTC)
It's nigh impossible to find any information on this, but I believe that Arabic dynasty names use a more emphasized version of this, which implies "House of __", and which does not combine with the following noun: for example, the House of Saud (آل سعود transliteration: Āl Suʿūd). -- Xyzzyva ( talk) 22:32, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
The Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic places āl under root alif-waw-lam, while others connect it with ahl from root alif-ha-lam. In either case, it doesn't have any ascertainable connection with the definite article that I can see... AnonMoos ( talk) 09:27, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
What I am concerned about in the section is the following:
Supporters of this theory sometimes cite the Arabic word 'this': hadhā (هذا), which, when combined with a definite phrase, is shortened in some accents of Levantine Arabic from hadhā al-bayt (this house) to hal-bayt (هذا البيت becomes هلبيت) verification needed. However, this could be an influence from other Northern Semetic languages on the Arabic dialect of Levantine Arabs original research?.
The part about Levantine Arabic sounds a lot like folk-linguistics blather we hear on daily basis in the Arab world. I think the editor is writing his own musings about proto-semitic. Especially that the same contraction (hal) exists in Libya as well. -- 19:59, 28 March 2008 User:Hakeem.gadi
Should "al" be properly transliterated in standard Arabic as "āl" (with macron over the "a"), as is done for other words containing ا? Badagnani ( talk) 20:15, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
Or should it be transliterated as 'ā? Shouldn't the alif have a hamza over it if written properly? Badagnani ( talk) 22:55, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
The Arabic definite article doesn't have either a long vowel or a hamza ( glottal stop) -- with the minor exception that all forms which would otherwise begin with a vowel have a preceding glottal stop when they occur at the beginning of a sentence (however, such glottal stops are not written in the standard orthography). AnonMoos ( talk) 05:23, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
So, the ا in the Arabic definite article is simply shorthand for the one with the hamza on top? And the hamza on top, although it's written as a hamza and looks exactly like a hamza, isn't a hamza in this case but is a "hamzatu l-waṣl," which doesn't have a glottal sound? And the pronunciation of both is just "a" (not long "a" or glottalized "a")? Is that right? This kind of thing can be very complicated for a beginner to understand so I think we should spell it out in the very clearest language possible in the article, as it's such an important word. The explanation of the "hamzatu l-waṣl" in the article is just way too opaque as it reads right now; can we refine it for clarity? Badagnani ( talk) 05:27, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
I am a senior undergraduate student at the University of Toronto, majoring in Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations. I am in the process of writing an essay on the definite article, Al-. It is extremely comprehensive and I've done substantial research. I am thinking of replacing this article with one more comprehensive which cites reliable sources. Although I am very new to Wikipedia editing, I think my article will be a welcomed replacement. The first draft will be ready within the next few days as of this post. I have read the discussions on this page.
Please advise as to whether a completely new article would be welcome or not. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nickjamil ( talk • contribs) 02:52, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
is gobbledygook. It starts off in the middle of a seemingly arcane subject. What are you talking about??!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.101.43.48 ( talk) 13:29, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
In fact, this whole section is gobbledygook. Can't someone present the basic morphophonological rule? I.e., "al" becomes "ar" before certain sounds, "an" before certain sounds, and so on? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.101.43.48 ( talk) 13:32, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
Under Etymology, a 19th-century theory by Jacob Barth is mentioned that holds that al- comes from the Arabic negation lā. As far as I can tell, this is an oddball theory, included by Testen in his dissertation for the sake of completeness, but so marginal that we can safely omit it here.
It is also mentioned that some unspecified supporters of a proto-Semitic hal- origin view the fact that hādhā al- can be shortened to hal- as supporting evidence, while some equally unspecified grammarians balk at that idea. I have to agree with the grammarians; obviously the fact that hādhā al- can be shortened to hal- in no way provides support to the theory that al- stems from hal-. Can we leave out this unsourced amateur stuff as well? -- Lambiam 07:36, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: page moved. Armbrust The Homunculus 00:29, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
Al- → Definite article in Arabic – Or Arabic definite article, or some other natural and intuitive description of what the article is about. The current title " Al-" is meaningless to many until they read a few lines of the lead. Wikipedia prefers article titles like " Question mark" and " At sign" over " ?" and " @". Besides, the Arabic definite article is not always and in all senses "al-". While its spelling is invariable in Arabic, pronunciation-wise that's not the case - the consonant "l" is assimilated by a following sun letter, and the vowel "a" may be dropped in connected speech, and these are sometimes reflected in romanizations, especially in linguistic scientific contexts. Theurgist ( talk) 19:37, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
At the beginning of place names, may be also in names of persons, there may or may not be a hyphen between "al" and the noun. Does the hyphen (or the absence of it) have a special meaning? Difference between geographic names, names of persons, and names of objects? -- Wickey-nl ( talk) 10:58, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
I put "is not" in the section on the verbs where it had "Additionally, we know that al- prefixed to verbs." I'm assuming this was just a typo because I've never heard of an Arabic verb taking al- aside from masdar/verbal nouns, however I am not a native speaker. 68.84.83.104 ( talk) 21:53, 18 October 2014 (UTC)Anonymous User.
This whole discussion seems to be based on two not very prolific researcher, at least one of whom presents what seems like totally baseless speculations. Specifically the whole last discussion about proto-semitic and the relationship of ha, al and hadha/hadhihi makes absolutely no sense. It is, for both etymological and historical reasons MUCH more probable that the definite ha in hebrew is related to a usage of the hadha demonstrative for signaling definiteness, after a preceeding loss of an actual definite article (which is what happened at different stages to various Aramaic/Syriac languages).
Arabic is in general by far the most archaic (i.e. the most probable to preserve original forms) of the Semitic languages still in use is well known to anyone who has studied Semitics, and has nothing at all to do with discountin Hebrew for some presumable anti-Jewish sentiments as someone tried to argue above.
Anyway, I'll let this stand for now, for the information of whoever reads this page, and I shall try to find time to come back and fix this section at a future point.
/Lecturer in Arabic and Semitic Languages.
47.18.169.243 ( talk) 02:05, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
I noticed there are many pages have"al-" in small letters, but what is certified style.-- Ammar Alwaeli ( talk) 08:29, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
has nothing at all to do with the article al-. It's a common folk etymology, but it actually came in from Latin -alis being tacked onto amir on its own. (Further, it spread across Christendom in reference to the emirs of emirs in Norman Sicily and not the emirs of the sea in Fatimid Egypt.) See the OED entry on Admiral or, for the time being at least, the corrected article here on Wikipedia. — LlywelynII 19:07, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
![]() | Arabic definite article received a peer review by Wikipedia editors, which is now archived. It may contain ideas you can use to improve this article. |
![]() | This article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
I have heard that the 'Al-' prefix has some kind of significance if put in a person's name. A while ago Private Eye criticised Mohammed Al-Fayed for using 'Al-' and I was wondering on what idea this was based. I heard it is considered by some to be an Arabic construct which means importance or respect - similar to 'san' in Japanese but used as part of a name - but I have also heard that it doesn't carry any specific meaning when affixed to an Arabic name, could this be explained in the article, or just to me if it is thought inappropriate for encyclopaedic entry. Obi-w00t 18:20, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
The article is nice as it goes, but what I want to know is if there is, as I suspect, a connection between the Romance "a la" and which is found in variations in Italian, French, etc.
I know that Arabic was heavily influenced by Greek and Latin of the Roman Empire; I also suspect that this "al-" thing is derived in from Latin. I do not believe that it is the other way around, simply because the Arabs did not conquer and rule all of Italy and France, as they had Spain and Portugal.
Also, the Hebrew is "Ha". Why are the Hebrew and Arabic words for "the" so different? I believe that "ha" and its variations are the Semitic originals, and that the Greeks and Latins copied "ha" from the Semites, while the Arabs copied "al-" from the Latins.
Can the true facts be verified?
Regards,
WikiSceptic 05:18, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
You may find this discussion I had with a fellow user of some relevance to your question:
[START]I have a question about the article 'el', which language borrowed from which? Or is it just a mere coincidence that 'el' in both Arabic and Latin translates to 'the'? --Inahet
The change from ille from a demonstrative to the various definite articles in the Romance languages is par for the course, and does not require Arabic input. For example "the" in English was originally the masculine form of "that" (which was neuter); Greek 'ο changed from a pronoun (he, that) in Homer to an article in classical Greek; the Hebrew prefix ha- is likely to be related to the Aramaic pronoun hā (that).
On the other hand, the coincidences between the two language families in what consonants have pronominal force are spooky. Examples:
-l- (found in ille and its derivatives; and in al-, elleh (these), ula'i, etc.)
-h- (found in "he", 'ο etc; and in ha-, hā, hadha)
-dh- (found in "this", "the", and their Germanic cognates; and in hadha, zeh etc.)
-nu- (found in nos; and in -nu, the Hebrew suffix "our").
Still, not enough to base a theory on! -- Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) ( talk) 16:14, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
As a Levantine Arab,someone who consideres themselves an Arab, a Semite, and a member of the Mediterranean cultural and historic heritage... And considering that Arabs as some of the most major contributors to what we today collectively know as "The Mediterranean" and many other modern ideas we take for granted, I find the conversation which Wikispeptic started here very offensive and very flawed. I have no reason to believe that Wikiskeptic is anything more than a Racist, over-essentialist, Orientalist. Why do you assume so easily that there is no way Arabic could have had an influence on Romance Languages? And what makes you so confident to assume that it is most likely Arabic that would have taken it from Latin (especally considering Arabic, is a language which is renknown worlwide for having some of the fewest foreign borowwings and without dispute one of the purest Semitic languages and best views into the supposed "proto-Semitic" language (unlike Hebrew which relied on heavy foreign borrowings in its reform stage).... I find it very very very offensive that it would come so natural for you to assume such a thing, and for no one to have set you straight immeditately and shut you up for such a racist assumption, and it really does show the extent of your supposed "historical knowledge" and the world view which you have, and the tainted Eurocentric ahistoric lenses with which you see the world. Since all history shows the influences were quite in the opposite direction from which you like to believe, Don't worry your entire heritage will not be dissolved because of the scary hairy "Arabs"!!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.224.137.191 ( talk) 02:29, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
Is the way the intro is currently written, with the usage examples incorporated into the prose, acceptably encyclopedic? Or does it sound too much like an attempt to teach the language? Any thoughts would be great. - Fsotrain09 22:04, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
ALL IN ALL THE TONE IS EXTREMELY DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND AND EXTREMELY ELITIST IN ITS CHOICE OF WORDS< NOT EVERYONE READING THIS ARTICLE IS A LINGUIST!!! FURTHERMORE AS A SPEAKER AND WRITER AND READER OF ARABIC< IT IS OBVIOUS THAT THIS ARTICLE CAN BE RE-WRITTEN IN A MUCH MORE INFORMATIVE MANNER, AND MUCH MORE COMPREHENSIVE WORD ORDERING> SENTENCE FORMAT> AND CHOICE OF VOCABULARY —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.224.137.191 ( talk) 02:33, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
The article explains nicely the assimilation of the article to a following "sun letter". However, a question of mine did not get answered: What are the rules for the vowel of the article? In some words, e.g., Hizb ut-Tahrir, the vowel shifts from a to u without any change in the written Arabic form حزب التحرير (ḥzb altḥyr). Can someone explain? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.73.12.254 ( talk • contribs).
An article about an Arabic prefix is not the place for porn. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lolilikepigslol ( talk • contribs) 22:49, 8 December 2006 (UTC).
Since al- is an article, is it correct to alphabetically sort by the noun, ignoring "al-"? In Arabic and in English? — Michael Z. 2007-07-29 20:58 Z
Can al- come before plural nouns, as the can in English? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fishal ( talk • contribs) 23:11, August 28, 2007 (UTC)
It's nigh impossible to find any information on this, but I believe that Arabic dynasty names use a more emphasized version of this, which implies "House of __", and which does not combine with the following noun: for example, the House of Saud (آل سعود transliteration: Āl Suʿūd). -- Xyzzyva ( talk) 22:32, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
The Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic places āl under root alif-waw-lam, while others connect it with ahl from root alif-ha-lam. In either case, it doesn't have any ascertainable connection with the definite article that I can see... AnonMoos ( talk) 09:27, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
What I am concerned about in the section is the following:
Supporters of this theory sometimes cite the Arabic word 'this': hadhā (هذا), which, when combined with a definite phrase, is shortened in some accents of Levantine Arabic from hadhā al-bayt (this house) to hal-bayt (هذا البيت becomes هلبيت) verification needed. However, this could be an influence from other Northern Semetic languages on the Arabic dialect of Levantine Arabs original research?.
The part about Levantine Arabic sounds a lot like folk-linguistics blather we hear on daily basis in the Arab world. I think the editor is writing his own musings about proto-semitic. Especially that the same contraction (hal) exists in Libya as well. -- 19:59, 28 March 2008 User:Hakeem.gadi
Should "al" be properly transliterated in standard Arabic as "āl" (with macron over the "a"), as is done for other words containing ا? Badagnani ( talk) 20:15, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
Or should it be transliterated as 'ā? Shouldn't the alif have a hamza over it if written properly? Badagnani ( talk) 22:55, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
The Arabic definite article doesn't have either a long vowel or a hamza ( glottal stop) -- with the minor exception that all forms which would otherwise begin with a vowel have a preceding glottal stop when they occur at the beginning of a sentence (however, such glottal stops are not written in the standard orthography). AnonMoos ( talk) 05:23, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
So, the ا in the Arabic definite article is simply shorthand for the one with the hamza on top? And the hamza on top, although it's written as a hamza and looks exactly like a hamza, isn't a hamza in this case but is a "hamzatu l-waṣl," which doesn't have a glottal sound? And the pronunciation of both is just "a" (not long "a" or glottalized "a")? Is that right? This kind of thing can be very complicated for a beginner to understand so I think we should spell it out in the very clearest language possible in the article, as it's such an important word. The explanation of the "hamzatu l-waṣl" in the article is just way too opaque as it reads right now; can we refine it for clarity? Badagnani ( talk) 05:27, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
I am a senior undergraduate student at the University of Toronto, majoring in Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations. I am in the process of writing an essay on the definite article, Al-. It is extremely comprehensive and I've done substantial research. I am thinking of replacing this article with one more comprehensive which cites reliable sources. Although I am very new to Wikipedia editing, I think my article will be a welcomed replacement. The first draft will be ready within the next few days as of this post. I have read the discussions on this page.
Please advise as to whether a completely new article would be welcome or not. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nickjamil ( talk • contribs) 02:52, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
is gobbledygook. It starts off in the middle of a seemingly arcane subject. What are you talking about??!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.101.43.48 ( talk) 13:29, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
In fact, this whole section is gobbledygook. Can't someone present the basic morphophonological rule? I.e., "al" becomes "ar" before certain sounds, "an" before certain sounds, and so on? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.101.43.48 ( talk) 13:32, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
Under Etymology, a 19th-century theory by Jacob Barth is mentioned that holds that al- comes from the Arabic negation lā. As far as I can tell, this is an oddball theory, included by Testen in his dissertation for the sake of completeness, but so marginal that we can safely omit it here.
It is also mentioned that some unspecified supporters of a proto-Semitic hal- origin view the fact that hādhā al- can be shortened to hal- as supporting evidence, while some equally unspecified grammarians balk at that idea. I have to agree with the grammarians; obviously the fact that hādhā al- can be shortened to hal- in no way provides support to the theory that al- stems from hal-. Can we leave out this unsourced amateur stuff as well? -- Lambiam 07:36, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: page moved. Armbrust The Homunculus 00:29, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
Al- → Definite article in Arabic – Or Arabic definite article, or some other natural and intuitive description of what the article is about. The current title " Al-" is meaningless to many until they read a few lines of the lead. Wikipedia prefers article titles like " Question mark" and " At sign" over " ?" and " @". Besides, the Arabic definite article is not always and in all senses "al-". While its spelling is invariable in Arabic, pronunciation-wise that's not the case - the consonant "l" is assimilated by a following sun letter, and the vowel "a" may be dropped in connected speech, and these are sometimes reflected in romanizations, especially in linguistic scientific contexts. Theurgist ( talk) 19:37, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
At the beginning of place names, may be also in names of persons, there may or may not be a hyphen between "al" and the noun. Does the hyphen (or the absence of it) have a special meaning? Difference between geographic names, names of persons, and names of objects? -- Wickey-nl ( talk) 10:58, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
I put "is not" in the section on the verbs where it had "Additionally, we know that al- prefixed to verbs." I'm assuming this was just a typo because I've never heard of an Arabic verb taking al- aside from masdar/verbal nouns, however I am not a native speaker. 68.84.83.104 ( talk) 21:53, 18 October 2014 (UTC)Anonymous User.
This whole discussion seems to be based on two not very prolific researcher, at least one of whom presents what seems like totally baseless speculations. Specifically the whole last discussion about proto-semitic and the relationship of ha, al and hadha/hadhihi makes absolutely no sense. It is, for both etymological and historical reasons MUCH more probable that the definite ha in hebrew is related to a usage of the hadha demonstrative for signaling definiteness, after a preceeding loss of an actual definite article (which is what happened at different stages to various Aramaic/Syriac languages).
Arabic is in general by far the most archaic (i.e. the most probable to preserve original forms) of the Semitic languages still in use is well known to anyone who has studied Semitics, and has nothing at all to do with discountin Hebrew for some presumable anti-Jewish sentiments as someone tried to argue above.
Anyway, I'll let this stand for now, for the information of whoever reads this page, and I shall try to find time to come back and fix this section at a future point.
/Lecturer in Arabic and Semitic Languages.
47.18.169.243 ( talk) 02:05, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
I noticed there are many pages have"al-" in small letters, but what is certified style.-- Ammar Alwaeli ( talk) 08:29, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
has nothing at all to do with the article al-. It's a common folk etymology, but it actually came in from Latin -alis being tacked onto amir on its own. (Further, it spread across Christendom in reference to the emirs of emirs in Norman Sicily and not the emirs of the sea in Fatimid Egypt.) See the OED entry on Admiral or, for the time being at least, the corrected article here on Wikipedia. — LlywelynII 19:07, 19 April 2024 (UTC)