As a Semitic language, one would expect the word dozen to be rooted in Aramaic (such as תריסר in Hebrew). This is obviously not the case, as the word appears similar to "dozen", rooted in Latin. Is this indeed true? And if so, how did the Latin roots reach Arabic?
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This discussion is perhaps of interest: forum.wordreference.com/threads/dozen-of-eggs.2619929– fdbFeb 6, 2017 at 9:52
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2 Answers
dazzīna is a modern borrowing from Italian dozzina. That said, there a few Latin loanwords in classical Arabic, almost all of them belonging to military vocabulary, for example the Qur’anic ṣirāṭ from strata “road”. (Latin was the language of the Roman army, even in the East).
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1Look here: archive.org/stream/foreignvocabular030753mbp#page/n211/mode/2up pp. 195-6.– fdbFeb 3, 2017 at 19:02
It is from Italian dozzina. It is borrowed to Turkish as düzine, then to Arabic.
