The relationship between the Persian and Arabic languages goes back thousands of years. Despite their similarities in script and some of the vocabulary, the two languages are not related. In fact, they belong to two entirely separate language families; while Persian belongs to the Indo-Iranian family – along with Pashto and Kurdish – Arabic belongs to the Semitic family with Hebrew and Syriac. Though it may surprise some, Persian is more connected to German and English than it is to Arabic, when it comes to its roots. In spite of this, Persian has many loanwords from Arabic, while Arabic has also acquired loanwords from Persian, due to close cultural and historical connections between the regions where the two languages are spoken, particularly given those regions’ early ties to Islam. The earliest encounter of the two languages is said to have occurred after the Arab conquest of Persia in 632 A.D. Later, during the Abbasid empire (around 750 A.D.), scholars and writers traveled to Baghdad and began to translate literature and works of knowledge in both languages in Bayt al-Hikmah. The exchange of information during this era led to the common…
