The Arabic influence on Spanish is significant, dating back to nearly 800 years of Arab rule in Spain. Roughly around 4,000 Spanish words come from Arabic, especially those starting with “al” such as alcalde (mayor), algodón (cotton), and almohada (pillow).
But our favourite of all these is probably “ojalá”, meaning “God willing”, which is a direct borrowing from a well known Arabic expression – who can guess which one?
