Linguistic Borrowing and Civilizational Exchange in Light of the Doha Historical Dictionary of Arabic

Abstract

This study examines the phenomenon of linguistic borrowing as a bridge for civilizational exchange and an effective instrument for fostering intercultural dialogue, taking the Doha Historical Dictionary of the Arabic Language as its primary corpus for application. The study proceeds from the hypothesis that language is a mirror of civilization, and that lexical borrowing between languages represents not merely a linguistic necessity but rather a natural outgrowth of contact and interaction across history. The study seeks to foreground linguistic borrowing as a manifestation of acculturation and civilizational exchange among peoples, while demonstrating the epistemological and historical value that the Doha Historical Dictionary contributes to the tracing of borrowed lexical items, the dating of their entry into the Arabic lexicon, and the documentation of their semantic development across successive historical periods. The study further attends to the capacity of the Arabic language to absorb borrowed lexical items and adapt them to serve the sciences, the humanities, and cultural life within the broader context of human civilizational interaction. The study arrives at a set of conclusions, the most prominent of which are: first, that linguistic borrowing in Arabic has functioned as a factor of enrichment rather than of weakness, and has contributed to the transmission of knowledge and the sciences across civilizations; and second, that the Doha Historical Dictionary represents a qualitative leap in Arabic lexicographical scholarship, affording researchers the means to trace the precise historical emergence of borrowed terms, document the trajectories of their development, and identify the derivational forms they have subsequently generated.