With so many learned people on this forum, maybe somebody will have thoughts: Does anyone know if the Spanish word "albergue" derives from Arabic? The sources I have found online suggest Latin roots, yet I am curious because when I studied Arabic, the prefix "al" was usually an indicator of loan words: algebra, alcohol, etc. I cannot find an etymological connection, so maybe it's one of those famous false cognates - but given the cultural connections, it's something I have always wondered.
It isn't.
I looked it up, and it has a complex origin. It seems to have a Gallo-Roman origin, i.e. dialectal Late Latin, and an
albergare meaning to harbour, to shelter -- and indeed the word
harbour is derived from the same origin, as are some Flemish words similar to harbour. It went into Spanish via a Provençal/Occitanian
alberge then Middle French verb
alberger (> noun
auberge) then Spanish
albergue -- though there is also a French verb
herbergier >
héberger from the same root. The English
harbour and French
héberger are more visibly related than
harbour /
albergue, but they're all from that same Gallo-Roman origin.
What's interesting is that given the period when this happened, the word may have been literally "carried" into Spanish by pilgrims and settlers from France along the French Way (the
Camino Francès is named so not so much for its origins in France nor the French pilgrims, but rather from the many French-speaking new villages that sprung up upon its route, and some of their vocabulary ended up in the Castilian that they eventually switched to).
Whether it had some Gaulish origin or if it derived in Gallo-Roman from a germanic form is simply a matter for conjecture.