Tariff: The well-travelled Arabic term that became a byword for isolationism
“To me, the most beautiful word in the dictionary is 'tariff'. And it’s my favourite word.”
That’s what Donald Trump said ahead of the US presidential election, months before shaking global markets by announcing a sweeping set of tariffs being imposed on almost every country in the world.
But where does that favourite word of Trump’s originate from?
The answer is: Arabic. And there’s at least two competing theories of how it came to be popularised in Europe.
A tariff is a tax that is paid on goods coming into or going out of a country.
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It is widely thought that the English word comes from the French word "tarif", which in turn comes from the Italian "tariffa".
"Tariffa" is defined as a list of prices or charges, or a set of taxes and customs. The Italian word derives from the Latin term "tarifa", which means "set price".
It may have arrived in the medieval Latin-speaking world through the Ottoman Turks, who used the word ta’rifa (list of prices) from a similar word in Persian.
The Persian term derives from the Arabic word ta’rif, meaning to notify, announce, define or assert, or to set out fees to be paid.
Most Arabic words are based on a three-letter root word. The root for ta’rif is ‘arafa, which means "to know".
So when Trump stood in the Rose Garden of the White House with a big chart pointing at duty rates imposed on every corner of the globe, he was seeking to notify, announce and assert - as the origin of the word intended.
Contested history
How the word ta’rif went from the Arabic-speaking world to Europe is contested.
While it may have been through the Ottomans, it may have also been transmitted via the centuries of Muslim rule in Spain, the brief Arab Muslim rule in Sicily, or even later, through the Barbary Corsairs in the 17th century.
There's another theory of how the word may have been popularised in Europe.
The Spanish town Tarifa lies at the southernmost point of the Iberian Peninsula, along the Costa de la Luz near Gibraltar.
The area was named during the Islamic conquest of Spain after Tarif ibn Malik, a commander who raided the southern coastline in 710 under the orders of Umayyad commander Tariq ibn Ziyad.
As it was the closest point to North Africa, all shipping into Muslim Spain arrived via the port of Tarifa.
It was there at Tarifa, the theory goes, that the idea that merchant ships would be held up until a levy charge was paid was first formulated.
Thus, the concept came to be known as a "tariff", based on the location, and was quickly popularised further afield in Europe.
If that origination is correct then the Arabic etymology of tariff is more inadvertent, through the name Tarif ibn Malik.
Whether Malik was originally an Arab or of Amazigh descent is a matter of scholarly disagreement.
There are hundreds of other English words that have their origins in the Arabic language. They include words like chemistry, coffee, alcohol, zero, sugar and lemon.
In Spanish, around 4,000 words - or 8 percent of the dictionary - have roots in Arabic.
While Trump’s policy of widescale tariffs might have been intended as an isolationist move to halt the impact of globalisation, the journey of the word itself shows the centuries-long history of international trade and shared ideas.
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