OPINION: No relationship between mosque and mosquito, by Abdussalam Amoo
Written by Abdussalam Amoo…
Some email and social media posts have been circulating over the space for years now saying that ‘mosque’ is derived from ‘mosquito’.
From what is clear, there is no relationship between ‘mosque’ and ‘mosquito’. I wonder where those who link the two got that fantastically wrong idea.
Of course, when you look up the words in the dictionary, they’re close to each other. This is aside the fact that they share some phonological similarity. These are not however strong bases of claiming that they are related.
The word ‘mosque’ refers to a public place where Muslims worship. According to Merriam Webster’s Dictionary, it has its origin from the Middle French mosquée, from Old Italian moschea, from Old Spanish mezquita and from Arabic masjid temple (from sajada to prostrate oneself, worship).
Mosquito is descriptive of a small flying insect that bites the skin of people and animals and sucks their blood. It originates from Spanish as a diminutive of mosca fly, from Latin musca which means ‘fly’.
From the above, the English word ‘mosque’ is directly closer to French ‘mosquée’. In French, mosquito is called ‘mustique’. There is clearly no phonological link there.
Several other world languages have different names for various items. Beyond the Arabic ‘masjid’ and other earlier likely origins of English ‘mosque’, we have moschee in German, moskee in Afrikaans, mezquita in Asturian, and meskita/moskea in Basque. In Chechen, it is mäzhdig while the Czech call it mešita.
Close to that French pronunciation are the Danish moské, the Dutch moskee, Flemish moskee, Frisian moskee, the Irish mosc, the Esperanto moskeo and the Estonian mošee. Closer to the Spanish pronunciation are Finnish moskeija, Galician mezquita, Asturian mezquita and Brazilian Portuguese mesquite. There is no obvious relationship between its Arabic name and tupão in Guarani, džamija in Croatian or xhami in Albanian. The Yoruba call it mosalasi while the Hausa say mosallaci. Among languages that call it closer to its Arabic origin are Hebrew and Indonesian where it is called masjid or mesjid.
While it is understandable if people wish to promote the use of the Arabic word ‘masjid’, it is wrong of anyone to make false claims by relating ‘mosque’ to ‘mosquito’. To make matters worse, spreaders of the lie would give you some meaningless conditions to forward the hoax. Before you share messages purported to be religious, be sure you are not spreading ignorance. May Allah increase us in knowledge.
