Quote:

You might as well ask where the al in alcohol came from. It's the definite article in Arabic, not a part of the word the Spanish borrowed. Yet, no grammar mavens rail against the al in alcohol and say, like the hoi in hoi polloi, that one shouldn't say the alcohol.



We borrowed the whole thing, article and all. Not only for this one, but for a couple thousand others too... I guess this could be because in Arabic script the article is attached to the word, so it all looks like one unit.