“…APRICOT. This word originates from the Latin praecoquum /prekokvum/ — “early”: this name was given to various early-ripening fruit varieties. Of course, when a word transitions from one language to another, some sounds often get replaced; but where did the initial ‘a’ sound come from? The history of this word is as follows. It was first borrowed by the Greeks, who replaced the Latin suffix with their own: prekokkion; then the Greeks lent it to the Arabs. In Arabic, there were no ‘p’ or ‘o’ sounds, and the Arabs replaced them with ‘b’ and ‘u.’ Moreover, an Arabic word cannot start with two consonants — and a vowel appeared between ‘b’ and ‘r’; the ending was dropped. Finally, they added the Arabic article al at the beginning: resulting in al-barquq. As the Arabs moved from the east of the Mediterranean to the west, they introduced this word in Spain; the Spaniards made it their own: albaricoque /albarikoque/. It then reached the French: abricot /abriko/, and the Dutch: abrikoos /abrikoos/; from the Dutch, it was adopted by the Russians….”
(“The Book on Language”)
Hi, I'm Rauf Aliev. 