Similarities Between Arabic and Spanish

This new video from USC Annenberg Media explores the similarities between the Arabic and Spanish languages. The video features two native speakers who are asked to say certain words, such as "sugar," "shirt," and "scorpion," and then are surprised to realize how much the two languages have in common. For example, sugar in Arabic is pronounced sookar and in Spanish it is azúcar. As the video concludes, these linguistic commonalities are not surprising, given the shared history between the two cultures, which dates back to the year 711 A.D. The video was made by two USC juniors who study broadcast and digital journalism as a way to connect two seemingly disparate cultural communities in conversation. Since the video was launched last month, it has received more than 12 million views on Facebook and more than 464,000 views on YouTube.

Fusion Network offers an in-depth analysis of the public diplomacy possibilities of this video here.