Abstract:
When a group of languages share a common origin, they can be considered as a language
family known as "Protolanguage". For instance, English is believed to belong to the Indo European family of languages, while Arabic is thought to have descended from a language
known as Proto-Semitic. It follows that English and Arabic are expected to be structurally
distinct Languages. However, many English words are observably similar to their
counterparts in Arabic. Furthermore, if analysed morphologically as well as phonologically,
almost every English word proves to have a direct cognate in Arabic whose sense could be
much revealing of the origin it has developed from. Accordingly, this study is envisaged to
investigate students’ attitudes concerning the use of Morpho-phonological analysis of English
vocabulary via Arabic lexical roots together to gain new insights into the closeness of these
two languages, ever thought so distant. Thus, this study contends that English is of a Semitic
origin, and so, if students are exposed to Cross-linguistic Morpho-phonological Analysis
(CLMPA), their cultural awareness regarding the statuses of English and Arabic will be raised
in favour of the recognition of Arabic ancestry. To achieve the research aims of this study, the
data were collected through one research tool, a questionnaire. The latter was administered to
thirty-five second year Master students at the department of English. The findings reveal that
CLMPA has substantially succeeded in exposing the Arabic meanings embedded in English
vocabulary, and so, raising students’ cultural awareness regarding the unexpressed parentage
of the two languages
