Talk:alpaca

alpaca

WNWD (1959)

[Sp. < Ar. al, the + Peruv. paco, animal]

Arabic and Peruvian together?—Strabismus 19:48, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

• That seems crazy. According to the RAE, it's from Aymara (deprecated template usage) all-paka. Ƿidsiþ 17:34, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

I concur. I have no idea what Guralnik, et al. based that on. Unless, of course, they were assuming that all non-Latinate/-Indo-European words in Spanish beginning with "al-" have an Arabic origin. But even there it's an overgeneralization.—Strabismus 02:01, 28 February 2009 (UTC)