Plural of alma; learned or nourishing women, or women skilled in singing and dancing in Middle Eastern cultures.
From Arabic 'alma' (feminine of 'alim'), meaning 'learned' or 'knowing.' The word traveled through Ottoman Turkish and entered European languages through colonial contact.
The term reveals how Western languages borrowed words for female performers from Arabic, but often stripped away the intellectual meaning—'alma' originally meant 'learned woman' but became associated primarily with entertainment in European usage.
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