Every time you say «ojalá», you pray in Arabic

«Ojalá» isn't a Spanish word that happens to sound Arabic. It is Arabic. It comes from Andalusi «law šá lláh» — God willing — and every time you say it, you repeat, without knowing it, a small prayer of Al-Andalus with eight centuries of use behind it.

It isn't alone. Spanish holds some four thousand words of Arabic origin: you sleep on an almohada (a pillow), you breakfast on aceitunas and azúcar — olives and sugar — you pay the tarifa on the rent, you keep things in the almacén (the warehouse), you dream of reaching the cénit, the zenith. Almost anything that begins with «al-» carries the Arabic article inside.

Languages don't invade one another: they embrace, and each keeps something of the other. Castilian Spanish is also the echo of every people who spoke it.

And perhaps that's why «ojalá» can't be translated exactly: it isn't «I hope that». It's a wish made with the eyes closed, spoken upward.

Source: Real Academia Española