Editing Carrack (section)

==Name==
[[File:Galleys and carracks in battle.jpg|thumb|Naval battle involving carracks and galleys]]
English ''carrack'' was loaned in the late 14th century, via Old French ''caraque'', from ''carraca'', a term for a large, square-rigged sailing vessel used in Spanish, Italian and Middle Latin.

These ships were called ''carraca'' in [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]], [[Genoese language|Genoese]] and [[Spanish language|Spanish]], ''caraque'' or ''nef'' in [[French language|French]], and ''kraak'' in [[Dutch language|Dutch]].

The origin of the term ''carraca'' is unclear, perhaps from Arabic ''qaraqir'' "merchant ship", itself of unknown origin (maybe from Latin ''carricare'' "to load a car" or Greek ''καρκαρίς ''"load of timber") or the [[Arabic language|Arabic]] [http://www.almaany.com/ar/dict/ar-ar/%D9%82%D8%B1%D9%82%D9%88%D8%B1/ القُرْقُورُ] (''al-qurqoor'') and from thence to the [[Greek language|Greek]] {{lang|grc|κέρκουρος}} (''kerkouros'') meaning approximately [[lighter (barge)|"lighter"]] (barge) literally, "shorn tail", a possible reference to the ship's flat stern). Its attestation in Greek literature is distributed in two closely related lobes. The first distribution lobe, or area, associates it with certain light and fast merchantmen found near [[Cyprus]] and [[Corfu]]. The second is an extensive attestation in the [[Oxyrhynchus]] corpus, where it seems most frequently to describe the Nile barges of the [[History of Ptolemaic Egypt|Ptolemaic]] [[pharaoh]]s. Both of these usages may lead back through the [[Phoenician languages|Phoenician]] to the [[Akkadian language|Akkadian]] ''kalakku'', which denotes a type of river barge. The Akkadian term is assumed to be derived from a [[Sumerian language|Sumerian]] antecedent.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bosworth |first1=C. Edmund |title=Some remarks on the terminology of irrigation practices and hydraulic constructions in the eastern Arab and Iranian worlds in the third-fifth centuries A.H.|journal=Journal of Islamic Studies |date=1991 |volume=2 |issue=1 |pages=78–85 |doi=10.1093/jis/2.1.78}}</ref> A modern reflex of the word is found in Arabic and [[Turkish language|Turkish]] ''kelek'' "raft; riverboat".<ref>{{cite journal |last=Gong |first= Y |title= kalakku: Überlegungen zur Mannigfaltigkeit der Darstellungsweisen desselben Begriffs in der Keilschrift anhand des Beispiels kalakku | journal =[[Journal of Ancient Civilizations]]|volume=5 |year=1990 |pages=9–24 |issn=1004-9371 }}</ref>
[[File:Four-master and Two Three-masters Anchored near a Fortified Island from The Sailing Vessels MET DP102238.jpg|thumb|Three- and four-masted carracks]]