Romance tidbits

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Sequor
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Re: Romance tidbits

Post by Sequor »

qwed117 wrote: 01 Apr 2020 18:54re: Spanish initials, it's worth remembering that initial voiced plosives used to be pronounced with a "hard" plosive articulation, and that unvoiced plosives tend to be "more aspirated" than other languages (though, not as much as English). So it could be like how English borrows Beijing with a clear voiced /b/, even though the Chinese pronunciation is a unaspirated unvoiced /p/.
I feel this comment needs some corrections...

Initial voiced plosives are still pronounced with a hard plosive articulation a lot of the time, especially masculine countable nouns because they often follow the article un, but really all words in general due to n-final suffixes (3PL -n throughout verbal conjugation also the standard 2PL in Latin America, besides derivational suffixes for nouns and adjectives like -ción for abstract nouns, -án and -ín for derived adjectives, and -ón for augmentatives and saying that something has a habit) and a relatively free constituent word order, and also the various n-final prepositions (en 'in/at/on', sin 'without', con 'with', según 'according to').

Spanish unvoiced plosives have a remarkably low VOT, pronounced less aspirated than many other languages, probably due to the general lenition of the voiced plosives to approximants the majority of the time. That said, French, Portuguese and Catalan also have a pretty low VOT, in spite of not having said lenition, so maybe it's just a contemporary Romance thing. For an example of lightly aspirated unvoiced plosives paired with voiced ones, see contemporary Japanese...


That said, this is merely today's Romance I'm talking about, and you may be entirely right that the VOT is to blame. Guitarra and bandurria were borrowed many centuries ago (we're talking about 700-800 years ago), so Spanish may well have had somewhat aspirated /p k/ back then, so that /b g/ were reasonable choices to borrow those words with.

Although I also wonder if medieval Arabic may be involved, since most dialects (certainly all African ones) lack /p/, which could explain the /b/ of bandurria. And also, in modern Arabic, /k/ is lightly aspirated as in Japanese, and there is evidence in medieval Romance borrowings that Andalusian Arabic had /g/ [g] as the corresponding phoneme of qaf (Semitic / Standard Arabic /q/), which may have meant that the Greek [k] of κιθάρα (or for that matter the ch- [k] of an Italian form of the word) may have been perceived as /g/. But maybe this is wrong... Although the modern Arabic form of the word is قثارة /qiθa:ra/ (with /q/, so perhaps Andalusian /g/ [g]), this may actually be a modern re-borrowing from Greek, as Coromines and Pascual in their etymological dictionary of Spanish give the medieval spelling كيطارة (that is k-j-tˤ-a:-r-a, with /k/) in 11th century Arabic, and further mention the Old Spanish variants quitarra and quiterna, quite clearly with /k/. Perhaps there's something about Old Spanish that is to be blamed after all.
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Re: Romance tidbits

Post by Salmoneus »

Khemehekis wrote: 01 Apr 2020 04:25 I never realized "oud" and "lute" were related! The L from al- spilling over almost sounds like naranja/orange, an apron/a napkin, an eft/a newt, etc. I figure the popularity of the lute preceding the guitar wave is why guitar-makers are called luthiers and their craft is called lutherie?
Yes, indeed - early guitar makers would all (probably even in Spain) have primarily been lute makers. Lute making was a massive industry - any family anywhere in Europe with at least some disposable income owned at least one lute (and lutes came in a vast range of sizes and tunings).


While we're in this morass, lets maybe get a bit more clarity on the different instruments...


We start out with what's call for the sake of argument a tanbur. This is a very, very ancient design from the middle east: it has a round-backed, often pear-shaped soundbox, and a long neck. These instruments spread throughout north africa, central asia and the subcontinent (eg the modern Indian sitar).

In Europe, the one wave of these instruments spread out from Greece - the aforementioned Greek pandoura, Balkan tambura (from the Greek tambouras - the Greeks maintained their old instrument, but borrowed the Turkish name for it), etc. The most famous modern example is the Greek bouzouki (again borrowed back from Turkey).

Somebody, however much later on invented a different type of instrument by fiddling with the tanbur. This may have happened in Central Asia, where the new instruments are known from several centuries BC. However, the best-known example is the Arabic oud. This instrument characteristically "short-necked". This is in part because it had more strings - tanbur-type instruments usually only have two or three (or even one) string, so need long necks to let the player play many different notes on one string. More strings means a shorter neck is needed. Visually, the neck is also shortened in two other ways: the pegbox is tilted back at an angle rather than being in-line; and the soundbox is more rounded, but curves up into the neck making the distinction between the two less clear. Here is a (very) long-necked 'tanbur-type' instrument (the modern Turkish tanbur has adopted a very large, round box, though the neck remains long), whereas here is a short-necked oud.

The oud was adopted across Europe under the name 'lute' - technically there are some differences, because they spent centuries diverging, but fundamentally the lute is just a regional variant of the oud.

Confusingly, however, early local adaptations of the oud were called by names taken from the long-necked pandouras - thus, the traditional Italian mandolin, French mandore, and Spanish bandurria are actually more like lutes than tanburs.

There were many varieties of lute. Small lutes were called "guitars" or "gitterns". This word was derived via inexplicable voicing from the Greek kithara, a type of lyre - but the guitar was unrelated to the kithara in anything but name. The Germans kept the voiceless initial stop, but for some reason labialised it, calling the instrument the 'quintern'... particularly intriguing, as the Arabs made the same two decisions, calling their version the 'kwitra'.



Then we have a third big invention, somewhere in central Asia: bowing. Generally, bowing was used on the long-necked instruments - I guess because with a longer neck and fewer strings, it's easier to bow. This innovation was introduced into Europe at least twice. One came through the Byzantine lyra, which, confusingly, was NOT a (bowed) lyre (though the ancient lyra was indeed a lyre), but rather a bowed tanbur (the bowed lyre or bowed psaltery in northern europe was known as the crowd, particularly popular in Wales). From the lyra developed the 'vitula', or 'female calf', as its piercing sound was flatteringly called. Meanwhile from the Arabic rabab was introduced the 'rebec'. And yes, "rebec" is how the French borrowed the word "rabab". The English did better, at first calling the instrument the "rybybe" or "ribible".

Rebecs were more sophisticated, with arced bridges to enable the playing of more strings. The vitula - or vielle, or fiddle, or viol, or vihuela - developed its own innovation: first, a flat back and perpendicular sides, making it cheaper to build and stronger; and later, a 'figure of eight' or 'waisted' shape, to make it easier to bow the string without the body getting in the way (particular now that the body was less curved behind). The fiddle also crucially developed

The idea of a flat back appears to have been applied to non-bowed instruments to invent the citole. Although really, no-one knows what the citole was. Or why it's called that. It's assumed to be from 'kithera', plus a diminutive. Although I wonder if the -ole might be related to the -ola of the mandola (borrowed from that of the almond).

The citole was then forgotten about, but probably reinvented in the form of the cittern. This is probably just a mashing together of the words 'gittern' and 'citole'. The cittern, unusually, had metal strings, which might be why it used the flat back and sides (metal strings need higher tension, which need a stronger body). The cittern in England developed into the English guitar or 'guittar' (also the portuguese guitar and the german waldzither which is, needless to say, NOT a zither. And yes, 'zither' comes from 'kithara', but the zither is also not a lyre like the kithara).

[actually, apparently the german guitar produced the english guitar, which in turn gave rise to the portuguese guitar due to the alcohol trade between the two countries. The english guitar was also the instrument known as the guitar in scandinavia until relatively recently. The French, meanwhile, called both the cittern an the english guitar "cistre", randomly inserting an 's' into the word, possibly by analogy with the word for 'box']


Now, in Spain, the later, figure-of-eight fiddle started to be played without a bow, just by plucking. This instrument was still called the vihuela. Then someone had the idea of making a slightly smaller vihuela, which they called the guitar (that being the name for a small plucked instrument, after all). The guitar then grew in size for several centuries.

The guitar, therefore, is in origin neither a lute nor one of the old long-necked lutes, but simply a violin without a bow. Compare this painting of an early guitar with this reconstructed mediaeval fiddle for the similarities. The two big differences there (other than the guitar's more innovative pegbox) are the holes (central in the guitar, lateral for the fiddle) and the frets. The holes on fiddles could be pretty much anywhere, but the guitar's round central hole (originally filled with a pattern) is taken from the oud/lute; in the middle ages, both plucked and unplucked european instruments could either have or lack frets as the player chose (most frets only being string wrapped around the neck).


[later, the fiddle adopted the arched bridge of the rebec to let it play melodies more easily, and became the viol]



And finally, Americans discovered the mandolin, and liked it so much that they decided to completely change all its characteristics, basically turning it into a novelty guitar.



It's all very complicated...
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Re: Romance tidbits

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Random comment: while it is pretty obvious that Latin habēre 'have' and Germanic *habjaną 'have' are not cognates (the true cognate of *habjaną in Latin is capere 'to grab sth', and Latin habēre has no cognates in Germanic), I do believe they strongly influenced each other to develop the have-perfect construction. I wonder if any other examples like this, involving similar-sounding but unrelated words, could be found between Romance and Germanic...
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Re: Romance tidbits

Post by Khemehekis »

Ser wrote: 06 Apr 2020 20:34 Random comment: while it is pretty obvious that Latin habēre 'have' and Germanic *habjaną 'have' are not cognates (the true cognate of *habjaną in Latin is capere 'to grab sth', and Latin habēre has no cognates in Germanic), I do believe they strongly influenced each other to develop the have-perfect construction. I wonder if any other examples like this, involving similar-sounding but unrelated words, could be found between Romance and Germanic...
How about Italian "bordello" and Anglo-Saxon "brothel"?

@Salmoneus: That truly is fascinating how musical instruments and the names thereof spread around. That post could go into a "Best of" thread, if we had one. (I believe the old ZBB had one.)
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Re: Romance tidbits

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Khemehekis wrote: 06 Apr 2020 20:39How about Italian "bordello" and Anglo-Saxon "brothel"?
Ooh, great! The Romance word from bord-ellum ("board-diminutive"), with bord- 'board' borrowed from Frankish, and the English word from *breuþ-il-az ("fall_apart/deteriorate-diminutive-(nominal)").

That has also reminded me of Spanish speakers who translate English "array" (the term used in software development for possibly-nested linear blocks of data, which comes from an old Oïl word arrayer coming from ad-reid-āre, with the root reid- borrowed from Frankish and cognate with Eng. "ready") as arreglo 'arrangement, order' (a process and result noun of arreglar 'to arrange sth, put sth in order', which comes from *ad-rēgul-āre, derived from Latin rēgula 'ruler', from rēgō 'I rule over sth, govern' and related to rēgem 'king').

Phono-semantic matches are so fun. [:D]
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Re: Romance tidbits

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BTW I just corrected my previous post on French rounded vowels, after receiving feedback elsewhere.

Besides improving clarity a bit and adding more comments about the writing system, I had a mistake: early Old French /ɛlC/ actually evolves to /(j)awC/, then /awC/, then /oC/, e.g. Classical Latin bellōs > Late Latin *[ˈbɛl:os] > early Old French bels [bɛls] > beaus/biaus/beaux/biaux [bjaws] (or [be̯aws]) > late Old French beaux [bos] > modern French beaux [bo]. I had mistakenly written that /ɛlC/ > /ewC/ > /øC/, but this is something specific to early Old French /jɛC/, not /ɛC/, e.g. Classical Latin caelōs > pre-French *[ˈtsjɛlos] > early Old French ciels [tsjɛls] > cieux [tsjews] > late Old French cieux [sjøs] > modern French cieux [sjø]. So /ɛC/ and /jɛC/ and their trajectories are now distinguished.

Curiously, I can't think of any instance of /wɛlC/ compared to /ɔlC/ that may matter. Is there even any instance of Classical Latin /ɔlVC/ that survived as /wɛlC/ in Old French? I can think of some irrelevant examples of surviving Latin /ɔlVC/ (Latin molās > mueles [ˈmwɛləs]), but not any good ones.
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Re: Romance tidbits

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Ser wrote: 12 Apr 2020 22:45 BTW I just corrected my previous post on French rounded vowels, after receiving feedback elsewhere.

Besides improving clarity a bit and adding more comments about the writing system, I had a mistake: early Old French /ɛlC/ actually evolves to /(j)awC/, then /awC/, then /oC/, e.g. Classical Latin bellōs > Late Latin *[ˈbɛl:os] > early Old French bels [bɛls] > beaus/biaus/beaux/biaux [bjaws] (or [be̯aws]) > late Old French beaux [bos] > modern French beaux [bo]. I had mistakenly written that /ɛlC/ > /ewC/ > /øC/, but this is something specific to early Old French /jɛC/, not /ɛC/, e.g. Classical Latin caelōs > pre-French *[ˈtsjɛlos] > early Old French ciels [tsjɛls] > cieux [tsjews] > late Old French cieux [sjøs] > modern French cieux [sjø]. So /ɛC/ and /jɛC/ and their trajectories are now distinguished.

Curiously, I can't think of any instance of /wɛlC/ compared to /ɔlC/ that may matter. Is there even any instance of Classical Latin /ɔlVC/ that survived as /wɛlC/ in Old French? I can think of some irrelevant examples of surviving Latin /ɔlVC/ (Latin molās > mueles [ˈmwɛləs]), but not any good ones.
The first one which came to my mind was the present tense of doloir/douloir. There are probably more. I don't think this would help anyway, as the development of /u̯elC/, /u̯eu̯C/ is a an entire rabbit-hole of problems and according to what I've learned, you made an erroneous assumption: The Old French outcome of Vulgar Latin /ɛ/ in stressed open syllables wasn't /jɛ/. Rather, it was originally a diphthong which didn't rime with any other vowel (see below*), and then a dipthong (presumably /je/) which rimed with /e/ from Vulgar Latin /a/ in stressed open syllables. The outcome /je/ is still preserved word-finally, e.g. in pied, where /e/ of any origin is preserved, e.g. pré. Before a consonant, stressed /e/ was eventually opened to /ɛ/ in a quite complex sequence of changes** spanning the 16th and the 17th centuries, whence the /jɛ/ in ciel, like the /ɛ/ in mer. Words like père, mère were originally /peɾə/, /meɾə/ and in the 16th centuries grammarians disagreed whether mer was /meɾ/ or /mɛr/.


*My sources usually assume /ie̯/, a falling diphthong with stress on /i/ and a semivowel /e̯/. This may seem exotic, but dipthongs like that are attested in actual languages. I've heard some with my own ears while doing field research on a Croatian dialect.

**According to this paper in French, it was a case of lexical diffusion replacing word-final /eɾ/ with /ɛr/ in monosyllables, followed by remaining /eɾ/ becoming /e/.
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Re: Romance tidbits

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Zekoslav wrote: 25 Apr 2020 17:38The first one which came to my mind was the present tense of doloir/douloir. There are probably more. I don't think this would help anyway, as the development of /u̯elC/, /u̯eu̯C/ is a an entire rabbit-hole of problems
I haven't yet looked into the matter well (published research, data) to fix the post further, but I wonder whether the fact there were so few instances of it meant it evolved in very incongruous ways. However, since my last edit of the post, I was able to find one relatively good example...:

vult > reg. to *vol-it [ˈvɔlet] > Old French vuelt > vueut > veut.

...Which is about what you'd expect (even for the [vw] > [v] change we can bring up avoec > avec, and the hesitation of vīpera > guivre~vouivre), but nevertheless it is still a generalization from a sample of n=1.

Theoretically speaking, oculōs would be another one, but that particular word shows up with such a high number of variants in Old French, even into Middle French, from the "relatively expected" (so-to-speak) olz/ols *[ɔlts] (with closed syllable development, cf. genucul-ōs > genolz [dʒəˈnolts] > genoux) and uelz/uels/oeulz/eus (with open syllable development, cf. vetulōs > vielz) to the likes of ils, and oulz, and yalz, and yolz, and the yelz/yeus/yeulx/yeux that the language ended up settling on, that it effectively becomes useless...
and according to what I've learned, you made an erroneous assumption: The Old French outcome of Vulgar Latin /ɛ/ in stressed open syllables wasn't /jɛ/. Rather, it was originally a diphthong which didn't rime with any other vowel (see below*), and then a dipthong (presumably /je/) which rimed with /e/ from Vulgar Latin /a/ in stressed open syllables. The outcome /je/ is still preserved word-finally, e.g. in pied, where /e/ of any origin is preserved, e.g. pré.
Thanks for mentioning that! Yes, it was [je]. I totally forgot about that.

...Which reminds me, did you know that the outcome <ben> of Latin bene in the Chanson de Roland actually rhymes with words that have close /e/? Colloquial European French has [bæ̃], and Quebec French equally has /bæ̃/ [bæ̃j̃], and I suspect this colloquial pronunciation is a direct descendant of this early Old French [bɛ̃n] that didn't become [bãn], as opposed to some kind of early-modern-era loss of [j] in the more prestigious variant form <bien> [bjɛ̃] in early modern French.

— Ne'l ferez certes, dist li quens Olivers, [ɔliˈvers] (Olīvārius)
Vostre curages est mult pesmes e fiers : [fjers] (ferus)
Jo me crendreie que vus vus meslisez. [mesliˈzets] (*mis + -lege-x-ātōs)
Se li reis voelt, jo i puis aler ben. [ben] (bene)
Respunt li reis : Ambdui vus en taisez, [taiˈzets] (tacētis)
Ne vus ne il n'i porterez les piez. [pjets] (pedēs)
Par ceste barbe que veez blancheier, [blanˈtʃəjer] (*blank + -iāre)
Li duze per mar i serunt juget. [dʒʉˈdʒeθ] (iūdicātī)
Franceis se taisent, as les vus aquisez. [akiˈzets] (ad-quīs-ātōs)
(Chanson de Roland 255-263)

(Yes, I know, this passage also provides nice examples of both fier and pié... Image)
*My sources usually assume /ie̯/, a falling diphthong with stress on /i/ and a semivowel /e̯/. This may seem exotic, but dipthongs like that are attested in actual languages. I've heard some with my own ears while doing field research on a Croatian dialect.
I have seen this [ie̯] reconstruction before. Do you happen to know what it is based on?

Also, there is no need to defend an exotic reconstructed sound of the Middle Ages with exotic rural Slavic, when English RP has diphthongs of this sort! Image I'm talking about gear [giə̯], poor [pʰʊə̯], care [kʰɛə̯] (even if the second one is practically completely replaced by [pʰɔ:] now, and the third one will soon be replaced by [kʰɛ:] too).

My understanding is that Irish is full of these things, e.g. caomh 'dear, lovely' [kɰi:ə̯vˠ] (Connacht), lón 'food, lunch' [lˠ(w)o:ə̯nˠ] (also Connacht). Mandarin also has a couple such diphthongs in the rimes /ə/ [ɘɤ̯] and /in/ [iə̯n] (although it is equally prestigious to use [ɤ:] and [in] instead), e.g. 和 /χə˧˥/ [χɘɤ̯˧˥ hɤ:˧˥]) 'peace; Japan; and', 親 /tɕʰin˥/ [tɕʰiə̯n˥ tɕʰin˥] 'relative (family member); kiss'.
Before a consonant, stressed /e/ was eventually opened to /ɛ/ in a quite complex sequence of changes** spanning the 16th and the 17th centuries, whence the /jɛ/ in ciel, like the /ɛ/ in mer. Words like père, mère were originally /peɾə/, /meɾə/ and in the 16th centuries grammarians disagreed whether mer was /meɾ/ or /mɛr/.

**According to this paper in French, it was a case of lexical diffusion replacing word-final /eɾ/ with /ɛr/ in monosyllables, followed by remaining /eɾ/ becoming /e/.
I think you're misciting the paper there, as he doesn't say anything about /eCə/ words. Even if the author said what you say he says, I think the correct sound change to be identified would not be an analogy with the word-final [er] > [ɛr] sound change, but the general [eCə] > [ɛCə] change. The same change that gave us early modern maniére [maˈnjerə] > manière [maˈnjɛrə], événement > [evɛnəˈmã] (still spelled the old way until the 1990 reform for some weird reason, now also évènement), *ad-cap-at > OFr il achieve [aˈtʃjevə] > EMF il achève [aˈʃɛvə], the [(j)e]~[(j)ɛrə] alternation in e.g. EMF premier~première and léger~légère, and so on.

It was a very interesting paper to read though! It goes to show that the usual wisdom of "Middle French really dropped practically every final consonant" is likely not true, citing dialects that we can suppose have been less influenced by orthography.
Last edited by Sequor on 27 Apr 2020 22:28, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Romance tidbits

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Ser wrote: 27 Apr 2020 01:08 I have seen this [ie̯] reconstruction before. Do you happen to know what it is based on?
I'm not sure. The fact that in the earliest stages of the language it could only make assonance* with itself, not with any other vowel, shows that it was something special (this is mentioned in another interesting paper by prof. Morin, paragraph 3.1.2), but AFAIK the reconstruction of a falling diphthong is based on theoretical considerations. Prof. Morin simply says it must have been a unitary phoneme, but doesn't reconstruct it as a falling diphthong. Others suggest that the diphthongization proceded somewhat like [ɛː] > [ɛæ̯] > [eɛ̯] > [ie̯] > [je]. The lengthened open-mid vowels would have first broken into falling diphthongs, listen to the American pronunciations here for something vaguely similar, I hear [æa̯] in a lot of them. Then the entire diphthong would have raised and finally, the accent would jump from the first to the second. This last step is usually placed at the same point in time when [oi̯] > [wɛ]. But based on your examples from Roland, that seems to be a wrong guess!

As for why I picked up an obscure South Slavic example, well, that's because it really is precisely [ie̯], while the English ones end in [ə̯]! I didn't remember the American English [æa̯] at that time.

*I don't know what's the verb that goes with 'assonance' like 'to rime' goes with 'rime'.
Ser wrote: 27 Apr 2020 01:08 I think you're misciting the paper there, as they don't say anything about /eCə/ words. Even if the author said what you say he says, I think the correct sound change to be identified would not be an analogy with the word-final [er] > [ɛr] sound change, but the general [eCə] > [ɛCə] change. The same change that gave us early modern maniére [maˈnjerə] > manière [maˈnjɛrə], événement > [evɛnəˈmã] (still spelled the old way until the 1990 reform for some weird reason, now also évènement), *ad-cap-at > OFr il achieve [aˈtʃjevə] > EMF il achève [aˈʃɛvə], the [(j)e]~[(j)ɛrə] alternation in e.g. EMF premier~première and léger~légère, and so on.
I apologize. I remembered the article from long ago and cited it without rereading it. It's really about why some final r's were lost and some weren't, it does say a lot about the vowels but I must have forgotten what it really does say! I also forgot to mention that the thing about père and mère wasn't from that paper!
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Re: Romance tidbits

Post by qwed117 »

x-post to a more fitting thread. Figure this is okay, since it fits better here, then a discussion on the GVS or something
qwed117 wrote: 27 Apr 2020 19:12
Ser wrote: 26 Apr 2020 21:40]
That Logudorese preterite looks whacky as hell though, to the point that I even wonder if you transcribed it correctly... It looks like it has got the same [-zi-] suffix that appears in a few Old French verbs that descend from the Latin 2nd or 3rd conjugation (facere fēcistī fēcimus > faire fesis fesimes [ˈfairə fəˈzis fəˈziməs], which expanded to e.g. sedēre sēdistī sēdimus > sedeir sesis sesimes [səˈðeir səˈzis səˈziməs]), but with thoroughly whacky stress assignment. Logudorese conserves geminate [ss] (ipsum > isso), so I don't think this preterite has taken forms from the pluperfect subjunctive in the 1PL and 2PL slots. Not to mention this is a 1st conjugation verb we're talking about (domare), which only increases the whackiness (why the -si- suffix if so?), although then again, Latin domāre did have a whacky half-1st half-3rd conjugation (domō/domat domāre domuī domitum), so maybe Logudorese just happens to conserve that. Anyway, what the hell?
Prefix: Romance languages, like all languages are cursed

I wasn't the one who transcribed it, so don't be blaming me. I copied it straight off the Oxford ODRVM. Of the 4 sources I have on Logudorese, I find 3 that give the first person preterit to be -esi (verbix, ODRVM, EB) and 1 that says ei (nativlang). I'd lean to supposing the nativlang preterit to be the mistranscribed version, because all three have distinct features that make me believe that they were all transcribed independently (especially the 3rd person preterit, -erunt in nativlang, -esint in ODRVM, and -eint in verbix).

Second thing to note is that to my knowledge, only Standard Italian and its related languages retain directly inherited geminates. <Ss> is not [ss], but just /s/. <Issos> represents /isos/or /isoz/ depending on the next phone, <usso> /uso/ (from Latin URSUM). In this case the transcription, could be phonologically understood as the pluperfect subjunctive. Obviously, though, the semantic mismatch is very large, enough to rule out the change- especially since, based on nativlang and verbix, Logudorese maintains the pluperfect subjunctive, like Spanish, probably an Aragonese influence.

Anyways, the issue with pushing this onto just domare, is that it's also *all* Sardinian verbs that share the preterit. <Ischire> becomes <ischesi>, <caentare> ("to warm") becomes <caentesi>, <ballare> becomes <ballesi>, so the explanation isn't just related to <domare>'s singular oddity. Instead, the actual answer is extremely cursed.
[url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7Q7H6uE2MMkC&pg=PA891&lpg=PA891#v=onepage&q&f=false wrote:Encyclopedia Britannica[/url]]Next comes the analogical and almost corrupt diffusion of the -si of the ancient strong perfects (such as posi and rosi-) by which cantesi, timesi (cantavi, timui), dolfesi, dolui, are reached. Proof of the use and even the abuse of the strong perfects is afforded, however by the participles and the infinitives of the category to which belong the following examples: tennidu, tenuto; parfidu, parso; balfidu, valso; tennere, balere, &c (Arch. ii. 432-433)
I love the absolute sense of of disgust in the author's voice.
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Re: Romance tidbits

Post by Dormouse559 »

Zekoslav wrote: 27 Apr 2020 14:36*I don't know what's the verb that goes with 'assonance' like 'to rime' goes with 'rime'.
That's because there is no verb form of "assonance". You could use "alliterate"; for some people it only refers to repeated consonants, but broader definitions include repeated vowels, too.


Also, just wanted to say this conversation is super interesting and educational. 🙂
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Re: Romance tidbits

Post by Salmoneus »

Dormouse559 wrote: 29 Apr 2020 17:23
Zekoslav wrote: 27 Apr 2020 14:36*I don't know what's the verb that goes with 'assonance' like 'to rime' goes with 'rime'.
That's because there is no verb form of "assonance".
It's "assonate".
You could use "alliterate"; for some people it only refers to repeated consonants, but broader definitions include repeated vowels, too.
Alliteration is word-initial, or at the very least stress-syllable-inititial.


FWIW, btw: Zekoslav, it's "rhyme", not "rime". "Rime" is, pointlessly, a technical linguistics word, but the verb is "rhyme".
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Re: Romance tidbits

Post by Sequor »

Basilicata Neapolitan has a word for "October" that was borrowed from Oscan: attrufu, with intervocalic -f-.
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Re: Romance tidbits

Post by qwed117 »

Ser wrote: 12 May 2020 09:06 Basilicata Neapolitan has a word for "October" that was borrowed from Oscan: attrufu, with intervocalic -f-.
Oh, we're talking about months now? And no mention of the cursédest Romance language of them all- Sardinian? (listed in order, Nuorese, Logudorese, Campidanese, bolded form is the one that I lean to using)
January - Bennarzu/Bennalzu/Ghennargiu - from Latin IĀNUĀRIUS - relatively normal, the <b> is strange, but probably just a result of metathesis of the u.

February - Freàrgiu (all dialects) - from Latin FEBRUĀRIUS - still relatively normal, although we're beginning to see that /r/ mess that Romance languages are known for

March - Martzu (all dialects) - from Latin MĀRTIUS - the regular descendant of the word. Perfectly normal

April - Abrile (all dialects) - from Latin APRĪLIS - regular descendant. Perfectly normal. I thought you said this was cursed?

May - Maju (all dialects) - from Latin MAIUS - regular descendant. Perfectly normal. Don't leave I promise

June - Làmpadas (all dialects) - from Latin LAMPADA - yes it means lamps. A totally normal name for a month.

July - /Trìulas/Argiolas (Nuorese unknown, likely also Trìulas) - from Latin TRIBULŌ/IŪLIUS or ĀREOLA - THE MONTH OF THRASHING (this would be the month where people would thresh grown wheat without threshers). Campidanese Wikipedia claims that Argiolas is named after a particular Giulio Cesare (y'know Julius Caesar), but there's the homophonous word "argiolas" meaning "farmyards" or "threshing area", which would make sense given the former. And argiolas has an English cognate haha- areola.

August - Agustu/Austu/Austu - from Latin AUGUSTUS - same as English and most Romance languages. the A<AU change is common in Sardinian. I don't know if it's regular (cf. paucum > pagu, aurum > oro, which appears to be a borrowing from Spanish)

September - /Cabidanne/Cabudanni (Nuorese unknown, likely also Cabidanne) - from Latin CAPUT ANNĪ - Yes, September is the first month of the year. I don't know what your complaint is. This comes from the Byzantine calendar, who used to nominally control Sardinia (the giudicati were nominally Byzantine vassals)

October - Santugaíne/Santuaíne/Ladamini - from Latin SĀNCTUS GAVINUS//LAETĀMEN - SAINT GAVIN. That should be enough to convince you that Sardinian is the best language ever. Also ladamini means "poop" or "manure" so October (Su mes'e ladamini) is literally "poop month".

November - /Santandrìa/(d)Onniasantu (Nuorese unknown, likely also Santandrìa) - from Latin SĀNCTUS ANDRĒĀS/OMNIA SANCTUS - Unlike every other language, Sardinian chooses to weird things up by naming this month after Andrew the Apostle or All Saints' day

December - /Nadale/Meseìdas or Paschixedda (Nuorese unknown, likely also Nadale) - - from Latin NĀTĀLIS/MĒNSIS DE ĪDŪS or PASQUICELLA -Happy Birthmonthday Jesus, also month of the ides (which is every month) so. Oh, and Happy Little Passover.
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Re: Romance tidbits

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qwed117 wrote: 12 May 2020 19:30Oh, we're talking about months now? And no mention of the cursédest Romance language of them all- Sardinian? (listed in order, Nuorese, Logudorese, Campidanese, bolded form is the one that I lean to using)

[..]

October - Santugaíne/Santuaíne/Ladamini - from Latin SĀNCTUS GAVINUS//LAETĀMEN - SAINT GAVIN. That should be enough to convince you that Sardinian is the best language ever.
I've been told about the names of the months in Sardinian, and yeah, they're pretty amusing. Romanian is said to have supposedly had its own set of weird folk names for the months, some of them eggcorned forms of the ancient names.

January: gerar (< Januārius eggcorned with Lat gelū > ger 'frost')
January: cărindar (< calendāriu(m)-s)
February: făurar (< Februārius)
March: mărțișor (< Martius + a diminutive suffix)
March: germănar (< germin(āre)-ārius)
April: prier (< Aprīlis eggcorned with Slavic prijati > prii 'to be useful (for sb), please sb')
May: florar (< flōr(em)-ārius)
June: cireșar (< cerasi(a)-ārius, from cerasium 'cherry')
July: cuptor (< coctōrem, also means 'oven', cf. Italian cottoio/a 'easy to cook')
July: alunar (< abellān(a)-ārius, from alună 'nut', from Abella, a city in Campania, + Lat -āna)
August: măsălar (probably < mess-āl(is)-ārius, from messis 'harvest')
August: gust/gustar (< Augustus eggcorned with gustāre > gusta 'to like')
September: răpciune (< raptiōnem, from rapiō 'carry off')
September: vinicer/viniceriu (either < Slavic vin-icije, cf. Czech vinice 'vineyard', + analogical -rius, or an eggcorn of vīndēmi(a)-ārius)
October: brumărel (< brūm(a)-ār(ius)-ellus 'little frost-y')
November: iezmăciune (with -ā-tiōnem, related to iazmă 'ghost' < αγίασμα 'holy water', άγιασμα 'sanctification, canonization')
November: brumar (< brūm(a)-ārius 'frost-y')
November: Moldovan promorar (< Slavic word, cf. OCS мракъ 'darkness', + -ārius)
November: neios (< nivōsus 'snow-y')
December: ningău (< ningere 'to snow' + -ău < Hungarian -ó/ő and Slavic -ovŭ)
December: andrea/undrea (< Sanctus Andreās)

You may notice something suspicious about a few of these. Germănar, florar, brumar and neios are the same as their equivalents in the French Republican Calendar (the one used from the 1790s to 1805). Romanian dictionaries generally think germănar is probably a genuine French borrowing, but don't doubt the other three, but I'm very suspicious. Since these are supposed to be "traditional", "largely obsolete" names, I don't know whether some or many of these may be made up or pushed by anticlerical admirers of France (of which there has been little shortage in Romania).
Last edited by Sequor on 13 May 2020 03:09, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Romance tidbits

Post by Salmoneus »

Although, to be fair, something invented in 1800 could easily be considered 'traditional' by now...

On the other hand, month names are/were (before standardisation of the modern calendar) often based on the agricultural cycle, and may be subject to wordplay.

For comparison, here's the old English month names translated, starting in January:
Latter Yule
Mud Month
Hreth's Month (a goddess otherwise unheard of!)
Eostre's Month
The Month of Thrice-Milking
Former Summer
(Third Summer - a leapmonth)
Latter Summer
Plant Month
Holy Month
Winter Fullness
Sacrifice Month
Former Yule

Frisian has Unclean Month (February), Flea Month (August), and Slaughter Month (November). German has Hornage (Hornation? Hornising?) for February. Dutch has "Bisextile Month" for February, "Joy Month" for May, and "Wolves' Month" for December.

Iceland has Yule, Fat Sucking, Frozen Snow, Góa, Lone Month, Harpa, Skerpla, Sun Month, Hay Work, Second Month, Autumn Month, and Slaughter Month. November being dedicated to slaughter, probably sacrificial, seems the big universal in the Germanic world. And obscure goddesses (Goa, Harpa, and Skerpla are assumed to be obscure goddesses).

ANYWAY, more on topic: i'd add "prier" to your list of Suspicious Romanian Months - Republican prairial, no? But I'd also note that apparently 18th cenury Dutch sources have pre-calques for a lot of the Republican months: Grass Month (Prairial), Flower Month (Floreal), Harvest Month (Messidor), Wine Month (Vendemiaire), Fog Month (Brumaire) and Snow Month (Nivose). The inconsistency is that the Dutch put grass before flowers, and the French vice versa. But it does suggest that the Romanians having a Flower Month, for instance, may not be as coincidental as it first appears.


------

Qwed: yes, September is the beginning of the year. I have no complaint. This used to be pretty much universal in Europe. The Roman part of Europe counted from 1st September, while the Germanic part counted from the september equinox. It wasn't until the 2nd millennium that the new year was moved to the March equinox instead, and not until the early modern period that, probably inspired by Caesar, countries settled on Circumcision Style dating. [and still not entirely - the UK tax year is still based on the vernal equinox, once the days stolen by the villainous Lord Chesterfield are taken into consideration]

The Orthodox Liturgical year still starts in September; the Catholic year avoided the leap to March, but did creep forward, up to its present position on the last Sunday before St Andrews' Day.


----

Finally, the Irish months:
Eanáir
Feabhra
- no, they weren't consistent in how they borrowed the -uarius bit...
Márta
Aibreán
- a mixture of 'April' with, posssibly, 'braon', 'drops of rain'. Although that still doesn't quite explain the irregular outcome.
Bealtaine - 'bright fire'
Meitheamh - 'midsummer'
Iúil
Lúnasa - 'festival of Lú'
Meán Fomhar - 'middle autumn' (yes, September is the middle of autumn, even though there is no 'early autumn')
Deireadh Fomhar - 'end of autumn'
Samhain - 'Samhain' (All Saint's Day); original meaning unclear, either "reunion" or "summer". And oddly, although Bealtaine can be Mí Bealtaine, and Lúnasa can be Mí Lúnasa, Samhain is instead Mí na Samhna, with an explicit genitive 'na'...
Mí na Nollag - 'month of Nollaig'; originally from "birthday party".
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Re: Romance tidbits

Post by alynnidalar »

Salmoneus wrote: 13 May 2020 02:25November being dedicated to slaughter, probably sacrificial, seems the big universal in the Germanic world.
I'm curious--why the conclusion that it's about sacrifice, as opposed to November being when you slaughter livestock in preparation for winter?
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Re: Romance tidbits

Post by Salmoneus »

alynnidalar wrote: 13 May 2020 15:45
Salmoneus wrote: 13 May 2020 02:25November being dedicated to slaughter, probably sacrificial, seems the big universal in the Germanic world.
I'm curious--why the conclusion that it's about sacrifice, as opposed to November being when you slaughter livestock in preparation for winter?
Because the Anglo-Saxon month name is specifically Sacrifice Month. And it was traditional to have a big sacifice at the beginning of winter.

Although admittedly that sacrifice was normally in September, AIUI. So maybe I'm wrong.
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