Talk:Lexical changes from Classical Latin to Proto-Romance

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Romanian has a word ("şi") derived from "sic", but it has a changed meaning: "and, also". Should it be added? bogdan (talk) 12:35, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Romanian "mic" (an adjective meaning "small") was placed in the *ninnus (

This came up in google (Albert J. Carnoy, 1917) describing *miccus as a variation of *piccus perhaps influenced by the Latin word "mica" and the Greek word "mikros" (small).

talk) 05:43, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply

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Also interesting is tracing the Latin words that went into early

talk • contribs) [reply

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Romanian femeie does not come from fēmina, but from familia, as it is stated here. Remigiu (talk) 16:23, 26 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I noticed that also but I forgot to correct that error someone placed.

talk) 16:26, 26 November 2008 (UTC)[reply

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Just a note: the table listing Classical Latin and Vulgar Latin words doesn't distinguish what is a Classical and what is a Vulgar Latin word. The easiest way to fix this would be to make the vulgar variants italic in the "Latin form" column, and then add a note in the beginning of the section. Further tabular improvements could be added from there. ... said: Rursus (bork²) 08:55, 19 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is basically an excellent article but you need some help with the English, the concepts and some of the formatting. For example, the write-up keeps implying that vulgar Latin followed and evolved from classical Latin. They were always parallel. Classical disappeared, Vulgar did not. There was no evolution of one into the other. I think I will give some help here in the form of an edit, since I am editing Vulgar Latin and the Latin articles in general.

<<French bébé, Italian bebè, Portuguese bebé, bebê, Spanish bebé, Catalan bebè, Romanian bebeluş>>

These words are recent borrowings of English baby.

Other such words, as French babiller, are likewise emprunts from Germanic tongues Leasnam (talk) 10:54, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Some overzealous Brazilian (I know these types, being a Brazilian myself) has filled this chart with Portugese words that are obviously terms that were borrowed much later from classical latin, and not words inherited through Vulgar Latin. I didn't come here to this page to read every single term in the Portuguese language that was borrowed from Latin, thank you very much. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.32.173.248 (talk) 18:50, 4 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Manducar exists in Portuguese.^[1] User:Anton Olivenbaum —Preceding undated comment added 22:55, 19 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Harrington et al. (1997) is not a reference without the actual publication listed. The Rohlfs article needs a title.70.176.80.120 (talk) 17:01, 29 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This page has lots of learned terms, some of which are said to be learned, others aren't, but some of them are really obvious and should be cleaned.

Romanian “mare” meaning “big, large, great; great, mighty” is listed in this article as being from Latin “magnus,” which does not appear to be factual. The Wiktionary entry on it states that it is disputed, but likely from a derivative of mās, marem, “man” with a semantic development possibly coming from, that men are usually larger that women; growing up, i.e. “becoming a man” and associating that with becoming bigger; and or a crossing with “magnum,” but not directly from it. Given the fact that it’s etymology is disputed, and the theory that it comes from “magnus” is not one of the more widely accepted ones, I think that it shouldn't be listed there. MichaelAmpe101 (talk) 21:29, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there, some of the more well known examples ought to be mentioned, for instance domus / casa; equus / caballum. Usually these are highlighted to show a preference for 'lower status' words in Romance, AIUI. (with some extrapolations about spoken vs Classical Latin which cannot always be supported.) Jim Killock (talk) 10:31, 26 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's mostly accurate, mind, but still very much OR. Should probably just be removed and replaced with some more modest version(s) taken from reliable sources. Nicodene (talk) 16:03, 26 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Nicodene, heads up that the section I added and you have deleted came from the Latin page; I moved it from there as it was too detailed for that page. I agree it isn't properly sourced. But it's also hard to manage people's content added in good faith if we simply delete things. I had removed the claimed source for cabballus from the paragraph because it was simply incorrect (it claimed Herman (2000) around page 3-5 but it isn't covered in that book). The addition re domus I had added a line for; but to be fair I don't have a source to hand for that, although I am sure one could be found. The general point - that some low status words replaced high status ones - seems worth a mention on this page.

Wouldn't it be better to just add "citation needed" than delete this and lose it for now?

Lower status words

Some examples of words appear to show a preference for lower status versions of the same object. For example, the Romance for "horse" (Italian cavallo, French cheval, Spanish caballo, Portuguese cavalo and Romanian cal) came from Latin caballus. However, Classical Latin prose used equus. Another well known example is the high status domus for 'home' was lost, while casa, meaning small dwelling, cottage or 'hovel', became the common Romance word for a house.

Jim Killock (talk) 22:23, 26 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@JimKillock Fair enough. And I didn't so much delete as move, cite, and rephrase ('certain words may have shed...') Also I have added the Romance descendants of caballus to the table. Is something missing? Nicodene (talk) 22:26, 26 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Nicodene Ah thanks, I didn't see that. I think a mention of the loss of high status for low status words would be the only other thing, unless I have missed that. Thank you for adding to the table! Jim Killock (talk) 22:28, 26 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A number of the French words cited in the table as descendants of the classical Latin term appear to be learned reborrowings, rather than actual descendants. I note that someone has previously made this observation above about Portuguese terms. I am starting to wonder if the entire article needs to be folded into something else, potentially the article about Proto-Romance, and the table removed. Not sure what others may think? Ikuzaf (talk) 09:30, 15 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The only (possible) borrowing into French that I see is penser, but that’s a very complicated case.

In any case the entire table is Original Research and should accordingly be axed from the article. I just didn’t have the heart to do it myself.. Nicodene (talk) 14:35, 15 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]