Questions tagged [latin]
For linguistic questions concerning the Latin language, a dead Indo-European language of the Roman Empire and ancestor of modern Catalan, French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, and a few others. For questions specific to Latin only, please visit our sister site Latin Language Stack Exchange.
253 questions
8
votes
1
answer
2k
views
Is it a coincidence that 6 letters in Armenian alphabet completely look like letters in Latin alphabets?
Armenian letters (Capital and small):
As you can see, 6 letters look completely like letters in Latin alphabets (we ignore the seventh letter o as it is common in some languages to represent the /o/ ...
- 567
3
votes
0
answers
114
views
Why do some Romance languages keep the /j/ in Proto-Romance *adʲudare <- Latin adiūtāre (adiūtō)?
A few Romance languages have reflexes of Latin adiūtāre that seem to indicate an irregular Proto-Romance root *ai.utare. These include Spanish, Tuscan Italian, French, and Corsican.
Other Romance ...
- 31
0
votes
2
answers
88
views
Long occlusive combined with syllable break
The transcription of the word ecce in ecclesiastical pronunciation doesn't make sense to me, as there is a combination of a syllable break and a long occlusive.
These are the two notations for /ecce/: ...
- 103
-1
votes
1
answer
119
views
Is -ce in Latin a clitic or suffix?
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/clitic defines clitic as:
a word that is treated in pronunciation as forming a part of a neighboring word and that is often unaccented or contracted.
Is it ...
- 913
-1
votes
1
answer
205
views
What make Latin and ancient Greek into different subgroups in the Indo-European family of languages?
Latin and ancient (Attic) Greek look similar in vocabulary and in grammar. What make them into different subgroups in the Indo-European family of languages?
- 913
0
votes
1
answer
96
views
Latin cognate for Sanskrit "shoka" (sorrow)?
Is there a Latin cognate for the Sanskrit word "shoka"? In general, is there some resource that lists Indo-European cognates for any given language pair?
0
votes
1
answer
165
views
How much can highly inflected language speakers understand their root systems?
For examle in Latin, the noun amicus has the root amic, the adjective magnus has the root magn.
But did the average romans really understand these roots?
Could they understand their meaning by hearing ...
- 1
0
votes
0
answers
119
views
Is standard Arabic considered a dead language? What are the differences from Latin?
I fail to see the difference in usage between Latin and Fusha. Maybe not contemporary Latin but Latin from few centuries prior. Is Standard Arabic the most widely spoken dead language?
2
votes
3
answers
284
views
Are there Romance parallel descendants to Italian "cicalare" and Romanian "cicăli(re)"?
I am looking for the etymology of the Romanian verb a cicăli (to make reproaches repeatedly, to nag), which is reported of unknown origin, and I have found an almost identical word in Italian: ...
- 790
0
votes
1
answer
105
views
Why does PIE *sneygʷʰ- ("snow") give L. nix, Gk. νίφα (acc.)?
What happens to internal /e/ and semivowel /y/ in *snéygʷʰm̥ to yield L. nix? I have no clue how that vowel change works.
- 51
3
votes
0
answers
84
views
Difference between ancient greek stative aspect and latin perfective aspect
In greek the perfect, pluperfect and future perfect are a combination of tense (present, past and future) and the stative aspect while the perfective aspect is used in combination with the past tense ...
- 31
0
votes
1
answer
216
views
Timeline of future/conditional in Latin and Romance languages
I'm not a linguist - just a linguistics enthusiast - so apologies in advance if this is a stupid question.
I am fascinated by the concept of grammaticalization, and I had heard that the future and ...
- 9
0
votes
2
answers
129
views
The Origin of the Word 'Mammoth' [closed]
As per the Wiktionary article the origin of the world is Russian:
From obsolete Russian ма́мант (mámant), modern ма́монт (mámont), probably from a Uralic language, such as Proto-Mansi *mē̮ŋ-ońt (“...
1
vote
1
answer
112
views
How certain is the Latin origin of Albanian ”gënjej” (to lie) from Latin (ingannō<ganniō)?
Albanian word gënjej ("to lie") is considered to be of Latin origin — from Vulgar Latin ingannō, from Latin ganniō... These are the only details I could find. Wiktionary gives no scholarly ...
- 790
1
vote
1
answer
384
views
What differences are between Ablative of Manner and Ablative of Means/Instrument? [closed]
Keller's Learn to Read Latin says on p42
Association/Instrument
In the sentence "The farmer came to the party with a poet", the phrase
"with a poet" indicates that the farmer was ...
- 913