Re: Ladino Proverbs and Sayings (Waaay long!)

On Thu, 9 Dec 1999, FFlores wrote:

>> > 19. La hambre y el frio traen a la puerta del enemigo.
>> >         Cold and hunger bring one to the enemy's door.
>>
>> Hmm, I'd thought that Ladino kept the initial /f/'s that Spanish has
>> lost, but _hambre_ here seems to disprove that.
>
>I have a question here: I know that _hombre_ somehow came from
>_homo_ (in some inflected form, I guess), and I think _hambre_
>is cognate with 'famine' (is it _fame_ in Italian?). Do you know
>how -br- got in there? (I assume hom-r >> hom-br as usual, but
>why the -r?)
It's a regular development from hominem.  The sounds change like this:
-min- -> -mn- -> -mr- -> -mbr-.  The b is a "glide consonant".
Compare:

famine          hambre
homine          hombre
stamine         estambre
ferrumine       herrumbre
consuetumine    costumbre
multitumine     muchedumbre

Padraic.

>
>BTW _hambre_ is masculine in Spanish. _La_ becomes _el_ before
>/a/, but we say _los hambres_.
>
>
>
>--Pablo Flores
>  http://draseleq.conlang.org/
>