Re: OT: Spanish pronouns ("usted", etc.)

I can't quote an authoritative source right this instant, but I believe Arabic
borrowed Usted from Spanish. The final fricative on the Arabic version actually
supports such a notion, since the final Spanish "d" is often a fricative, too.
Can anybody out there please check Lisaan al-Arab on this? Hans Wehr's no help,
bless him! Except for the fact that he gives no "native" root.

Krista, who has been fighting Arabic since 1994 and is very close to giving up

----- Original Message -----
From: Alex Fink <a4pq1injbok_0@...>
Date: Thursday, May 17, 2007 7:09 pm
Subject: Re: OT: Spanish pronouns ("usted", etc.)
To: CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU

> On Thu, 17 May 2007 18:45:13 -0400, Javier BF <uaxuctum@...>
> wrote:
> >Spanish "usted" is not related to Arabic "ustaadh", the resemblance
> >is due to mere chance coincidence. Quoting from the sci.lang FAQ:
> >
> ><QUOTE>
> >
> >Usted
> >
> >Some people have wondered if the Spanish formal second person
> >pronoun Usted came from the Arabic honorific 'usta:dh. It doesn't;
> >it's a well-attested abbreviation of vuestra merced 'your mercy'.
> >There are transitional forms such as vuasted, vuesarced, voarced
> >as well as parallel constructions like usía from vuestra señoría,
> >ucencia from vuestra excelencia. Compare also Portuguese
> >vossa mercê --> vosmecê --> você, as well as Catalán vosté and
> >Gallego vostede. Finally, note that the abbreviation Usted doesn't
> >appear until 130 years after the Moors had been kicked out of Spain.
> >
> ></QUOTE>
>
> That's the one I was remembering; thanks.  But, my point stands: that
> Spanish "_usted_ is not related to Arabic _ustaadh_", which I
> believe, does
> not preclude the hypothesis that the resemblance is not entirely
> coincidental.  As the sci.lang FAQ says there were other forms,
> _vuasted_,_vuesarced_, _voarced_, etc.; why didn't one of them
> survive?  _Usted_ is
> the only form mentioned in that quote from _vuestra merced_ with
> no initial
> _v_ (including cognates in the other Romances), and the only one
> with a
> simplified diphthong in the first syllable.  How'd that happen?
> Could it
> not be Arabic influence subtly giving collapsings resembling
> _ustaadh_ an
> edge over those dissimilar to it?  It is, you must admit, a very
> close match
> -- five out of five segments without very minor phonetic laxity,
> by one way
> of counting -- and calling it complete coincidence just seems,
> well, a
> little rich.  (No, I haven't sat down and done the computation;
> but it's
> certainly a lot closer than _gaijin_ vs. _goyim_ or any of that.)
>
> The 130 year interval is an argument against my theory, but not a
> conclusiveone: it's conceivable that the form was around for
> awhile before showing up
> in writing, and I imagine knowledge of Arabic didn't sharply
> vanish the very
> year the Moors were driven out.  But I don't know the history, nor
> the size
> and character of the attested body of literature from the period, well
> enough to judge the plausibility of this.
>
> Alex
>