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

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 conclusive
one: 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

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