Re: A funny linguistic subway experience + some questions about nouns of days and months

En réponse à Raymond Brown <ray.brown@...>:

>
> >I'm also wondering how likely it would be that the Latin month names
> >(which were
> >originally adjectives) be used with "mens":
>
> _mensis_ /me:sis/, masc., actually.
> _mens_ /me:s/ is a _feminine_ noun meaning "mind"   :)
>
Ah! Just a mistake. I should check my Latin grammar book before opening my mouth
:) .

> >month so consistently that evolution
> >would collapse the whole phrase into one word, as it happened with days
> >names in
> >French, Italian, Occitan and Catalan (where Lunae/Lunas dies, dies
> Lunae/Lunas
>
> Yes, 'dies' survived with day-names because the other word was (mostly)
> a
> genitive case: lunae dies, martis dies etc.  Only Spanish AFAIK dropt
> the
> 'dies', retaining just forms derived from the gentive.
>
Romanian does that too. In "Roumant" I'll have two sets of day-names: one
official and one popular. They'll have the same origin, except that the first
ones will derive from forms with "dies" in front of the genitive, while the
second ones will derive from the opposite forms.

> Welsh day-names are also derived from British Vulgar Latin, and you may
> be
> interested to know them (the second word is genitival in function):
> dydd Sul (sundat)
> dydd Llun
> dydd Mawrth
> dydd Mercher
> dydd Iau
> dydd Gwener
> dydd Sadwrn
>
Interesting that they kept the Sun and Saturn for Sunday and Saturday. Influence
from English?

> The month names are a mix of Vulgar Latin derived forms and native
> Brittonic derived names.  But March has: mis Mawrth (month of Mars)
> where
> 'mis' is needed to distinguish it from 'dydd Mawrth'.
>
> I guess that if 'Martius' and 'Martis' got confused because of attrition
> of
> endings, the same process could happen in Roumant.  It could then extend
> by
> analogy to other month names that are more obviously named after a
> deity,
> e.g. Juno's month, Julius' month (he was deified), Augustus' month.  But
> I'm not sure that I can realistically envisage the use of 'mensis'.
>
I've seen that it's used in Romanian only with May (luna mai) and August (luna
august), but it's not even mandatory. Anyway, it was just an idea. I'm thinking
of the possibility to have also two sets of month-names, one official derived
from a form "mensis + adjective", the other derived only from the adjective
itself. Yeah, I think that could be neat.

> [...]
> >weekend days (Saturday and Sunday) give me quite a few troubles. As for
> >Sunday,
> >All the forms seem to come from either domínica
>
> VL /do'mEnka/ (or in Italy & the east: /do'mEnIika/)
>
That was pretty much what I was thinking it was.

> >(French dimanche, Italian
> >domenica, Romanian dominica, Catalan diumenge, Occitan dimenge) or
> domínicus
> >(Spanish and Portuguese Domingo).
>
> VL /do'mEnko(s)/
>
> >Am I right?
> Spot on   :)
>
:)) Well, it was not that much difficult guessing. :)

> >In Medieval (Christian) Latin, "dies" could be masculine as well as
> feminine,
>
> In Classical (pagan) Latin, to be precise.
>
Really? Because it's in a dictionary of Medieval Latin that I saw this
commentary about "dies".

> The 'rule' is that _dies_ is normally masculine, but it may be feminine
> in
> the singular only if it refers to a specfic day.
>
That would explain the "dominica" form then.

>
> It is unreasonable, however.  What has happened in these languages is
> that
> the initial, pretonic syllable has been reformed under the influence of
> di-
> <-- (dies).
>
I was wondering that in fact. It's that Catalan form diumenge that made me
wonder a lot...

>
> _sabbath_ - and this quite correct; tho again it should be noted that
> 'sabbatum' is found in Classical Latin.
>
Again, I found the word in the same dictionary of Medieval Latin. I didn't know
it existed in CL too.

> >Romanian sambata, Catalan and Occitan dissabte seem to derive from
> >(dies) sábbata (but I thought sábbatum was a noun, so I would have
> guessed
> >(dies) sábbati instead).
>
> Yes, and Occitan _dissabte_ is surely from _dies sabata.
>
> >Then comes the French form samedi /sam'di/. It seems
> >completely off this system. Does it derive from, say, sábbata dies,
>
> Yes.
>
> The Romans borrowed the word _sabbatum_ not directly from Hebrew but
> indirectly via Greek _sabbaton_.  Now /bb/ is anomalous in Greek, and
> there
> was clearly a popular by form /sambaton/ which would - and did - give
> popular Latin *sambato --> *sambto  --> *sambdo.
>
That would explain then the presence of the /m/ in French, But not in Romanian
(which had sambata, as well as octombrie for October). Still, it could be a
phenomenon equivalent to the /bb/ -> /mb/ of Greek.

> The French is from *sambti die.
>
So I think I'll keep this one for "Roumant" :) .

> >
> >Yes, John Cowan already pointed that out. Still, it doesn't give me any
> clue
> >where the French form comes from.
>
> No, it wouldn't, since the German form is borrowed from French  :)
>
:)

> The 'pure' German for "Saturday" is _Sonnabend_ which is still, I
> understand, the normal word in northen Germany.  The southern 'Samstag'
> is
> a deliberate adaptation of from the French 'samedi' when all things
> French
> were imitated by those who wanted to appear fashionable and wordly-wise.
> Presumably it appeared at the same time that the fashionable southerners
> started imitating the French uvular /R/ which has now, by and large I
> believe, replaced the older trilled apical /r/.
>
So the German /R/ appeared from influence from French? Then where does it come
from in French? I thought the contrary was what happened (to explain why French
is the only Romance language which didn't keep the trilled apical /r/).

Christophe.