Re: mora

On Wed, Jun 23, 2004 at 02:07:24PM -0700, Emily Zilch wrote:
> i have a linguistic-technical question: i learned that the plural of
> mora is 'mora' - that it is a native japanese word - when i was
> learning japanese. you could say 'moras' because that would be normal
> english (though i'd be more likely, contrarian that i am, to say meren
> or something similarly irregular - anyone know the cases of earliest
> Middle English?).
All my references say that the word "mora" is from the Latin word for
"delay" or "pause".  Unlike the case with many other words, the AHD
doesn't trace it back to a PIE root, but M-W gives at least one cognate
in another IE language: Old Irish "maraid" = "it lasts".

I assume the Japanese word is a borrowing.

-Mark

Reply