R: Re: R: Re: Stress marking (was: Re: CONLANG Digest - 14 Oct 2000 (maglangs p

Barry Garcia wrote:

> CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU writes:
> > He uses 'calcolatore' or
> >'elaboratore' instead of the evil 'computer'.
>
> Why not the equivalent of "computadora" as in Spanish? Isnt "compute" from
> Latin anyway? (And, doesnt the machine compute rather than just
> "calculate" (forgive me if i misunderstand the meaning of "calcolatore" in
> Italian).
That's the problem! The poor English lang had to borrow educated terms from
Romance, and now we should reborrow the same terms from English, when *they*
copied us? 'Computer', indeed, comes from Latin 'computator' (calculator)
via French (**Comput(at)eur?)
As for 'Calcolatore', it's a nomen agentis form the verb 'calcolare' (to
calculate, to count...). 'Computatore' would fit but, since the verb
'computare' has a more specific meaning (somehow tied to a boring act of
filling lines of code...), it wouldn't sound good to me.

Luca

> Oh, and I do plan on taking words from the various Romance languages to
> help fill out the vocabulary of mine (especially cultural related words
> that didnt exist in Latin, like "tomato" (would probably become "tomat"
> (from tomate))