SALVETE OMNES
I was wondering if some of Latin's vocabulary is derived from another language, apart from Greek. Perhaps from something like Hebrew or Ancient Egyptian?
Latin's Borrowings
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Re: Latin's Borrowings
There are many Latin borrowings from Etruscan, Germanic languages, Gaulish, Hebrew, and other languages. Latin absorbed a great deal of words from the places the Roman Empire conquered and visited. When the Romance languages began to develop, Latin even borrowed some words from its own offspring! I don't know about any loanwords from Modern English as that sounds highly suspiciousMichaelyus wrote:SALVETE OMNES
I was wondering if some of Latin's vocabulary is derived from another language, apart from Greek. Perhaps from something like Hebrew or Ancient Egyptian?
For example, the Latin word catamitus is supposed to have come from Etruscan, ultimately from the Greek name Ganymedes. The Latin word carrus, from which we borrowed the word "car" is of Gaulic origin.
There are too many others to count. I can't think of very many examples, but I will look for more.
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Actually, to be serious now, I think there's something about the word "basium": I think "osculum" was the Latin word, and then Catullus introduced "basium" from some Celtic language or something. His native language. It was in a lecture in a literature survey course two years ago, so I can't remember exactly since it seemed almost off-topic in the course. But Benissimus here already has his OLD, so maybe he can tell.
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I looked it up and of course it said it was of dubious origin. My teacher said Catullus introduced it from his own dialect which I assumed was a dialect of Latin and not another language altogether. He was apparently the first person reported to have used this word, and then was imitated by other authors later on such as Martial and Juvenal.
Last edited by benissimus on Sat May 29, 2004 12:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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