[tied] Re: Saint

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:

> On Mon, 16 Jun 2003 09:36:11 +0200, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...>

wrote:

>
> >Perhaps a trace of a Castilian pronunciation *sañto < sanctu, with

palatal

> >/n^/ is retained in the Basque loan <saindu> "holy" (it could also

be from

> >Gascon).
>
> Gascon of course doesn't have final -o (or -u), but the word

appears to

> have been borrowed at a very early stage, at a time when it hardly

makes

> sense to talk about "Castilian" or "Gascon".
>
> If Latin sanctus had borrowed in Basque, it would have given *zandu

(cf.

> punctu > pundu), with initial laminal /s/ and final /u/ (and

application of

> the Basque soundlaw */nt/ > /nd/) unless a point had been made of
> pronouncing the /k/, in which case we'd expect *zangutu. A recent

loan

> from Spanish would have given *santo, with apical /s/ and

final /o/, and

> conservation of /nt/. In <saindu>, the initial s- points to a time

when

> neighbouring Romance (Castilian and Gascon) had already changed

laminal

> into apical /s/, but final -u seems to suggest that the change to -

o had

> not yet taken place, which is strange. Perhaps Basque was just a

bit slow

> to pick up on that change, and continued to borrow Romance words as

if they

> still had the Latin masculine ending -u. The same phenomenon still

applies

> to e.g. Spanish words in -ón (< Medieval Spanish -one), which in

the Middle

> Ages were borrowed into Basque as -one, which then gave -õe > -oi in
> Basque, so that a modern word like <camión> "truck/lorry", is

borrowed as

> kamioi, because of the equation Spanish -ón = Basque -oi.
>
> In any case, Basque <saindu> must fo back to an early Romance form

*sañtu

> or *sañto, more specifially a Romance with apical /s/ (which occurs

in a

> broad band along the Cantabrian coast, the Pyrinees and a bit into

France,

> roughly Galician/Northern Portuguese, Astur-Leonese, Northern

Castilian,

> Gascon, Northern Catalan and Southern Languedocian).
>

...thus all the way to Portuguese, which has -o > -u and -one > õi.
Coincidence?

Torsten