Rom. & Alb. initial "h"

From: m_iacomi
Message: 25779
Date: 2003-09-12

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tolgs001" wrote:

>> Now, I wonder what about this "h" in Albanian at the begin
>> of the word. I don't remember right ad hoc but it seems there
>> was a rule in Albanian.
>
> Perhaps some Balcanic (+Satem?) peculiarity.

I wouldn't get so far. It's just a phonologized aspiration with
some expressive purpose. At least in Romanian, the phenomenon is
comon enough (see for example variants with initial "h": "(h)arap",
"haraba(ie)" (< Turk. "araba"), "hultui" (instead of "altoi"),
"(h)aista", "(h)aldan", etc.). Practically, a bunch of words with
initial vowel can be pronounced with aspiration without affecting
their meaning, even if they are not to be found in dictionsries.
I guess one can find similar phenomena elsewhere.

> But back to the "conclusio:" why dealing with this "eytch"?
> In order to show that <armãsar> doesn't have in its
> pedigree any <admissarius>? But without admissarius
> there'd be no equine and asinine populations. :^)

The word is undoubtedly of Latin origin since from "admitto" to
"(equus) admissarius" (`horse used [selected/admitted] to breeding,
stallion`) there is a semantic shift occuring in Latin. It would
be less than unlikely to have the same semantic shift for another
language which coincidentally had also a similar word for "admitto",
even Alex should... admit it. :-)

Regards,
Marius Iacomi