Re: Alb. 'neighbourhood' < Lat. vi:ci:nita:tem

Many thanks for this useful lesson. Hope Alvin can see now what
_real_ Albanian etymologies look like and why strict discipline is
important. I was half-guessing about <fqinjët> and got the details
wrong. The instructive part here, anyway, is the derivation of <fqi->
from Latin vi:ci:-. I just wanted to illustrate the origin of
Albanian clusters. Talking of which -- I vaguely remember seeing
somewhere an even more compressed dialectal version of <verita:tem>,
something like vërtet > *vrtet > *vtet > ftet. Does such a form exist?

Piotr

--- In cybalist@..., lulzimshtino@... wrote:
> My humble opinion on Mr. Gasiorowski's second example of how Latin
words have
> been handled in Albanian. According to him:
>
> Albanian <fqinjët> 'neighbourhood' < Lat. vi:ci:nita:tem
>
> As a matter of fact, <fqinjët> is nothing but the regular plural of
<fqinjë>
> "neighbor", its meaning being "the neighbors" (both forms are
stressed on the
> first syllable). Cannot come from Latin <vicinitatem> for several
reasons,
> among which:
>
> The final <-t> is the (notoriously postponed) plural determinative
article in
> Albanian. The indefinite plural of our word is <fqinjë>, same form
as the
> indefinite singular.
>
> The Latin word is stressed on the third syllable <-ta>, so a
hypothetical
> Albanian word derived from <vicinitatem> would have been something
like
> <*(f)qëndet> stressed on the last syllable (just like <civitatem>
has given
> <qytet>, and <sanitatem> <shëndet>, and <veritatem> <vërtet>,
etc.). Latin
> words in Albanian have maintained the accent position intact.
>
> Of course, <fqinjë> comes from Lat. <vicinum>, whereas the modern
Albanian
> collective/abstract for "neighborhood" is <fqinjësi>, most likely a
very late
> formation of the literary period (early 20th century). The
vernacular words
> for the same concept used to be <gjitoni> (probably Greek), and
<komshillëk>,
> which is Turkish.
>
> Otherwise, the simple plural of <fqinjë> will have done the job.
>
> Lulzim Shtino