Re: [tied] Patronymics; -sen, -ez

From: Che
Message: 8974
Date: 2001-09-03

Okay, nice theories.
But in this case I don't think an euskeric origin is too probable, at least originally.
 
In euskera, "-(e)z" is not exactly "made of", but rather an instrumental mark. So, for instance, "Hegazkin(e)z noa" means "I (am) go(ing) by plane", and "eskuaz agurtzen ari da" means "he is hailing with his hand" (free translation of a poor sintax sentence :-)
The sense of "made of" is expressed by the mark "-ezko", and can be applied in a more general way to express "kind of". So, "burdinezko" > made of iron; while "gezurrezko" > "looking like a lie", etc.
 
I must admit, however, that this -ezko can be -ez + -ko, being the last one a very used suffix expressing a general (and badly expressed) "of": Irungo (from/of Irun), arte ederrako ("of" the Beaux Arts), etc. and it's generally difficult to translate without a context (that's why it's so difficult for me to find good examples...)
 
About the -ici, once you explain the process, I think it's quite probable, don't you think? I say that because the Germanic theory doesn't make too much sense for me.
 
First because germanic influence on the language is rather little (I'd say non existing) during the years we're talking about (it took place almost exclusively during the first stages of the linguistic dissimilation from Latin) while we can state that the use of Latin is still alive, specially within the Church, so it makes sense to think about a Baptism ceremony in latin introducing that -ici which would be pronounced /isi/.
What I must admit, again, is the well known transition from romance /c/ to /z/ in basque, so /ici/>/izi/ and then /ez/ which lately would have been thetasised /eth/ to distinguish between /s/ and /z/. It fits quite a lot with the fonetic euskerization of Spanish that took place several times along the Middle Ages. That would explain that portuguese maintained the original -is sound instead of /th/ising like spanish did.
However, this -ez is not found in any basque surname, while basque surnames are full of suffixes and marks: Aranguren: from our Valley; Goikoetxea: the House Up There; Etxeberria: The (that -a is a flexión, too) New House (like Casanova...) etc., but not a single -ez or similars
 
Second because as I explained, this featuring is almost non existing in modern catalan and definitively unknown in classical Catalan and seems to be addopted from Spanish. This seems like that to me because, in spite of it's poor influence on the language itself, what IS really influenced in Catalan by our Germanic adstratum is patronymics. In fact, most original Catalan family names and traditional given names are Germanic, which usually gave toponims: Gumesind>Gombreny; Gisclasind>Gisclareny; Franculinn>Francolí; antroponims: Guimerà<Wigmarane; Geltrú<Wisaltrud, etc. a part of those tipical Robert, Albert, Norbert, Guillem, Carles, etc. And no consequent -is surnames are found anywhere.
 
----- Original Message -----
From: João S. Lopes Filho
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, September 03, 2001 12:15 AM
Subject: Re: [tied] Patronymics; -sen, -ez

1)
The origin suffix -ez/-es is a very disputed question.
Some scholars sugest an euskara suffix -ez "made of" - berun "lead" / berunez "made of lead"
Another ones sugest Latin -ici (genitive of -icus)
The most probable is the Gothic genitive ending -is.
Hrothareik (>Rotharicus > Rodrigo) : gen. Hrothareikis (>Rotharicis > Rodrigues)
 
2)
Would be Sancho < *Sanctius , through a dialectal form ?
 
In Portuguese there's a a lot of examples
 
Fernando : Fernandes
Rodrigo : Rodrigues
Domingos : Domingues
Joa~o : Eanes/Enes/Anes
Sima~o : Simo~es
Antonio : Antunes
Nuno : Nunes
Diogo : Dias
----- Original Message -----
From: Che
Sent: Saturday, September 01, 2001 10:21 AM
Subject: Re: [tied] Patronymics; -sen, -ez

I'm sure that's another Europe spread thing of those that seem to have taken place during that time.
 
I'm talking about the characteristic -ez family name former suffix in Spanish (-ez surnames are absolutely predominant in Spain) and, I can imagine, Portuguese -es. In Catalan we have an equivalent for that in -is, but it seems to be something almost exclusive of Valencian surnames which may have been originally the translation of those castillian -ez's, like Pérez (son of Pero>Pedro) -> Peris; Fernández (son of Fer(di)nando) -> Ferrandis (son of Ferran), etc. It happens with a few ones only. I think Catalan, once more, keeps the gaulic tradition (does this -es/-ez/-sen/-son... thing happen in French?).
 
Oh! Going back to my little theory about the Gartzia's and their influence in southern spanish and american, I noticed that another "pure castillian" surname like "Sánchez" which comes from Sancho is Basque origined, too. It comes from (navarrese) basque patronymic "Antso" (it is proven, not my invention) and is, together with García (bizkaian), Rodríguez (germanic->castillian), and Fernández (germanic->castillian) within the top four in the spanish raking of usual surnames. Just info, nothing else.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, September 01, 2001 10:34 AM
Subject: [tied] Patronymics

--- In cybalist@......, "João S. Lopes Filho" <jodan99@......> wrote:
> About GARCIA family: Garcia was originally a first name, not
surname. So,
> there's a lot of independent Garcia families, because the name
Garcia was
> used as a patronymic - so, Juan Garcia was the Juan Garcia's son.
The same
> is valid for Gomes/Gomez and Osorio.
> After XVI century the patronymics became gradually surnames. You
have
> analogous examples of patronymics becoming surnames in almost all
European
> languages.
> See yours -  "Pedersen" = Peter's son
> And mine "Simoes Lopes" = Simon's son, Lopo's son
>
>
> Joao Simoes Lopes
> Rio,Brazil

All the -sen names (I belive the top one (Nielsen ?) claims 6% of the
population) were fixed in the last half of the 19th century by law.
Before that time they were true patronynmics, cf eg our national
composer Carl Nielsen, son of Niels Jørgensen Maler (house painter).
His youngest siblings, born after that law, had the surname
Jørgensen. If the name was ambiguous, you might add the name of the
farm he was from, giving you names like Søndergård Poulsen, Nørregård
Olsen etc., profession: Maler, Bager, Smed or village: Knabstrup,
Mørkøv. Almost a Russian system!
When I was in the army the old custom of calling each other by
village name (or number) was still used among us privates.

Torsten



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