>I must admit "sorã" puzzles me. Thank goodness you can
>assure me it's a loan.
He can't, whatsoever. He uses the word "loan" in this
context only because he is convinced that the Romanian
language is a direct continuation of some ancient idiom
(Thracian?), the Latin having played only a marginal
- lexical - role (in his opinion).
I myself can't explain the *reduction* to sora (due to lack of
scholar books where these things are shown), maybe be-
cause of the unstressed last syllable, I dunno, but let's
take into consideration that the plural thereof, surori, very
well reflects the Lat. declension forms soror, sororis,
sorori, sororem, sorores etc. Also the diminutival
surioara (1 surioara, 2 and more: surioare) "little sister."
>Richard.
George