[gothic-l] Re: the word "the" as in "the house" or "the car"

[Peter Gutierrez]

Hi Farncisc,

Nice to meet you. Thanks for your input.  It helps me
out a lot.  Now I'm understanding the fact that it's
just a coincidence that the Arabic "El" written out
(translated) in the Roman-Greek alphabet is spelled
the same as the Spanish "el" which, like the Italian
"il," came from a longer Latin word but shortened.
Wow, you guys make this sound too easy.

Peter Gutierrez

--- Francisc Czobor <fericzobor at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Vladimir is definitely right: the Spanish definite
> article, like in
> all Romanic languages, comes from Latin. The form
> "el" compared to
> Italian "il" is explainable by the phonetic
> evolution of Spanish
> (opening of short Latin i to e), rather than the
> influence of the
> Arabic aerticle al- (pronounced in Modern Arabic
> dialects rather like
> el-, sometimes il-).
> On the other hand, the Spanish definite article
> changes with gender
> and number (el, la, los, las), like in all Romanic
> languages, whereas
> the Arabic definite article has the unique form al-,
> regardless
> gender and number.
> Moreover, in Spanish borrowings from Arabic, the
> Arabic article
> appears as "al-" (prefixed), not as "el", like in
> Alhambra etc.
> So, no connection between Spanish el/la/los/las and
> Arabic al-.
>
> Francisc
>
> --- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, åÇÏÒÏ× ÷ÌÁÄÉÍÉÒ
> <vegorov at i...> wrote:
> > ********************
> > Hi Peter!
> >
> > Gothic had definite articles, i.e. analogues to
> English <the>,
> > but, leaving this item to more competent members
> of the Gothic-L,
> > I'd like to note that Spanish <el> is NOT an
> Arabic word.
> > Otherwise we should accept Italian <il> and French
> <le> also
> > as loan words from Arabic, which seems
> unbelievable.
> > More probable (and widely accepted) is derivation
> > of the definite articles in all Romance languages
> from Latin
> > <illus, illum, illa> 'this, that' for various
> genders.
> > Thus origination of the Romance article is the
> same as for
> > Germanic one (cf. English <the> from <this> or
> High German
> > <der, das, die> from <dieser, dieses, diese>
> etc.).
> > Though the change of <i> in Italian <il> to <e> in
> Spanish
> > <el> may reflect some Moorish influence.
> > By the way, the idea itself to put an article
> before all nouns
> > may penetrate late Latin just from the Gothic,
> Langobardic
> > or other Germanic languages.
> >
> > Vladimir
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: gothic-l at yahoogroups.com
> [mailto:gothic-l at yahoogroups.com]On
> > Behalf Of Peter Gutierrez
> > Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 9:42 AM
> > To: gothic-l at yahoogroups.com
> > Subject: [gothic-l] the word "the" as in "the
> house" or "the car"
> >
> >
> > Hi fellow lovers of the written language,
> >
> > Does anybody know what the visigoths might have
> used
> > for the word "the."   Spain uses an arabic word
> for
> > "the" which is the word "EL."  What the [edit] did
> the
> > visigoths used prior to the moorish invasions?  I
> > imagine that they used something from their old
> gothic
> > language. Perhaps something akin to ostrogothic or
> > even something before they split up to become the
> east
> > and west goths.
> >
> > Peter
> >
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>

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