Sum: Latin loans into other languages

[Larry Trask]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
A few days ago, I posted a query on which case-form of a Latin noun or
adjective was typically borrowed into other languages.  I posted my query
because it was suggested on another list that borrowing of the accusative
was the norm -- as indeed it was in Basque.  I doubted the generalization,
but I lacked the evidence to reply.

I received nine helpful responses, some of which were posted to the list.
The reports can be summed up as follows.

In Basque, as I reported, in cases in which we can tell, it is almost
always the accusative which is borrowed, though in a few cases it is the
nominative, and in one case it is the vocative.  I forgot to mention that
there are also one or two cases of the borrowing of the genitive -- and
indeed the Latin genitive ending <-is> is widely thought to be the origin
of the medieval Basque patronymic suffix <-iz> (phonetic [-is]).

In Welsh, it is often impossible to tell, but there are a few clear cases
in which the nominative was borrowed, and a few more in which some oblique
case was borrowed (can't always tell which oblique case that was).  In the
case of day-names, there is reason to suspect that a genitive was borrowed.

In Old Irish, there are a few clear cases of borrowed nominatives.

In Albanian, it is often hard to tell, but there exist cases in which the
form borrowed was certainly oblique, and most likely the accusative.

In Gothic, and in Germanic generally, early borrowings are often
unmistakably taken from the Latin nominative, though later borrowings are
often taken from the accusative -- though it is not clear that the Latin
nominative was still in spoken use at the time these borrowings, at least
in the relevant area.

So, it appears that the evidence does not support a contention that
borrowing of the Latin accusative was the norm everywhere and always.
Fine.

Several of the respondents provided some specific examples from their
specialist languages; for these I am grateful, but I won't reproduce them
here.

Some respondents also commented on the survival of Latin case-forms into
the Romance vernaculars, and on purely literary borrowings; this material
too I will not reproduce here.

My thanks to Miguel Carrasquer Vidal, Richard Coates, John Hines, Martin
Huld, Tore Janson, Elizabeth Pyatt, Paolo Ramat, Max Wheeler, and Roger
Wright.


Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk

Tel: (01273)-678693 (from UK); +44-1273-678693 (from abroad)
Fax: (01273)-671320 (from UK); +44-1273-671320 (from abroad)