Pre-Basque Phonology

[Roslyn M. Frank]

0 PM 9/25/99 -0700, Max Dashu wrote:

>Along similar lines, what's your take on Mari: has this name been
>assimilated from Maria, or does it have older folk roots? The former has
>seemed likely to me, but then  Andra Mari has a rather different character
>than the Virgin Mary.

I'll leave this one to Larry.

[LT]
>>The female given name <Maite> is
>>the usual Basque equivalent of the Spanish name <Maria Teresa>,
>>resulting from an accidental similarity in form between this name and
>>the Basque word <maite>, which I would gloss as `beloved', not as
>>`love'.

To my knowledge the nickname for all my friends who are called Maria Teresa is
Mari Tere sometimes spelled Maritere.

 From my point of view, the word "maite" as a first name has three possible
sources:

1) there is the case of non-Basque speakers who choose to give their children a
Basque-sounding names but without necessarily knowing what they mean. A while
back I met a young man from Peru (third generation Basque) whose first name was
Eder. He never had a clue that it meant "Pretty", an rather odd name for a
"guy."

2) there is the case of Basque speakers who choose to give their daugters this
name knowing that it is being used as roughly equivalent to "(my) beloved"
since that gloss corresponds to its meaning in Euskera.

3) that it is a highly reduced form of Maria Teresa. This last alternative has
met with puzzled expressions from all of my colleagues including Prof.
Carlos-Eduardo Pineros, a phonologist, whose research is precisely on these
sorts of reductions of names in Spanish. He stated the following after having
seen an earlier version of this email: "What an interesting discussion.  Thank
your for sharing.  I agree with
you in that the derivation of the Spanish name Maite from Maria Teresa is
rather strained. Maritere seems a lot more natural to me simply because it
obeys the principles observed by the main truncation processes of Spanish
(e.g. reduction to a binary foot (in this case two binary feet), simplification
of syllable structure, etc).  If Maite was derived from Maria Teresa it
certainly is a different type of process from the one that derives Maritere,
the latter being more transparent whereas the former seems more synthetic or
conscious like the way acronyms are formed."

Moreover, although I know that first names are often reduced phonologically
when abbreviated, your derivation of Maite from Maria Teresa seems a bit
strained, that is, based on my experience. In it you propose that the first and
middle name both have undergone major reduction. I'm not saying that it's
impossible, just that it's more complicated.

Stated differently, whereas Jose Angel commonly becomes Joxean, I don't know
anyone whose first name is offically Joxean. And I know women whose name is
Maria Angeles who are called affectionately Marian.

What I don't know are Basque-speaking women who are called Marian whose real
name isn't Maria Angeles. They certainly could exist since Marian is a
perfectly good name.

The common method of creating these nicknames is to retain the /r/ and reduce
the middle name and, indeed, in those cases when the middle name is Maria the
nickname can result in /-ma/ as in Luis Maria which can become Luisma rather
than Luismari. My experience has been that you must know a man very well in
order to call him Luisma (or Lusma??), rather than Luismari. Otherwise it could
be understood as somewhat disrespectful. My guess is that Spanish uses a
similar set of unwritten phonological rules to create nicknames.

The test would be to see whether Spanish speakers from Andalucia recognize
Maite as being composed of Maria Teresa or whether they would say that it
sounds like a Basque name.

We also need to remember that under Franco there was an approved list of given
(Christian) names and Basque ones were not included (nor were many others).

So far I haven't found a single native Spanish speaker (or Basque one) who
"recognized" Maite as an abbreviation of Maria Teresa. But I've only asked a
dozen speakers so far.

Then on your gloss of "maite" as "beloved", fine. But keep in mind, also that
in English it is common for the expression "love" to be used as a form of
address for another person, not just a female one, right, Love?

Agur t'erdi,
Roz