Sunday, January 1, 2012

A Latin Origin for the Romanian Word DA (YES)



A few years ago I published an academic article in which I demonstrated a possible Latin origin for the assumed Slavic borrowing into Romanian of DA (YES).

To read the original article, click here.

To see the argument in a nutshell in a more accessible video form, enjoy the following:


2 comments:

  1. I can't disagree, but "ita" is a very short word, so it suffering two modifications, is pretty uncommon. I would like to know what you think about "biserica". Why didn't we keep the word "ecclesia" and used "basilica" instead?

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    1. The Roman Basilica was originally a civic building, but many of them became churches after Constantine. I believe Romanian preserved the use of that word precisely because it was cut off from other Romance language communities for so long. Interestingly, the Germanic language tradition borrowed the term ecclesia kyriaka (Lord's Church) and turned the adjective into the noun, hence German kirke and English Church.

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