# Spanish words of type homBRe & hemBRa



## MarX

Hola!

Are there other Spanish words of the type *hombre and hembra*? So where a *-br-* is inserted where it historically didn't exist?

Gracias!


MarX


----------



## Athaulf

MarX said:


> Are there other Spanish words of the type *hombre and hembra*? So where a *-br-* is inserted where it historically didn't exist?



Yes, the epenthesis /mr/ > /mbr/ was a regular sound change, which is also visible in words such as _nombre_ (< _nomine_), _lumbre_ (< _lumine_), _hombro_ (< _humeru_), or _sembrar_ (< _seminare_).

Such words are not as common as they might have been because in many (most?) cases, the /mr/ clusters initially came by dissimilation from /mn/. For example, the development of _hombre_ went roughly as this: _homine_ > _omine_ > _omne_ > _omre_ > _ombre_ (with the initial _h_ reintroduced later by spelling conventions, of course). However, there was an earlier sound change that turned the /mn/ clusters into /ɲ/ (the sound that's spelled _ñ_), as in e.g. _otoño _(< _autumnus_) or _dueño _(< _dominus_). Thus, the only /mn/ clusters that were still present by the time the /mn/ > /mr/ > /mbr/ change happened were the ones that came into being after the /mn/ > /ɲ/ change had already finished. I don't know how many other /mr/ clusters existed at the time when the /mr/ > /mbr/ epenthesis took place (the one in _hombro _seems to be an example), but most of the words of this sort I can think of trace ther -_mbr_- back to the Latin -_min_-, as in the above examples.

If you're interested in the historical development of Spanish phonology, this thesis has a wealth of information:
http://etd.lib.ttu.edu/theses/available/etd-04102009-31295001770667/unrestricted/31295001770667.pdf


----------



## MarX

Thanks a lot Athaulf!

Two other words came into my mind: _*nombre *_and_* hambre*_. They seem to originate from /mn/ > /mr/ > /mbr/ too.

And thank you for the link!

Salam


----------



## Athaulf

MarX said:


> Two other words came into my mind: _*nombre *_and_* hambre*_. They seem to originate from /mn/ > /mr/ > /mbr/ too.



Yes, according to the RAE dictionary, _hambre_ is from _famen_, like English _famine_. It's almost perfectly analogous to _hembra_ in its development.

One thing that puzzles me slightly is why _dominus_ (or rather whatever it was in late Vulgar Latin) had already lost the vowel between /m/ and /n/ by the time the /mn/ > /ɲ/ change was taking place, so it ended up as _dueño_, whereas *_(h)omine_ obviously didn't (or otherwise it would have ended up as _*(h)oñe_ instead of _hombre_).


----------



## CapnPrep

Athaulf said:


> One thing that puzzles me slightly is why _dominus_ (or rather whatever it was in late Vulgar Latin) had already lost the vowel between /m/ and /n/ by the time the /mn/ > //ɲ/ change was taking place, so it ended up as _dueño_, whereas *_(h)omine_ obviously didn't (or otherwise it would have ended up as _*(h)oñe_ instead of _hombre_).


Have a look at this (p. 406-407).


----------



## MarX

Thanks CapnPrep!


----------



## Athaulf

CapnPrep said:


> Have a look at this (p. 406-407).



Thanks for the link!

Another possibility that occurred to me is that words like _dominus_, which are used in formal address, may undergo irregular loss of phonemes because of frequent invocation (like for example _vuestra merced_ got gradually shortened to _usted, _which obviously doesn't follow from regular sound changes). I wonder if it's possible that the /i/ in _dominus_ was lost earlier than vowels in the analogous -_mVn_- sequences in other words for this reason. This is just my amateurish speculation, though.


----------



## Erick404

Athaulf said:


> Yes, according to the RAE dictionary, _hambre_ is from _famen_, like English _famine_. It's almost perfectly analogous to _hembra_ in its development.
> 
> One thing that puzzles me slightly is why _dominus_ (or rather whatever it was in late Vulgar Latin) had already lost the vowel between /m/ and /n/ by the time the /mn/ > /ɲ/ change was taking place, so it ended up as _dueño_, whereas *_(h)omine_ obviously didn't (or otherwise it would have ended up as _*(h)oñe_ instead of _hombre_).



Wouldnt it be because _dominus_ had an o between two clearly pronounced consonants, while _homine_ lost its initial h very early?


----------



## zouzounaki

No sé si te sirve, pero en unas zonas de España, al fuego se le llama "lumbre" que, sin duda, viene de _lumen, luminis, _luz.

Zouzou


----------



## MarX

zouzounaki said:


> No sé si te sirve, pero en unas zonas de España, al fuego se le llama "lumbre" que, sin duda, viene de _lumen, luminis, _luz.
> 
> Zouzou


Sí que nos sirve. Gracias!


----------



## dinji

Add _costumbre_ < ??


----------



## berndf

Athaulf said:


> ..._omne_ > _omre_ > _ombre_


Are you sure those are two distinct steps?

In my understanding (which may be wrong) the shift is caused by a reduction of [n] to a tap and the quick succession of [mr] causes a plosive release producing a /b/ as an artifact.


----------



## clevermizo

berndf said:


> Are you sure those are two distinct steps?
> 
> In my understanding (which may be wrong) the shift is caused by a reduction of [n] to a tap and the quick succession of [mr] causes a plosive release producing a /b/ as an artifact.



Yes, but the /b/ is no longer an artifact. I'd say it's distinct stages because when it was pronounced [omre], there may have occasionally been an artifactual * but perhaps not always. However at some point this became the standard pronunciation, and then we arrive at the [ombre] stage. Perhaps: omne > (omre,ombre) > ombre.*


----------



## berndf

clevermizo said:


> Yes, but the /b/ is no longer an artifact. I'd say it's distinct stages because when it was pronounced [omre], there may have occasionally been an artifactual * but perhaps not always. However at some point this became the standard pronunciation, and then we arrive at the [ombre] stage. Perhaps: omne > (omre,ombre) > ombre.*


*Possible; so it might be a second step but a practically inevitable one. To my knowledge, the tendency to insert /b/ between /m/ and /r/ is extremely strong in Spanish. I was just to days ago told of a Mexican boy whom his parents gave the Hungarian name "Imre" and he was consistently called "Imbre" by other children.

This tendency might be due to the rhythm of Spanish which tends to be spoken as sequences of fast "bursts" of phonemes.*


----------



## zouzounaki

http://etimologias.dechile.net/?hambre

Espero que te sirvan.

Zouzou


----------



## Maroseika

Pues en este caso qué proceso podría resultar en la conversión del latin _multitudo _al _muchedumbre_? Lo que habia escribido más arriba o algo otro?


----------



## CapnPrep

Maroseika said:


> Pues en este caso qué proceso podría resultar en la conversión del latin _multitudo _al _muchedumbre_? Lo que habia escribido más arriba o algo otro?


Dinji mentioned _costumbre_ above, which in principle goes back to _co(n)suetudo, -inis_, but the DRAE mentions an intermediate VL form *_cosuetumen_. So it would be the same process as for _hombre_: _cosuetuminem_ > _costumbre_. However, _-dumbre_ also became a productive suffix in Spanish corresponding to Latin _-tudo_, so I suppose that derived forms like _muchedumbre_, _certidumbre_, _podredumbre_, etc. could also be analogical formations (without requiring the hypothesis of a vulgar form *_multitumen_, _*certitumen_, etc. in every case).


----------



## merquiades

Athaulf said:


> Thanks for the link!
> 
> Another possibility that occurred to me is that words like _dominus_, which are used in formal address, may undergo irregular loss of phonemes because of frequent invocation (like for example _vuestra merced_ got gradually shortened to _usted, _which obviously doesn't follow from regular sound changes). I wonder if it's possible that the /i/ in _dominus_ was lost earlier than vowels in the analogous -_mVn_- sequences in other words for this reason. This is just my amateurish speculation, though.





Erick404 said:


> Wouldnt it be because _dominus_ had an o between two clearly pronounced consonants, while _homine_ lost its initial h very early?


In the case of _dominus_, there is second parallel evolution in cases when it was used as a title with a name:  _Domine Antoniu_ became_ Don Antonio_.  It is an irregular contraction and resembles the case of _vuestra merced_ becoming _usted_.  When Domine was followed by a name it was logical the tonic accent would fall on the name.  This favored the contraction:  _Dominantóniu > Donantónio_.  I suppose native speakers no longer see the connection between _Don_ and _dueño_.  At any rate such a frequent word giving different results from the very beginning cannot follow regular patterns.  It would be interesting to do a literary search and see if _Dombre_ ever existed.

_Hombre_ is not a regular result of _Homine_ either.   It should have been _Huembre_ as the vowel was open.

Another element to take into account in some cases was the effort to re-Latinize Spanish that occurred after the Renaissance.  They succeed sometimes in reversing changes and reimposing terms closer to classical Latin.


----------



## Dymn

_Dominam _also seems to work like _mn_-words in Portuguese, Catalan and Italian (_dona, dona, donna_). The loss of the medial i might have been a very early phenomenon.


----------



## danielstan

Dymn said:


> The loss of the medial i might have been a very early phenomenon.


Indeed, _Appendix Probi_ (supposedly written in 3rd or 4th century AD) acknowledges this phenomenon (continued in Romance languages):
_calida _non_ calda
frigida _non_ fricda
orbis _non_ orbs
viridis _non_ virdis_

Appendix Probi


----------



## merquiades

Dymn said:


> _Dominam _also seems to work like _mn_-words in Portuguese, Catalan and Italian (_dona, dona, donna_). The loss of the medial i might have been a very early phenomenon.



Wow, so on the feminine side, _dona/donna_ are actually cognates of_ dueña _and all descend from _dominam_.  That is a big change in meaning.


----------



## Dymn

*Catalan *also features _mbr_ in _fembra _(< _feminam_) and_ sembrar _(< _seminare_), but not in any other words of the kind. And it doesn't seem to be Castilian influence because those words are attested since quite old.



danielstan said:


> Indeed, _Appendix Probi_ (supposedly written in 3rd or 4th century AD) acknowledges this phenomenon (continued in Romance languages):
> _calida _non_ calda
> frigida _non_ fricda
> orbis _non_ orbs
> viridis _non_ virdis_


Yes, but given the different results between _hominem _and _somnum_, for instance, I presume _mn _had moved to something else before the medial _i_ was lost in _hominem_.


----------



## Cenzontle

Hello, Athaulf, are you still there after 9 years?
Your link to a thesis in #2 above got me curious, but it only led to a "404 - File not found".
Is there an updated URL for it?

CapnPrep, your link to "this" (#5) went to a page in a book that gives "ueme" for 'man' in Old Spanish.
For the record, Prof. Davies's Corpus del Español shows zero instances of "ueme" (or "hueme", or "veme") in the 13th-15th centuries.  (Compare more than 16,000 for "omne".)  Of course I'm not accusing _you_ of the _book's_ error.

...omne > omre > ombre:  distinct steps?  As far as writing goes, the above-mentioned Corpus give only one instance of "omre" (15th century).

Some nonstandard types of English have a similar epenthesis of /b/:  family > fambly, chimney > chimbley.


----------



## merquiades

Cenzontle said:


> CapnPrep, your link to "this" (#5) went to a page in a book that gives "ueme" for 'man' in Old Spanish.
> For the record, Prof. Davies's Corpus del Español shows zero instances of "ueme" (or "hueme", or "veme") in the 13th-15th centuries.  (Compare more than 16,000 for "omne".)


It would have been natural if _uemne_ or _uemre_ had existed.  The o was open in vulgar Latin so it should have produced a diphthong like _uomo_ in Italian.


----------



## Circunflejo

Dymn said:


> *Catalan *also features _mbr_ in _fembra _(< _feminam_) and_ sembrar _(< _seminare_), but not in any other words of the kind.



It's not exactly the same case but there's also _nombre_ and _cambra_ where a /b/ appears that isn't in the Latin original.


----------



## Cenzontle

> It would have been natural if _uemne_ or _uemre_ had existed.


Diphthongized forms do appear in Oelschläger's _A Medieval Spanish Word-List_,
in case you want to pursue them online.


----------



## Circunflejo

merquiades said:


> It would have been natural if _uemne_ or _uemre_ had existed



Uemne existed. It's quoted on the link provided by @Cenzontle on #26 and the CORDE gives two results for it.


----------



## merquiades

Circunflejo said:


> Uemne existed. It's quoted on the link provided by @Cenzontle on #26 and the CORDE gives two results for it.


The question is...... why don't we have  Huembre nowadays?


----------



## Penyafort

Dymn said:


> *Catalan *also features _mbr_ in _fembra _(< _feminam_) and_ sembrar _(< _seminare_), but not in any other words of the kind. And it doesn't seem to be Castilian influence because those words are attested since quite old.



I agree, they're too old to be the result of influence. My impression is that there could have been vulgar and half-learned variants at the same time, and _sembrar/semenar _would be an example, but also_ combregar _and _comenegar_, both from Latin _communicare_.

Spanish here, though, altered n>l: COMMUNICARE > comungar > comulgar.


----------

