# What is the origin of the French verb manger?



## Cynical

In Latin the word is comedĕre, which gives us comer in Spanish and Portuguese. Where does manger come from? Also curious about the Italian mangiare, which is similar to manger. Could it come from a Celtic language that was spoken in present day France and Italy before the Roman empire? Why didn't we get a word similar to comer in French and Italian?


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## CapnPrep

Cynical said:


> Where does manger come from?


From Latin _manducare _"chew; devour", sharing the same root as _mandible_.





Cynical said:


> Could it come from a Celtic language that was spoken in present day France and Italy before the Roman empire?


Very unlikely.





Cynical said:


> Why didn't we get a word similar to comer in French and Italian?


Ultimately, just "because", but you can find a little bit of discussion in the TLF, which is a good and easily accessible first stop for all French etymology questions. 

See also etimo.it. for Italian.


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## Gavril

Cynical said:


> Why didn't we get a word similar to comer in French and Italian?



I don't know the ultimate reason, but there many other features (both in vocabulary and grammar) that are shared between French and Italian, but are absent from Spanish/Portuguese. For example, Italian and French share the basic terms _qualche_ / _quelque_ "some, a few", _avere bisogno_ / _avoir besoin_ "to need", but in Spanish and Portuguese the corresponding terms are _algún_ / _algum_ and _necesitar_ / _precisar_.

Romanian also has _a_ _mânca_ "to eat", cognate with _manger/mangiare_, and there are a lot of other ways in which Romanian patterns more closely with French/Italian than Spanish/Portuguese.


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## Nino83

In Italian and French there is the word _commestibile/comestible_ (in English _edible_) which derives from comedere (see http://cnrtl.fr/etymologie/comestible). 



Gavril said:


> I don't know the ultimate reason, but there many  other features (both in vocabulary and grammar) that are shared between  French and Italian, but are absent from Spanish/Portuguese.



There is also _volere/vouloir_ (instead of _querer_), _tavolo/table_, from _tabula_ (instead of _mesa_ from _mensa_, which there is also in Italian, _mensa_, but with another meaning) or _parlare/parler_, from _parabolare_ instead of _falar/hablar_, from _fabulare_.
French and Italian are closer in vocabulary. Some Latin words were chosen in Spanish and Portuguese and other words were chosen in Italian and French. Geographical proximity and more influence can explain it.

Ciao


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## caelum

I may be wrong, but I think the discrepancy is due to the Pyrenees having segregated the territories of the Iberian peninsula from the rest of the Roman Empire, so when words would lose prestige in Rome and the trend spread among the territories in present day northern Italy and France, I suppose that they either never arrived in Iberia or they just never took hold there.


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## Nino83

Catalan language is situated in Iberian peninsula and its vocabulary is closer to French (Occitan) and Italian.


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## Angelo di fuoco

Nino83 said:


> In Italian and French there is the word _commestibile/comestible_ (in English _edible_) which derives from comedere (see http://cnrtl.fr/etymologie/comestible).
> 
> 
> 
> There is also _volere/vouloir_ (instead of _querer_), _tavolo/table_, from _tabula_ (instead of _mesa_ from _mensa_, which there is also in Italian, _mensa_, but with another meaning) or _parlare/parler_, from _parabolare_ instead of _falar/hablar_, from _fabulare_.
> French and Italian are closer in vocabulary. Some Latin words were chosen in Spanish and Portuguese and other words were chosen in Italian and French. Geographical proximity and more influence can explain it.
> 
> Ciao



I could remind you of the _favella_ & _favellare_, but especially the second is rare nowadays, isn't it?
I wouldn't go just for geographical proximity, but also for the fact that the Romans first colonized the coast (and the Provincia Tarraconensis was part of the Roman Empire longer than the other two provinces in the Iberic Peninsula) and that going by ship has to answer for many grammatical & particularly lexical similarities between Catalan, Occitan, (French) & Italian (and regional Romance languages of Italy)


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## Nino83

Angelo di fuoco said:


> I could remind you of the _favella_ & _favellare_, but especially the second is rare nowadays, isn't it?



They're both archaic. If you used it nobody would understand (except professors in philology). 
Only the word _favola_ (_fable_) remained in contemporary language.


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## caelum

Nino83 said:


> Catalan language is situated in Iberian peninsula and its vocabulary is closer to French (Occitan) and Italian.


Yes, due to the fact that Catalan and Occitan were dialects of the same language until they were separated by the mountain, at which point they diverged, Occitan being influenced by French and Italian, while Catalan was influenced by Spanish and Portuguese.


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## francisgranada

caelum said:


> ...I may be wrong, but I think the discrepancy is due to the Pyrenees having segregated the territories of the Iberian peninsula from the rest of the Roman Empire ...


This is not necessarily an obstacle, e.g. France and Italy are separated by the Alps, neverthless Gallo-Italian langages (dialects) are spoken in both sides.  


> ... when words would lose prestige in Rome and the trend spread among the territories in present day northern Italy and France, I suppose that they either never arrived in Iberia or they just never took hold there...


I think this is a bit simplyfied because words could lose prestige both in Italia and Iberia independently, and many times they were later reintroduced as "cultismos" etc. (e.g. the already metioned _mensa _in Italian). Many of the words not present e.g. in Spanish today were still present some centuries ago and vice versa. 

And more, there are also many words present in Italian and Spanish but not in French. When comparing the vocabulary, the mutual influence of the Romance languages and the influence of other languges has to be taken in consideration, as well. E.g. the Italian _regalo _< Spanish _regalo_, etc...,  germanisms in Romance languages (Italian _birra, _but Spanish _cerveza_), gallicisims in Italian, Arabic words in Spanish and Potrugese, words of medieval Provencal origin in other Romance languages etc.  

I suppose that the differienciaton of the vulgar Latin (later Romance languages) became "markant" rather later; during the period of the Roman Empire the spoken Latin ("Proto-Romance") could be quite uniform, regardless of the mountains and seas that separated various territories.


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## Angelo di fuoco

Nino83 said:


> They're both archaic. If you used it nobody would understand (except professors in philology).
> Only the word _favola_ (_fable_) remained in contemporary language.



I encountered _favellare_ in texts from mid-19th century and _favella_ as late as early 20th century, I wouldn't call it archaic, but rather obsolete or old-fashioned. It's not Dante, mind you.


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## Nino83

Angelo di fuoco said:


> It's not Dante, mind you.



If you search _favella_ on Treccani.it, the only examples that are made are of Dante, Boccaccio or Ariosto.  

I agree. Obsolete. Not understood by the average man.


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## Angelo di fuoco

francisgranada said:


> This is not necessarily an obstacle, e.g. France and Italy are separated by the Alps, neverthless Gallo-Italian langages (dialects) are spoken in both sides.
> I think this is a bit simplyfied because words could lose prestige both in Italia and Iberia independently, and many times they were later reintroduced as "cultismos" etc. (e.g. the already metioned _mensa _in Italian). Many of the words not present e.g. in Spanish today were still present some centuries ago and vice versa.
> 
> And more, there are also many words present in Italian and Spanish but not in French. When comparing the vocabulary, the mutual influence of the Romance languages and the influence of other languges has to be taken in consideration, as well. E.g. the Italian _regalo _< Spanish _regalo_, etc...,  germanisms in Romance languages (Italian _birra, _but Spanish _cerveza_), gallicisims in Italian, Arabic words in Spanish and Potrugese, words of medieval Provencal origin in other Romance languages etc.
> 
> I suppose that the differienciaton of the vulgar Latin (later Romance languages) became "markant" rather later; during the period of the Roman Empire the spoken Latin ("Proto-Romance") could be quite uniform, regardless of the mountains and seas that separated various territories.



Perhaps we should not underestimate the influence of Arabic in Catalan (almost as many words as in Spanish or Portuguese, but mostly without the Arabic articles) and Southern Italian languages (up to Naples - words like tavuto). In Standard Italian you have (besides the words you find in every European language) words like gazarra...

In Italian, you have tavola & tavolo (and mensa, with a somewhat different meaning), and in Spanish you have mensa (and tabla, whose meanings are secondary meanings of tavola)


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## Angelo di fuoco

Nino83 said:


> If you search _favella_ on Treccani.it, the only examples that are made are of Dante, Boccaccio or Ariosto.
> 
> I agree. Obsolete. Not understood by the average man.



You cannot accuse me of being well acquainted with the three: I have read only very little Dante (I had to give up the _Divina commedia_ because reading the glossary and explanations of historical, political, theological & social context took up more time than reading the _Divina commedia_ itself) and virtually no Boccaccio and Ariosto. My readings in Italian, besides occasional readings of novels, plays, short stories, poems & non-fictional literature, are mostly the libretti of the operas I listen to.
I encountered _favella_ in a libretto by Arturo Colautti (1851-1914) for Francesco Cilèa (1866-1950) based on a play by Eugène Scribe (1791-1861): _Adriana Lecouvreur_, premièred in 1902 in Milan.
It doesn't surprise me that Treccani gives examples from the great classics, since opera libretti are rarely considered literature nowadays, as they were in the 19th century, and Colautti being a rather minor librettist, despite his friendship with many prominent figures of Italian literary life of his time (Carducci & D'Annunzio).


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## Ben Jamin

caelum said:


> Yes, due to the fact that Catalan and Occitan were dialects of the same language until they were separated by the mountain, at which point they diverged, Occitan being influenced by French and Italian, while Catalan was influenced by Spanish and Portuguese.


I read an article about Catalan originating from Occitans who migrated across the Pyrenees from what now is southern France.


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## Quiviscumque

caelum said:


> Yes, due to the fact that Catalan and Occitan were dialects of the same language until they were separated by the mountain, at which point they diverged, Occitan being influenced by French and Italian, while Catalan was influenced by Spanish and Portuguese.



Do you mean that Vulgar Latin or Protoromance were spoken in Europe when Alpide orogeny took place?  Wow!

In any case, I remind you that Perpignan/Perpinyà lies north of the Pyrenees.


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## Angelo di fuoco

Which just reminds us that Catalonia/Spain lost Northern Catalonia quite late in history...


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## francisgranada

Angelo di fuoco said:


> Perhaps we should not underestimate the influence of Arabic in Catalan ...


 Of course. 





> In Standard Italian you have ...  words like gazarra...


Or for example in Neapolitan we have _palumma _(Spanish _paloma_) while in standard Italian it is _colomba. _I.e. even in _geografically _adjacent (or near) regions, the vocabulary (and the grammar too) may differ/diverge, in some cases even significantly.


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## caelum

Quiviscumque said:


> Do you mean that Vulgar Latin or Protoromance were spoken in Europe when Alpide orogeny took place?  Wow!
> 
> In any case, I remind you that Perpignan/Perpinyà lies north of the Pyrenees.



And Navarrese kings chose for Occitan to be used officially and in trade. Obviously politics have a lot to do with these things, but that doesn't mean that Occitan/Catalan weren't one entity and then split (Occitano-Romance).


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## Cynical

Gracies! Any more?????


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## Unoverwordinesslogged

caelum said:


> I may be wrong, but I think the discrepancy is due to the Pyrenees having segregated the territories of the Iberian peninsula from the rest of the Roman Empire, so when words would lose prestige in Rome and the trend spread among the territories in present day northern Italy and France, I suppose that they either never arrived in Iberia or they just never took hold there.



The Pyrenees has a barrier between Iberia and 'Sub-Loireian France' holds true to almost NOTHING. The Pyrenees seem almost some kind of: _straw mountain_, indeed hardly anything is asundered by them - language, culture, weather, buildings, biology and so forth.


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## berndf

caelum said:


> And Navarrese kings chose for Occitan to be used officially and in trade. Obviously politics have a lot to do with these things, but that doesn't mean that Occitan/Catalan weren't one entity and then split (Occitano-Romance).


I think you have a lost cause here. The Catalan word for to eat is still today _menjar_, i.e. is connected to the French and Italian and not to the Spanish word.

The distinction Mediterranean cost vs. inland is more important than north or south of the Pyrenees. After the decay of the Roman road system and before the invention of modern roads in the 19th century, 100 miles by boat along the coast was certainly in terms of ease of travel a shorter distance than 10 miles overland. Castilian originated in the North of Spain, far away from the Mediterranean cost, inaccessible by rivers. This is a theory I frequently heard why Castilian is has retained some conservative features.


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## Angelo di fuoco

In Catalan, the verb "to eat" is m*e*njar.

As to conservative features, Portuguese and Castilian lost "to be" (ser) as an auxiliary verb (except in the passive voice, of course) earlier that Catalan.
However, I agree that Catalan has retained many Mediterranean features both grammatical and lexical that Spanish (i. e. Castilian) and Portuguese lost long ago.


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## berndf

Angelo di fuoco said:


> ...Catalan has retained many Mediterranean features both grammatical and lexical that Spanish (i. e. Castilian) and Portuguese lost long ago.


"Lost" or "never acquired"?


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## Nino83

berndf said:


> "Lost" or "never acquired"?



For the auxiliar "ser" before (telic) verbs of movement or for the agreement of the past participle after the verb "haber/haver/ter", "lost".


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## Angelo di fuoco

berndf said:


> "Lost" or "never acquired"?



Have a look at the "Cantar de mio Cid". You'll find quite a lot of cases of ser as auxiliar verb e. g. with venir.
One could also cite the impersonal "hombre" which once was used just like the Catalan "hom" and the French "on".


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## berndf

Angelo di fuoco said:


> Have a look at the "Cantar de mio Cid". You'll find quite a lot of cases of ser as auxiliar verb e. g. with venir.



You wrote:


Angelo di fuoco said:


> As to conservative features, Portuguese and Castilian lost "to be" (ser) as an auxiliary verb (except in the passive voice, of course) earlier that Catalan.


Accepted

And further:


Angelo di fuoco said:


> However, I agree that Catalan has retained many Mediterranean features both grammatical and lexical that Spanish (i. e. Castilian) and Portuguese lost long ago.



So, your second remark was obviously not about the auxiliary "ser". And in reaction to that second remark I asked:


berndf said:


> "Lost" or "never acquired"?


This example


Angelo di fuoco said:


> One could also cite the impersonal "hombre" which once was used just like the Catalan "hom" and the French "on".


I accept too.


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## Angelo di fuoco

I'd like to give yet another feature: the gender & number agreement of the past participle in Catalan, which once was general, but nowadays isn't used consequently and seems to be on its deathbed. I'm not sure whether Castilian ever had a feature like a particle derived from _inde_, like Catalan (en/ne), depending on context), French (en) or Italian (ne).


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## merquiades

berndf said:


> I think you have a lost cause here. The Catalan word for to eat is still today _menjar_, i.e. is connected to the French and Italian and not to the Spanish word.
> 
> The distinction Mediterranean cost vs. inland is more important than north or south of the Pyrenees. After the decay of the Roman road system and before the invention of modern roads in the 19th century, 100 miles by boat along the coast was certainly in terms of ease of travel a shorter distance than 10 miles overland. Castilian originated in the North of Spain, far away from the Mediterranean cost, inaccessible by rivers. This is a theory I frequently heard why Castilian is has retained some conservative features.



Yes, it is worth repeating this.  Many newer words and other types of linguistic innovation (and in new I'm talking about after 100-200 AD) didn't travel far away from the Mediterranean and deep into Iberia.  And as you said Castilian as well as Portuguese developed near the northern Atlantic coast and swept south and east via conquest.  Here is a nice interactive map documenting the spread.


No one has mentioned that _manjar_ does indeed exist in Spanish and is not archaic.  It's no longer (if ever was) used as a verb though.  It mean "delicious food", "scrumptious dish", "wonderful creation by a chef."


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## francisgranada

merquiades said:


> ... No one has mentioned that _manjar_ does indeed exist in Spanish and is not archaic...


According to DRAE, in Spanish it's an Old Catalan or Provencal loanword.


Angelo di fuoco said:


> ... I'm not sure whether Castilian ever had a feature like a particle derived from _inde_, like Catalan (en/ne), depending on context), French (en) or Italian (ne).


There is the word _ende _in Spanish which is now used only in the adverbial locution _por ende_. But in the past it was used also in the sense of _de allí/aquí, de esto_. However, I don't know whether the usage of _ende _corresponded _exactly _to the usage of the Italian/Catalan/French particles.


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