# Emere



## effeundici

*Emo/emere - to buy* .

I cannot mentally find any trace of this important verb in Italian (or other romance languages?). That's weird. Anybody can help? I wonder why such a used verb basically disappeared from our minds.

(Edit : found out "esimere / to exempt" and "redimere / to redeem". )


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## bearded

Many important Latin verbs have disappeared in the transition to the 'vulgar' language (not only _emere_), and their traces can only be found either in compounds or in some irregular forms. Just think of _edere, _a trace of which can only be found in words like _commestibile _(from 'com-edere') or _inedia.._
Another example is _vadere _(first persons of _andare, _or verbs like _evadere, invadere_), not to mention _ire, _which nowadays exists only in dialects, in verbs like _adire_ or in the irregularly formed verb _uscire..._



effeundici said:


> I wonder why ..


The main reason is that in colloquial 'vulgar' Italian such classical verbs were not used any more, and were replaced by more 'popular' verbs (think of _edere _replaced by manducare>mangiare, or _emere _by comparare>comprare). Verbs composed with an initial preposition (prefix), on the other hand, can be found in the Italian language, but they mostly belong to the 'elevated' (not popular) tradition, and were re-introduced during humanism.


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## effeundici

Thanks for your answer bearded. Actually, though, your reply makes me think even more that "edere" was specially successful in hiding itself away...

Your examples:

edere still lives very strong in English - edible
vadere also in Italian/French io vado / je vais
.... and living Tuscany "ire" is my favourit!   ire/ito are still used on a daily basis here ... often as a joke I admit

 



bearded said:


> Many important Latin verbs have disappeared in the transition to the 'vulgar' language (not only _emere_), and their traces can only be found either in compounds or in some irregular forms. Just think of _edere, _a trace of which can only be found in words like _commestibile _(from 'com-edere') or _inedia.._
> Another example is _vadere _(first persons of _andare, _or verbs like _evadere, invadere_), not to mention _ire, _which nowadays exists only in dialects, in verbs like _adire_ or in the irregularly formed verb _uscire..._
> 
> The main reason is that in colloquial 'vulgar' Italian such classical verbs were not used any more, and were replaced by more 'popular' verbs (think of _edere _replaced by manducare>mangiare, or _emere _by comparare>comprare). Verbs composed with an initial preposition (prefix), on the other hand, can be found in the Italian language, but they mostly belong to the 'elevated' (not popular) tradition, and were re-introduced during humanism.


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## Snodv

Interesting that Italian _redimere_ is straight Latin without further change.  English _redeem _and_ redemption_ "buying back "are from the same source.
My favorite descendant of _edere_ is the Spanish:  Com + edere > comedere > _comer.  _The root is nearly  invisible.


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## Olaszinhok

effeundici said:


> edere still lives very strong in English - edible


Russian:
*еда - *food
I am eating -  *я ем*
Similar indo-European root.


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## Scholiast

saluete amici!


Snodv said:


> My favorite descendant of _edere_ is the Spanish: Com + edere > comedere > _comer. _The root is nearly invisible.


We should remember that classical propriety (as well as irregularity) makes the present infinitive of _edo_, 'eat', _ēsse_. _edere_, whence 'edit', 'edition' and germane words in other modern European tongues, is _e + dare_.

Σ


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## Circunflejo

effeundici said:


> Edit : found out "esimere / to exempt" and "redimere / to redeem".


Both of them are also present in Spanish: eximir and redimir. We also have consumir (from Latin consumere; con+sumere being sumere sub+emere) and some other verbs ending in sumir like, for example, presumir or resumir.


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## effeundici

Circunflejo said:


> Both of them are also present in Spanish: eximir and redimir. We also have consumir (from Latin consumere; con+sumere being sumere sub+emere) and some other verbs ending in sumir like, for example, presumir or resumir.



Well ... wow... if you are right - and it seems so - and sumere comes from sub+emere then  it is a whole world ... presumere, desumere, assumere .. actually emere is so everywhere before our nose that we do not see it anymore...


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## Circunflejo

effeundici said:


> actually emere is so everywhere before our nose that we do not see it anymore...


Because we don't stop to look for it.


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## Snodv

Scholiast is quite right about _ēsse_ being the proper infinitive for "eat," but my Charlton T. Lewis lists _edere_ as well.  I would bet that this _edere_ was a folk-based regularization by analogy, as happens so often in English as well, particularly to the irregular past tenses and participles of strong verbs.


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## Scholiast

saluete domini dominaeque



Snodv said:


> Scholiast is quite right about _ēsse_ being the proper infinitive for "eat," but my Charlton T. Lewis lists _edere_ as well. I would bet that this _edere_ was a folk-based regularization



Thanks to snodv for his endorsement here. And he may well be right in part. But I have now checked _OLD_, and the present-tense stem _ed-_ ("eat") has a short 'e', as does the infinitive _esse_, making it homographic and homophone with the infinitive of _esse_ 'to be'. (This contrasts with the forms of _ēdo_, _ēdere_, _ēdidi_, _ēditum_, which always have a 'long' 'e'). So in previous posts we were both wrong to write '_ēsse_', though I plead guilty to being the prime culprit.

For what it is worth, _OLD_ does not recognise or testify any usage of *_edere_ as a vulgar or 'folk-based reguralization'.

Οf course late classical or mediaeval Latin usage may have done this; but I have not (yet) researched this.

Το come back to the Thread: the 'e' in the stem of _emo_, _emere_ is short, but in the perfect system becomes _ēm-_.

Σ


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## machadinho

bearded said:


> not to mention _ire, _which nowadays exists only in dialects


Portuguese 'ir'?


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## Olaszinhok

machadinho said:


> Portuguese 'ir'?


Also  Spanish _ir _and my own dialect _g_*ire - *to go


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## machadinho

But, but, but... Portuguese and Spanish are no dialects. I mean, Spanish is clearly a dialect of Portuguese, but still... _ir_ is an everyday word everywhere in Brazil and Portugal.


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## bearded

machadinho said:


> Portuguese and Spanish are no dialects.


In my #2 I was referring to Italian dialects.


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## Olaszinhok

machadinho said:


> But, but, but... Portuguese and Spanish are no dialects.




Aren't they?! I have always thought Spanish and Portuguese were two dialects of the same Iberian language?! Brazilian is a completely different language, though 

Just kidding…


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## machadinho

bearded said:


> Many important Latin verbs have disappeared in the transition to the 'vulgar' language (not only _emere_), and their traces can only be found either in compounds or in some irregular forms.





bearded said:


> In my #2 I was referring to Italian dialects.


Sorry.  I was hasty. I thought Portuguese was downstream from your talk of vulgar languages. But, it's true, you said "in colloquial 'vulgar' Italian" afterwards. My apologies.



Olaszinhok said:


> Brazilian is a completely different language, though


Brazilian is the language of the gods, since they dropped Ionic.


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## bearded

machadinho said:


> My apologies.


Don't mention it


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## Circunflejo

machadinho said:


> Spanish is clearly a dialect of Portuguese


 



Olaszinhok said:


> Also Spanish _ir _and my own dialect _g_*ire - *to go


And Leonese dire (to go).


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## Scholiast

saluete amici!


machadinho said:


> Brazilian is the language of the gods, since they dropped Ionic.


Let us not forget the goddesses, of whom machadnho is clearly one. And what has 'Ionic' [Greek] to do with this, please?
Σ


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## bearded

machadinho said:


> since they dropped Ionic.


Who says the gods spoke Ionic?


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## machadinho

Scholiast said:


> Let us not forget the goddesses, of whom machadnho is clearly one.


❤



Scholiast said:


> And what has 'Ionic' [Greek] to do with this, please?





bearded said:


> Who says the gods spoke Ionic?


You know, immortality is kind of boring at times. I remember one morning a few years ago we were listening to a cute boy singing to a bunch of naked men one of those interminable silly poems people used to enjoy back then, and we decided that — I mean, _he_ did, he the cloud-gatherer, he's such a rogue — that we would henceforth speak Ionic Greek in dactylic hexameters. It was real fun at the beginning. I couldn't stop calling Athena 'of shining helmet'. I still can't. She's such a prude! It's just, I don't know, at some point Greek wasn't working anymore, too many fights about all those epithets, and no one was really able to put a line together except for Apollo and I. No, not even him. But then a couple of years later Camões came along and we had a vote, and daddy voted for us to switch to Brazilian, the literary Epic dialect of the noble Portuguese language. I didn't. I dissent.


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## bearded

Thank you, machadinho.  I appreciated your humorous explanation .


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## machadinho

bearded said:


> Who says the gods spoke Ionic?


You're welcome. Wait a minute, you are not suggesting we ever spoke _Latin_, are you?  I'd appreciate it if you could stay on topic.


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## bearded

machadinho said:


> you are not suggesting we ever spoke _Latin_, are you?


Not at all: I was just wondering why 'you' chose Ionic out of all possible Greek dialects (Attic, Doric, Eolic,...). Now you explained it - or so it seems.


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