# otonno, otogno ...



## francisgranada

Hi,

My question is probably for the native Italians: 

Is there any dialect/regional language in Italy, where the term for autumn is (or were in the past) _otonno _or _otogno_?  (Or in general, something else than _autunno._)

The reason for my question is that one would spontaneousely expect rather _otonno _than _autunno _and, considering that _mn>gn_ also occurs (see e.g. _somnus > sogno, omnis > ogni, etc ..._), the form _otogno _would be - at least in theory - also possible.

Grazie in anticipo


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## fdb

sogno and ogni are inherited (genuine Italian) words, autunno is a loan from Latin.


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## francisgranada

fdb said:


> sogno and ogni are inherited (genuine Italian) words, autunno is a loan from Latin.


Yes, that's why I'd like to know if there is any trace/occurrence  of other (genuine) forms of this word in Italy.


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## CapnPrep

francisgranada said:


> considering that _mn>gn_ also occurs (see e.g. _somnus > sogno, omnis > ogni, etc ..._), the form _otogno _would be - at least in theory - also possible.


Does it occur in the absence of a following yod? _Sogno _is from _somn*i*um_, and _ogni_ probably corresponds to (the stem of) _omn*i*a_/_omn*i*um_.


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## Sempervirens

Ciao, Francis!  Può darsi che quanto è scritto in questo sito riguardo l'etimo della parola autunno possa aiutarti.

http://www.etimo.it/?term=autunno



S.V


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## Nino83

francisgranada said:


> Is there any dialect/regional language in Italy, where the term for autumn is (or were in the past) _otonno _or _otogno_?  (Or in general, something else than _autunno._)



As CapnPrep said, there is no yod, so "otugno/otogno" is not possible. 

I've found this word in: 
_piemontese_: _otunn_ [u'tyn]/[o'tyn] (I'm not sure about pronunciation, in _piemontese_ when the "o" has not accent is, normally, pronounced ) (souce: dictionary)
_milanese_: _autün_ [au̯'tyn] (source: Geoffrey Hull, 1982) 
_friulano_: _autúm_  (source: Geoffrey Hull, 1982) 
_bolognese_: _autón_ [au̯'ton] (source: dictionary, Geoffrey Hull, 1982)
_siciliano_: _autunnu_ [au̯'tʊnnʊ] 
_napoletano_: _autunnu_ [au̯'tunnə] (source: dictionary)

It seems that only _piemontese_ has the form with "o". 
In all Italian dialects, normally, there is /au/ > /ɔ/ or /o/ (when unstressed).


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## francisgranada

Nino83 said:


> As CapnPrep said, there is no yod, so "otugno/otogno" is not possible.


Yes, I see:  _mn _becomes regularly _nn_, and it is the _n+yod_ that becomes _gn _(e.g. _danno, sonno, donna_ ... but _signore, sogno, ragno_ ...) 


> It seems that only _piemontese_ has the form with "o".
> In all Italian dialects, normally, there is /au/ > /ɔ/


So, is it a learned word (_cultismo/semicultismo_) or there is some other expalnation for this _au-_ in almost all the Italian dialects (and in the  French spelling)?





Sempervirens said:


> Ciao, Francis!  Può darsi che quanto è scritto in questo sito riguardo l'etimo della parola autunno possa aiutarti.


Ciao Semper! Sì, grazie .


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## CapnPrep

Nino83 said:


> _siciliano_: _autunnu_ [au̯'tʊnnʊ]


Meyer-Lübke cites a Sicilian form _ortunnu_.


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## Nino83

CapnPrep said:


> Meyer-Lübke cites a Sicilian form _ortunnu_.



I speak Sicilian. Also my grandparents and other old people say "autunnu". Probably during the XX century there was some influence of Standard Italian or "ortunnu" can be also an older form used in central Sicily (where older words are retained, like "iri" instead of "annari").


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## francisgranada

CapnPrep said:


> Meyer-Lübke cites a Sicilian form _ortunnu_.


This _or-_ seems to me interesting. As if it reflected somehow the original diphthong (au> ... >ol>or, or somethig like this). Is it possible?


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## Nino83

francisgranada said:


> This _or-_ seems to me interesting. As if it reflected somehow the original diphthong (au> ... >ol>or, or somethig like this). Is it possible?



Non saprei.  

Some example: 
l > u̯ : altro > au̯tru, alto > au̯tu 

Sometimes both "l" and "r" are assimilated in Sicilian: salsa > sassa, córsa > cussa, córto > cuttu, scaltro > scattru
Sometimes it is dropped: poltrone > putruni 

N.B. 
About "autunnu" and "ortunnu", the former can be easily found on-line (for example the song "veni l'autunnu" of Franco Battiato) while if ones write "ortunnu" there are only fifteen results, no one in Sicilian). 

http://scn.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autunnu


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## merquiades

Nino83 said:


> As CapnPrep said, there is no yod, so "otugno/otogno" is not possible.
> 
> I've found this word in:
> _piemontese_: _otunn_ [u'tyn]/[o'tyn] (I'm not sure about pronunciation, in _piemontese_ when the "o" has not accent is, normally, pronounced ) (souce: dictionary)
> _milanese_: _autün_ [au̯'tyn] (source: Geoffrey Hull, 1982)
> _friulano_: _autúm_  (source: Geoffrey Hull, 1982)
> _bolognese_: _autón_ [au̯'ton] (source: dictionary, Geoffrey Hull, 1982)
> _siciliano_: _autunnu_ [au̯'tʊnnʊ]
> _napoletano_: _autunnu_ [au̯'tunnə] (source: dictionary)
> 
> It seems that only _piemontese_ has the form with "o".
> In all Italian dialects, normally, there is /au/ > /ɔ/ or /o/ (when unstressed).




So I guess we could say that all the Italian words develop from a cultism taken from classical Latin after the Renaissance and then adapted to the particular idiosyncrasies of each dialect.

Francis, maybe you are being affected by Spanish "otoño".  Italian obviously permits double consonants so a simplification of /nn/ does not need to take place.


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## CapnPrep

Nino83 said:


> N.B.
> About "autunnu" and "ortunnu", the former can be easily found on-line (for example the song "veni l'autunnu" of Franco Battiato) while if ones write "ortunnu" there are only fifteen results, no one in Sicilian).


M-L's source is _RILomb_ XL 1154. I suspect that this is not available on-line.

EDIT: Google does give one relevant link to Pfister's Lessico Etimologico Italiano. _Ortunnu _is recorded by Salvioni for Caltagirone. And it turns out that there was a variant form *_autumn*i*u_ in VL, resulting in palatal forms in some Italian dialects: _altögn_, _altogno_, _utugn_, _artugno_, etc. As you can see, there are also many different outcomes for the initial syllable…


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## francisgranada

merquiades said:


> Francis, maybe you are being affected by Spanish "otoño".  Italian obviously permits double consonants so a simplification of /nn/ does not need to take place.


Yes, I know. First I didn't realize that it is not the cluster _mn _that changes to _gn_, but _n+yod. _The Spanish  _otoño _is clear to me.


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## bo-marco

North emilian: /avf'tɔŋ/


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## francisgranada

CapnPrep said:


> ... _Ortunnu _is recorded by Salvioni for Caltagirone. And it turns out that there was a variant form *_autumn*i*u_ in VL, resulting in palatal forms in some Italian dialects: _altögn_, _altogno_, _utugn_, _artugno_, etc. As you can see, there are also many different outcomes for the initial syllable…


This is very interesting, both for _gn_ and for the initial syllable. Thank you. 

As to the initial syllable, interestingly all the Italian variants seem to preserve somehow the original diphthong, i.e. none of the examples has the expected "o". This is - perhaps - true also for the piedmontese _otunn_ (post #6) in the sense that the initial "o" might reflect a later regional evolution (see e.g. the French spelling _automne,_ which - to the contrary - preservs the original spelling in spite of the actual pronunciation).

P.S. For "completness":
The Sardinian (Logudorese) equivalent is: _atónzu_. 
The corresponding Romanian term is _toamnă.
_(an elegant solution: the cluster _mn _is preserved and the initial diphthong is completely eliminated )


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## Nino83

CapnPrep said:


> EDIT: Google does give one relevant link to Pfister's Lessico Etimologico Italiano. _Ortunnu _is recorded by Salvioni for Caltagirone. And it turns out that there was a variant form *_autumn*i*u_ in VL, resulting in palatal forms in some Italian dialects: _altögn_, _altogno_, _utugn_, _artugno_, etc. As you can see, there are also many different outcomes for the initial syllable…



Thank you CapnPrep. 
As I thought, it comes from central Sicily (it was present only in Caltagirone). But "autunnu" is the general outcome in Sicilia, Calabria and Salento.


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## CapnPrep

francisgranada said:


> As to the initial syllable, interestingly all the Italian variants seem to preserve somehow the original diphthong, i.e. none of the examples has the expected "o".


The LEI entry cites the following (I may have missed some, and I haven't bothered to try and reproduce all the diacritics):

oton (It.sett.a. sec. XV) 
otọ́no (comel.) 
otóno (Campolongo) 
otœñ (ossol.alp.) 
ọtúnọ (savon.) 
ǫtúnu (lig.or.) 
ǫtǘn (Prugiasco) 
ọtǘn (Canzo) 
ọtúno (Tarzo) 
otùn (feltr.) 
ǫtúnnα (march.merid.) 
otúnnu (Cèntrache) 
ọtúrno (umbro sett.) 
There are also lots of forms beginning with the simple vowel _u-_. You'd have to look more closely at the history of each of these forms to know how and when the _o-_ (or _u-_) appeared. And you'd have to look at all of the forms in _au-_ and try to decide if they are really continuations of the Latin diphthong or (semi-)learned readjustments. All of this would be *a lot* of work , and I think you will ultimately just have to guess in many cases.

Pfister explicitly identifies the Rhaeto-Romance forms _otom_ (friul.) and _otọ́n_ (engad.) as popular forms analogous to Spanish _otoño_. But then we are no longer in the domain of Italian dialects.


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## Gavril

francisgranada said:


> The Sardinian (Logudorese) equivalent is: _atónzu_.



Did this word come to Sardinian via Spanish (or another Iberian dialect)? A quick look at www.ditzionariu.org suggests that the outcome of Latin -_mn_-/-_nn_- in Sardinian was -*nn*- rather than -_nz_-: _dannu_ "damage", _annu_ "year", _sonniu/sonnu_ "dream", _pinnia_/_pinna_ "feather", etc.

Whereas, if _atonzu_ came from Castillian (or a language that shared some of its sound changes), the1n the -_nzu_ in this word would continue the final syllable of _oto*ño*_ (with -_ño_ > *-_nžo_ > -_nzu_). (Sardinian has many words of apparently Iberian origin, such as _fentana_ "window", _cherrere_ "want", etc.)

Edit: Other than _atonzu_, the dictionary I linked to above lists several variants of this word with -_gn_-/-_ng_-: _atógnu, atóngiu, atúngiu _etc.


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## Nino83

CapnPrep said:


> The LEI entry cites the following



These are rural dialects spoken in the Alps or in border zones (all but the last three), and this monophthong is probably due to the influence of French or Rhaeto-Romance.
The forms having "u" could be due to apheresis, which often happened in Gallo-Italic and Rhaetian languages. 

"Apheresis of countertonic a in initial position is widespread in most Padanian dialects" (Geoffrey Hull, The Linguistic Unity of Northern Italy and Rhaetia, p. 184). 

Some example: murús (amoroso), spars (asparagi), vert (aperto), kumpañà (accompagnare). 

A curiosity about "ortunnu". 
In Caltagirone a Gallo-Italic language is spoken. So, this monophthong "o" comes from the Old Gallo-Padanian language. 

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialetti_gallo-italici_di_Sicilia#Origine_e_distribuzione_geografica 

Gallo-Italic languages are spoken by 60.000 people in Sicily, so it is not representative.


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## francisgranada

Gavril said:


> Did this word come to Sardinian via Spanish (or another Iberian dialect)?  ...


If yes, then why the initial "a"? 

For curiosity, in the Spanish corpus I have found two occurences of _atuño _and one of _autuño _(and no _atoño_). This is not too much, however interesting ... We should look at other Iberian languages, too, including   Catalan.


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## Gavril

francisgranada said:


> If yes, then why the initial "a"?



The dictionary also lists the variant _otognu_ with initial _o_-, though it doesn't specify what dialect it comes from. 

Another apparent example of word-initial _o_- > _a_- is _*a*ponnere _"to oppose" (which has the variant _oponiri_) < Lat. _*o*pponere_.


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## merquiades

francisgranada said:


> If yes, then why the initial "a"?
> 
> For curiosity, in the Spanish corpus I have found two occurences of _atuño _and one of _autuño _(and no _atoño_). This is not too much, however interesting ... We should look at other Iberian languages, too, including   Catalan.



As far as I know the evolution in Castilian Spanish was always au > ou > o;  there is only one word where I found an au > a transformation:  _augustus_ > _agosto_.  _Autuño_ smells like it would have come from one of the many efforts to relatinize the language in 17th century.  Some writers took it to an extreme.
Interestingly Catalan does not have a word corresponding to Autumn in its repertoire.  The word is _la tardor_ 

Edit:  Apparently, Catalan had a literary form: _autumne_.  The current Portuguese and Galician word is _outono_.


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## CapnPrep

Gavril said:


> Did this word come to Sardinian via Spanish (or another Iberian dialect)?


Yes, according to Meyer-Lübke: "span. _otoño_ (> log. _attunzu_)".


merquiades said:


> Apparently, Catalan had a literary form: _autumne_.


With orthographic variants _autumpne_, _auctumne_, _obtumpne_.  There is also a more recent loan from Spanish: _otonyo _(variants _otony_, _tonyo_).

Here is the page from the ALDC showing the geographical distribution of forms: 409 La _tardor_. The explanatory text also mentions _otone_ (Roussillonais, from French) and _atunjo_ (Alghero, from Sardinian).


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## francisgranada

merquiades said:


> _Autuño_ smells like it would have come from one of the many efforts to relatinize the language in 17th century.  Some writers took it to an extreme...


This _autuño_ is from 1511: 

"...porque de verano tan florido viene copioso e fértile el _autuño_ que ya representáys la virtud de vuestros progenitores, sobre los quales paresce que la fortuna nunca tuvo poder."


CapnPrep said:


> ... With orthographic variants _autumpne_, _auctumne_, _obtumpne_.  ....


Also in French, according to this dicctionary:
 ... late 14c., _autumpne_ (modern form from 16c.), from Old French _autumpne_, _automne_ (13c.) ... 

I have the impression that the destiny of the word-initial unstressed _au_- in Romance languages (perhaps mostly in Italy) is not so "straightforward": _udire, ucello, agosto, août, ascoltare, escuchar_ ..., but _orecchio, oreja_... By the way, there are not too many such words (if we don't count the laerned ones). If true, then this also could contribute to the variety of solutions for autumn in the Italian dialects, i.e. _au>o_ would not be necessarily the "automatically expected" solution.


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## bloop123

CapnPrep said:


> Yes, according to Meyer-Lübke: "span. _otoño_ (> log. _attunzu_)".
> With orthographic variants _autumpne_, _auctumne_, _obtumpne_.  There is also a more recent loan from Spanish: _otonyo _(variants _otony_, _tonyo_).



It boggles my mind how you could pronounce that!  Are there any other words with mne to mpne, in French or Catalan?


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## francisgranada

bloop123 said:


> It boggles my mind how you could pronounce that!


No problem . But if  you pronounce _mp_, it produces a nasal sound, similar to the "m" e.g. in the English _bump_. Maybe this was the porpuse ...


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## bloop123

francisgranada said:


> No problem . But if  you pronounce _mp_, it produces a nasal sound, similar to the "m" e.g. in the English _bump_. Maybe this was the porpuse ...



I guess if you seperate it into 2 different syllables it's possible

*Bumpne
Bump/ne

with a noticeable pause between syllables but I would still be more inclined to simply drop that p as well as the m. Mn doesn't seem to be a particularly common combination in English

With another made up word

*Bumpnation
 the more I say it the more I drop the m and the p.

I tend to pronounce it like *bunation with a legnthening of the n at times.

Of course just because I can't pronounce it in English doesn't mean 14th Century Frenchmen couldn't. And I'm not sure if that initial m would have been pronounced in French back then. It could have been as I don't remember whether 'u' was nasalised.


'P' and 'B' insertion seems quite common in French especially when there is an 'l' in a following syllable in Latin.

Eg Latin Humilis to French humble

Perhaps this example in a loaned word such as autumn shows the process to be still quite productive


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## merquiades

CapnPrep said:


> Yes, according to Meyer-Lübke: "span. _otoño_ (> log. _attunzu_)".
> With orthographic variants _autumpne_, _auctumne_, _obtumpne_.  There is also a more recent loan from Spanish: _otonyo _(variants _otony_, _tonyo_).
> 
> Here is the page from the ALDC showing the geographical distribution of forms: 409 La _tardor_. The explanatory text also mentions _otone_ (Roussillonais, from French) and _atunjo_ (Alghero, from Sardinian).




Thank you for this link.  I enjoyed the map and historical explanation.  Catalan has developed vast regional differences so it doesn't surprise me that l_a tardor_ is just the central variety.  It has also been influenced by Spanish, French and Italian in the areas it is spoken.



> 'P' and 'B' insertion seems quite common in French especially when there is an 'l' in a following syllable in Latin.
> 
> Eg Latin Humilis to French humble



In Western Languages unstressed vowels were dropped in the development from vulgar Latin to the modern Romance languages.  It brought about strange consonants being in contact with one another.    Humilis > Humle > Humble.  A "b" or "p" was inserted after the "m" to try to render these new combinations pronounceable ("d" after "n" too).  Sometimes even that wasn't enough and the following consonant changed to "r".  Some more examples (I'll mark stressed vowel for reference):  cámara > chambre (fr),  insímul > ensemble (fr), nómine > nombre (sp),  hómine> hombre (sp), tenere ha(beo) > tiendrai, tendré

By the way, nasalization had occurred in French by the 14th century though the nasal vowels were not the same quality as today.
_Autumpne_ could have been an old attempt to render in a writing a pronunciation that might have resembled /otɔ̃nə/ or /otɔ̃pnə/ not so far away from contemporary /otɔn(ə)/ written _Automne_ after denasalization before a pronounced nasal consonant occurred later on.


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## Penyafort

CapnPrep said:


> Yes, according to Meyer-Lübke: "span. _otoño_ (> log. _attunzu_)".
> With orthographic variants _autumpne_, _auctumne_, _obtumpne_.  There is also a more recent loan from Spanish: _otonyo _(variants _otony_, _tonyo_).
> 
> Here is the page from the ALDC showing the geographical distribution of forms: 409 La _tardor_. The explanatory text also mentions _otone_ (Roussillonais, from French) and _atunjo_ (Alghero, from Sardinian).



_Autumne _in Catalan is really very literary, an unknown word to most Catalans. _Tardor _is the only word used by most people. I like that _primavera d'hivern_, but never heard it.

In my opinion, the season being quite symbolic, related to harvests and the like, it was the season more prone to local deviations, specially in languages where there might not have been a process of relatinization after the Middle Ages. Not only Catalan from TARDATIONE, but there's also Asturian with the beautiful SERONDA and TARDÍU (the DRAE includes "tardío" as regional term for Cantabria and Salamanca). In Aragonese, as one can read in that link, two terms overlap each other, AGÜERRO from Basque _agor _(also used in Gascon) and SANMIGALADA, which is like saying Michaelmas. We can also find BAISHADA and DAVALADA in Occitan, probably indicating the decline of the year. 



francisgranada said:


> This _autuño_ is from 1511:
> 
> "...porque de verano tan florido viene copioso e fértile el _autuño_ que ya representáys la virtud de vuestros progenitores, sobre los quales paresce que la fortuna nunca tuvo poder."
> Also in French, according to this dicctionary:
> ... late 14c., _autumpne_ (modern form from 16c.), from Old French _autumpne_, _automne_ (13c.) ...
> 
> I have the impression that the destiny of the word-initial unstressed _au_- in Romance languages (perhaps mostly in Italy) is not so "straightforward": _udire, ucello, agosto, août, ascoltare, escuchar_ ..., but _orecchio, oreja_... By the way, there are not too many such words (if we don't count the laerned ones). If true, then this also could contribute to the variety of solutions for autumn in the Italian dialects, i.e. _au>o_ would not be necessarily the "automatically expected" solution.



In dialectal Catalan, apart from the O- < AU- being still pronounced as /au/ by many people, one can even hear non-etymological ones, such as /auliva/, /aubrí/, etc.



merquiades said:


> Thank you for this link.  I enjoyed the map and historical explanation.  *Catalan has developed vast regional differences* so it doesn't surprise me that l_a tardor_ is just the central variety.  It has also been influenced by Spanish, French and Italian in the areas it is spoken.



And yet, Catalan regional differences have been said to be fewer than those of Italian, French or Spanish. Some attributed this to the early appearance of a unified register by the Royal Chancellery of the Crown of Aragon. If there had been a continuity between that standard and the one of Modern Catalan, the differences might even be fewer.


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## killerbee256

Penyafort said:


> And yet, Catalan regional differences have been said to be fewer than those of Italian, French or Spanish. Some attributed this to the early appearance of a unified register by the Royal Chancellery of the Crown of Aragon. If there had been a continuity between that standard and the one of Modern Catalan, the differences might even be fewer.


 Maybe, but my guess would be it's simpler then that. Italian, French and Castilian each assimilated many speakers of closely related romance languages. Catalan on the other hand "lost" a lot regional variation when people started to consider Occitan a separate language. On top of that the language didn't expand as much during the reconquista as Castilian.


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## Nino83

Penyafort said:


> And yet, Catalan regional differences have been said to be fewer than those of Italian, French or Spanish.



I don't know. 
In this case we have _istà, invern, prima, otunn_ in Piedmontese and _stati, nvennu, primavera, autunnu_ in Sicilian.


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## Penyafort

killerbee256 said:


> Maybe, but my guess would be it's simpler then that. Italian, French and Castilian each assimilated many speakers of closely related romance languages. Catalan on the other hand "lost" a lot regional variation when people started to consider Occitan a separate language. On top of that the language didn't expand as much during the reconquista as Castilian.



In terms of assimilation, it would not be that different between Catalan and Castilian. Both assimilated Mozarabic speakers in their spread towards the south, as well as many neighbouring Aragonese speakers.

Catalan and Occitan have shown clear distinction since the 12th century. They might still be seen as a 'macro-language' in the same way Portuguese and Spanish might, but the distance nowadays is simply far too wide in many aspects, specially when there are already fully functional standard varieties for all of them.

Up till 1250, the spread of Catalan, Castilian and Portuguese were quite at par, as Catalan reached as far south as the coasts of Murcia and went on eastwards to be official in Sardinia and Sicily for a long while as the main language of the Crown of Aragon.

But I agree that areas nowadays cannot be compared, although they are often not that relevant for regional variation. Small mountain languages, for example, tend to have more dialectal variation than bigger languages spoken over plains in which communication between long distances is easier.



Nino83 said:


> I don't know.
> In this case we have _istà, invern, prima, otunn_ in Piedmontese and _stati, nvennu, primavera, autunnu_ in Sicilian.



I'd say quantifying the differences in internal variation in order to compare them with other languages cannot be easy, and I wonder if any studies about that have ever been published. Probably those comments about the regional differences were made at a time in which all Oil languages and Italian 'dialetti' were regarded as mere spoken varieties of French and Italian respectively, which is obviously not the case.

What I see as a little bit surprising, going back to the original question, is not finding more local variation for autumn in Italy. I've seen words related to Saint Martin, as well as _sierade _in Friulian, but little more.


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## Nino83

Penyafort said:


> What I see as a little bit surprising, going back to the original question, is not finding more local variation for autumn in Italy. I've seen words related to Saint Martin, as well as _sierade _in Friulian, but little more.



In peninsular Italian languages it is _autunno_, also in Gallo-Italian languages (_otunn_ in Piedmontese, _aütün_ in Lombard, _autón_ in Emiliano Romagnolo) and _autuno_ in Venetian.

Friulan is a Rhaeto Romance language, and there is _atom_ and _sierade_ for _autunno_ because once _tom_ was used for _ottobre_ but it is now archaic and is replaced by _otubar_. Anyway _sierade_ seems to be the most common word for _autunno_
http://www.friul.net/dizionario_nazzi/nazzi_italiano_friulano.php?id=2472&x=1

As you can note, in Friulan also _primavera_ is different, _vierte_.
Friulan and Sardinian are not Italo-Romance languages.


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