# Lusitania through romance sound changes



## killerbee256

This question is similar to an older question I asked. This time I've applied romance sound changes to _Lusitania_:

Italian: Losdagna
French: Louchdagne
Occitan: Lusdanha
Catalan: Lusdanya
Proto Iberian Romance: Lusdanna
portuguese: Lusdanha
Spanish: Lusdaña

I'm unsure of what _u_ should become in Italian, I used Latin _luscus_ as my model. In other words it remains _u_, but those examples seem to be learned or semi-learned words.


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## symposium

Mmm, in Italian we have both Britannia and Bretagna. Is Britannia a cultism? Or is Bretagna just an italianization of French Bretagne? And we also have both Alemagna and Germania. By the way, as you may know Italian is a language of cultisms, it was made by scholars who cherry picked whatever they thought sounded better from Latin, any Italian dialect or their own fantasy. So I guess that "Lusitania", or possibly "Lusitagna", is still the best Italian option. If you wanted to avoid cultisms, I think it would be more sensible to look for what that word might be in any given Italian dialect.


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## AndrasBP

I'm no expert but something tells me that the cluster *-sd-* (or -chd- in French) is very unlikely in any Romance language.


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## killerbee256

AndrasBP said:


> I'm no expert but something tells me that the cluster *-sd-* (or -chd- in French) is very unlikely in any Romance language.


I think you're on to something, in the Latin words exquisitus curiositas. I think _exquisitus_' descendants are in fact cultisms, however c_uriositas_ shows that _i_ should remain between _s_ and _d_/_t_.


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## ahvalj

There seem to be no good examples of _-sit-_ in Romance: the participles in _-situs_ are widespread, but already in Latin they syncopated to _-stus_ (_positum>postum>posto/puesto_ etc. — positus - Wiktionary); the numerous Latin abstract nouns in _-sitās_ (Latin Dictionary Headword Search Results) were lost in Romance.

_Aquītānia_ produces the Old French _Guienne_ and Occitan _Guiana_ (Aquitania - Wiktionary), but it has a long _ī_ that shouldn't have syncopated. _Vīsitāre, _according to Wiktionary, gave the Old French _visder_ (visito - Wiktionary), but I haven't found this word elsewhere.

So, for _Lūsitānia_ we have several options:
_i_ is syncopated
before voicing → _**Lustanja_ > Old French _**Lustaine,_ modern _**Lûtaine,_ elsewhere _**Lustagna/Lustaña/Lustanha…_
after voicing → _**Luzdanja_ > ?​_i_ is retained as _e_ or _i,_ with voicing and lenition of _t_ according to the rules of the respective languages, e. g. Old French _**Luzienne~Luzenne,_ Spanish _**Lusedaña,_ Italian _**Lusitagna_ etc.​
Ibero-Romance almost certainly would have a voiced variant, with or without syncope, i. e. Spanish _**Lusdaña~Lusedaña _(cp. amusgar, fisgar; rasgar¹; rasgar²).

P. S. By the way, there were very many tribal names in -_tānī_ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_Pre-Roman_peoples_of_the_Iberian_Peninsula), and I guess traces may have survived in the actual toponymy.


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## Zec

_Aquitania_ didn't really follow the normal developpement of words in -ania, -anea (and the Old French form looks like a semi-adapted borrowing from Occitan). If we follow the example of words such as OF. _araigne_, _montaigne_, we'd get Modern French *_Lûta(i)gne_ if syncope happened before lenition and *_Lûda(i)gne_ if it happened afterwards.


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## Circunflejo

ahvalj said:


> There seem to be no good examples of -_sit_- in Romance



Some of them in Spanish:

Propósito (from Latin propositum).
Latin universitas gave universidad but we have the adjetive universitario.
Positivo (from Latin positivus).
Visitar (from Latin visitare). The noun is visita.
Requisito (from Latin requisitus).
Compositor (from Latin compositor).
Tránsito (from Latin transitus).



ahvalj said:


> P. S. By the way, there were very many tribal names in -_tānī_ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_Pre-Roman_peoples_of_the_Iberian_Peninsula), and I guess traces may have survived in the actual toponymy.



Yes. La Jacetania (La Jacetania - Wikipedia) from the Iacetani would be an example. Lusitano (it's said to come from Latin Lusitanus), both for the Lusitani people and for nowadays' Portuguese people, is a word in use in nowadays Spanish (although portugués (female: portuguesa) and luso (female: lusa) are more used). I'm not sure I understood properly the question asked in this thread but Lusitania is Lusitania in Spanish; just in case that it could be any useful.


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## Penyafort

killerbee256 said:


> This question is similar to an older question I asked. This time I've applied romance sound changes to _Lusitania_:
> 
> Italian: Losdagna
> French: Louchdagne
> Occitan: Lusdanha
> Catalan: Lusdanya
> Proto Iberian Romance: Lusdanna
> portuguese: Lusdanha
> Spanish: Lusdaña
> 
> I'm unsure of what _u_ should become in Italian, I used Latin _luscus_ as my model. In other words it remains _u_, but those examples seem to be learned or semi-learned words.



For Catalan you forgot that:


there is palatalization of initial l-, so the first syllable should be *Llos-*
o, instead of u, if you're basing yourself in _luscus_, as the Catalan word coming from it is *llosc*
there is no -osd- combination in Catalan; a likelier solution would be thinking of -osit- as -ost-, as in Amposta, town in southern Catalonia
So a most plausible option for Catalan would be *Llostanya*.


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## ahvalj

Circunflejo said:


> Some of them in Spanish:
> 
> Propósito (from Latin propositum).
> Latin universitas gave universidad but we have the adjetive universitario.
> Positivo (from Latin positivus).
> Visitar (from Latin visitare). The noun is visita.
> Requisito (from Latin requisitus).
> Compositor (from Latin compositor).
> Tránsito (from Latin transitus).
> 
> 
> 
> Yes. La Jacetania (La Jacetania - Wikipedia) from the Iacetani would be an example. Lusitano (it's said to come from Latin Lusitanus), both for the Lusitani people and for nowadays' Portuguese people, is a word in use in nowadays Spanish (although portugués (female: portuguesa) and luso (female: lusa) are more used). I'm not sure I understood properly the question asked in this thread but Lusitania is Lusitania in Spanish; just in case that it could be any useful.


The idea of these threads by killerbee256 is to hypothesize the _natural_ development of certain words in the popular languages of the Early Middle Ages and later. In the case of Romance, there is a stratum of words _inherited_ from Latin and having experienced all the changes that naturally occurred in the spoken language (e. g. the French _augustum>u _/août/) and very many words _reintroduced_ at various periods from Latin and thus having experienced only some adaptation to the host language and the changes that occurred after this adaptation (e. g. the French _Augustus>Ogüst_ /Auguste/). For Spanish, compare the recently discussed inherited popular numerals _siedmo, ochavo_ and _diezmo_ vs. the reintroduced Latin _séptimo, octavo_ and _décimo: _killerbee256 is interested in the former. The words you are citing are these later loans, like the Latin loans _compósito, propósito_ with _-sit-_ vs. the inherited Spanish _compuesto, propuesto_ with _-st-_. Likewise, _Lusitano _is not a result of a natural development, but a Latin borrowing slightly adapted to the Spanish pronunciation and grammar. Compare in this context the latinate _Hispania_ and the naturally evolved _España,_ or the Latinate _Italia_ and the expected natural _*Taglia_ (cp. the unrestored naturally evolved _Āpūlia>Puglia_).


Penyafort said:


> For Catalan you forgot that:
> 
> 
> there is palatalization of initial l-, so the first syllable should be *Llos-*
> o, instead of u, if you're basing yourself in _luscus_, as the Catalan word coming from it is *llosc*
> there is no -osd- combination in Catalan; a likelier solution would be thinking of -osit- as -ost-, as in Amposta, town in southern Catalonia
> So a most plausible option for Catalan would be *Llostanya*.


The Latin word is _Lūsitānia,_ so we'd expect _ū>u_.


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## Cenzontle

Spanish:
lu:ʂitˈɑ:niɑ                (ETYMON)
        lu:ʂtˈɑ:niɑ                  (early syncope between s_t)
        lu:stˈɑ:niɑ                  (/s/ dental, like /t/)
        lu:stˈɑ:njɑ                  (early syneresis)
        lustˈɑnjɑ                      (loss of vowel length)
        lustˈɑɲjɑ                      (palatalization)
        lustˈɑɲɑ                        ("yod" absorption)


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## Circunflejo

ahvalj said:


> The idea of these threads by killerbee256 is to hypothesize the _natural_ development of certain words in the popular languages of the Early Middle Ages and later. In the case of Romance, there is a stratum of words _inherited_ from Latin and having experienced all the changes that naturally occurred in the spoken language (e. g. the French _augustum>u _/août/) and very many words _reintroduced_ at various periods from Latin and thus having experienced only some adaptation to the host language and the changes that occurred after this adaptation (e. g. the French _Augustus>Ogüst_ /Auguste/). For Spanish, compare the recently discussed inherited popular numerals _siedmo, ochavo_ and _diezmo_ vs. the reintroduced Latin _séptimo, octavo_ and _décimo: _killerbee256 is interested in the former.



OK, I see. Thanks for your time.


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## Penyafort

ahvalj said:


> The Latin word is _Lūsitānia,_ so we'd expect _ū>u_.



Yes. I was following the OP's comment on basing it on luscus.

Anyway, the resulting pronunciation in (Eastern) Catalan would be the same, regardless of whether the spelling was Llustanya or Llostanya. Long and short u were quite variable too in Vulgar Romance, if we are to judge from many etymologies.


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## merquiades

There is something weird about *Lusdaña Spanish,  that consonant cluster is rare if not inexistent in the first syllable before an accented syllable.  It feels like the consonants would have simplified somehow.  *Luzaña maybe....

By the way, why the ch in French?  That comes from a /k/ sound


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## Sardokan1.0

Making a possible evolution of Lusitania in Sardinian language there would be two different results, one for the northern Sardinian (Logudorese and Nuorese), and the other for southern Sardinian (Campidanese).

_*Logudorese - Campidanese*

Lusidanza - Lusidangia_


Compare with other similar evolutive solutions found in Sardinian

_*Latin - Logudorese - Campidanese*

Romània (region of northern Sardinia) - Romanza - Romangia
vinea (vineyard) - binza - bingia
agnonem (big lamb) - anzone (lamb) - angioni
ronea (scabies) - runza - rungia
lanceus (slender) - lanzu (slim) - langiu
maneanus (of the morning) - manzanu (morning) - mangianu_


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## ahvalj

merquiades said:


> There is something weird about *Lusdaña Spanish,  that consonant cluster is rare if not inexistent in the first syllable before an accented syllable.  It feels like the consonants would have simplified somehow.  *Luzaña maybe....


That's true, but (I suspect) only because, as I had written, there were no instances of _-sit-_ or _-sid-_ in Hispanic Vulgar Latin, so there was no source for this potential _-sd-_. For _-s…c->-sg-_ we have a number of examples, however, see amusgar, fisgar; rasgar¹; rasgar² in #5. Otherwise, there exist the prefixed _desdar, desdén, desdicha, desdón, desdoro_.


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## Zec

Zec said:


> _Aquitania_ didn't really follow the normal developpement of words in -ania, -anea (and the Old French form looks like a semi-adapted borrowing from Occitan). If we follow the example of words such as OF. _araigne_, _montaigne_, we'd get Modern French *_Lûta(i)gne_ if syncope happened before lenition and *_Lûda(i)gne_ if it happened afterwards.



I have to modify my "reconstruction", since _s_ before voiced consonants drops entirely and isn't represented by a circumflex accent in Modern French. So, _Lusitania_ > _Luda(i)gne._


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