# Origins of 'to taste/to know'



## bmo

This means be wise and to taste. Savvy and savory are from this root. Do you know how sapere came to mean two different things, be wise and to taste. 

Thanks.


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## Outsider

I may be mistaken, but I think "sapere" more properly means "to know", or "to taste".


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## bmo

Outsider said:


> I may be mistaken, but I think "sapere" more properly means "to know", or "to taste".


 

Yes, you are right, but how are to know and to taste related?


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## Outsider

I do not know. Please wait for more replies.


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## Anne345

You know something when you have tasted it ?


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## bmo

Thank you very much.

bmo


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## Bonjules

Hola,
Anne is right, the 'taste test' can still be applied to many substances.

But I think it might also be related to original ideas of Man, as told by mythology.
Right now I can only think of Siegfried, who knew and understood what
the birds were telling him after he had tasted the dragons blood.
There are probably other tales in difft. cultures.
In German, we say 'he behaves as if he had eaten wisdom by the spoonfulls'.
Also, in our cannibalistic past eating your enemy not only 'gave you his strength, but, who knows, maybe his 'knowlege' too?


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## Cnaeius

bmo said:


> This means be wise and to taste. Savvy and savory are from this root. Do you know how sapere came to mean two different things, be wise and to taste.
> 
> Thanks.


 
Latin was firstly a language of shepherds and farmers and used concrete concepts also to express more abstract concepts.
So first sapere means to have flavor, to have taste. The concrete-to-abstract connection is simple: the flavor becomes science, wisdom. So a man "sapiens" becomes a wise man, a man who knows something


Curiosity: in italian the original meaning of sapere is quite maintained: to have knowledge and to have a taste


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## cyberpedant

Curiosity: in italian the original meaning of sapere is quite maintained: to have knowledge and to have a taste.

This is true of Spanish as well.


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## jazyk

In Portuguese, too.


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## bmo

Thanks again. It makes lots of sense now.

bmo


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## frosts0

For an Adam and Eve linking of knowledge and taste with sapere (via Milton), see Milton Quarterly; Volume 32, Number 4 (December 1, 1998); 'Milton's Eve and Wisdom: The "Dinner-Party" Scene in Paradise Lost'. It is about tasting/eating the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the scene in Paradise Lost where Raphael explains spiritual eating, rendering the corporal incorporal. "Food for thought", as article author Ann Torday Gulde says.


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## bmo

Thank you very much, it is very interesting.

bmo


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## Fred_C

Outsider said:


> I may be mistaken, but I think "sapere" more properly means "to know", or "to taste".


 
No, you are wrong.
"Sapere" does not mean "to know", in latin.
The first meaning is "to taste".
"Sapiens" is the present participle and it means "tasting good".
It was a common phrase to describe someone as "sapiens" to mean he is "wise".
Hence, "sapere" also came to mean "to be wise", but it is a second meaning.

In some romanic languages, "sapere" may be the root of verbs meaning "to know", like "saber" in Spanish or Portuguese, "sapere" in Italian or "savoir" in French.
But this "sapere" is a different word : Sapêre with a long E (That I figured using a circumflex). Is an incorrect latin invention from the middle age, an attempt to make a verb out of the adjective "sapiens" which comes from the verb "sapere" with a short E.


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## Outsider

Fred_C said:


> But this "sapere" is a different word : Sapêre with a long E (That I figured using a circumflex). Is an incorrect latin invention from the middle age, an attempt to make a verb out of the adjective "sapiens" which comes from the verb "sapere" with a short E.


What a curious theory. If _sapêre_ is a medieval invention, why does it have a long "e"? I thought the short-long distinction had already been lost by the Middle Ages. How do you know it had a long "e" in the Middle Ages?


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## Fred_C

Outsider said:


> What a curious theory. If _sapêre_ is a medieval invention, why does it have a long "e"? I thought the short-long distinction had already been lost by the Middle Ages. How do you know it had a long "e" in the Middle Ages?


 
The length vowel of the infinitive has an influence on the conjugation.
What I meant is that the "sapere" word from the middle age is conjugated like the latin verb "monere", whereas the classical latin word "sapere" is conjugated like "capere"
That is:
For the classical word :
Sapio, sapis, sapit, sapimus, sapitis, sapiunt.
For the uncorrect word:
Sapeo, sapes, sapet, sapemus, sapetis, sapent.

In classical latin, this would have implied a long E on the infinitive. And saying that sapere takes a long E is a quick way to indicate the right conjugation for this verb.


vowel length had disappeared in the middle age, but its consequence on the stress pattern had not, and it is still maintained today.
The classical latin "sapere" is stressed "sápere", and the middle age word is stressed like "sapére".

 F.


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## Outsider

What that tells me is that some time _prior_ to the loss of vowel length there was already a variant of _sapere_ which had a long "e" (no doubt a popular variant). That doesn't make it incorrect, an invention, or non-Latin; it just makes it colloquial.


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## Fred_C

No.
The word "sapeo, sapere" is indeed a very late word, that appeared long after the loss of the vowel quantity in latin.
loss of vowel quantity does not imply that people did not know how to conjugate latin any more, or how to pronounce with the right stress pattern.
If you do not like my remark about the quantity of "sapere", just read my post again replacing "sapêre with a long E" with "sapere conjugated like monere".
That was my point.


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## Outsider

Fred_C said:


> loss of vowel quantity does not imply that people did not know how to conjugate latin any more, or how to pronounce with the right stress pattern.


For most people, yes, it implied exactly that. Only priests with a classical education would know how the verb "should" be constructed and conjugated -- in classical Latin, that is. As for stress, that can vary between different periods or registers of a language.


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## Fred_C

Outsider said:


> For most people, yes, it implied exactly that. .


You are wrong, I am afraid.
People who cannot conjugate Latin just do not speak Latin, they speak any other language derived from Latin.



Outsider said:


> Only priests with a classical education would know how the verb "should" be constructed and conjugated -- in classical Latin, that is. .


I was talking about people who knew Latin more or less, whoever they were. "Priests with a classical education" is a good guess, indeed.
Those people invented the verb "sapeo, sapere", conjugated like monere. They invented it in Latin, and not in another romance language. That is what I am saying.



Outsider said:


> As for stress, that can vary between different periods or registers of a language.


No, mind you. Stress in Latin is very conservative, (although it might seem a paradoxon). We are talking about stress in Latin, and not in the languages that derive from it.
Stress in Latin has never evolved from the antiquity to the 21st century.
The fact that it is still in use nowadays in NOT the result of a reconstitution (as is the pronunciation of the vowels, in an effort made in the 1950's), it is the result of a conservation through time.


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## Outsider

You have an excessively restrictive concept of Latin. Latin was not a frozen monolith. Archaic Latin was not the same as classical Latin, which was not the same as medieval Latin. Cicero's Latin was not the same as Petronius' Latin. And popular Latin was not the same as written Latin. Still, all of these _were_ Latin. Not just a select few of them.

Examples of stress being different in classical and vulgar Latin are no novelty.


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## Fred_C

Hi,
You are right, Latin is not one solid thing.
That is why I consider "sapeo, sapere" to be latin, where many teachers would treat it as a mere barbarism.

About the accentuation, you may be right. 
but the accentuation of latin infinitives is too big a commonplace to be subject to variation.


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## Outsider

From what I understand, then, your main point was that the classical paradigm would have called for _sapio_, _sapere_ instead of _sapeo_, _sapere_. I do not dispute that. 

Moderator note:
Threads merged.
(sokol)


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## vince

In Spanish, the words for "to taste" and "to know" are the same: saber.

I was wondering whether the same word is used in Latin,

and what role the alternate word "gustar" (goûter) play in this situation,

and whether any other languages have the same word for "taste" as "know".


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## Frank06

Hi,

According to my dictionary, Lat. _sapio_ means both 'to taste' and 'to be wise'.
A few related words:
_- sapidus_: 1. tasteful; 2. smart
- _sapiens_: 1. wise, smart, etc. [...] 4. gourmand (in an ironic way)
- _sapor: _taste

Apparently, this 'double meaning' can also be found back in some (older phases of a few) Germanic languages. E.g. Dutch 'beseffen' seems to have meant _to taste, to feel, to experience, to realise_ (13th century). 

Groetjes,

Frank


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## djara

In French saveur, sapide, and sapidité are related to taste while savoir is to know.


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## demalaga

In Latín the word for knowing in general is scio. Its noun is scienta.Derived words in romance science, ciencia, necio, stiu. English science
Another word is gnosco and cognosco, used for knowing something more particular like a person. Derived words in romance  conocer connaître connaissance coneixement,noción. English notion ignorant ignote
Another word sapere meaning different things.Understand like intelligo.inteligencia, intelligence, intelect,.But spanish entender and comprender come from another root .from these roots come also English intense and  comprise.
Sapere has also the meaning of being sensible and also clever.One roman deffinition of sapientia is "rerum divinarum humanarumque cognitio" the knowledge of divine and human things" Also "ars vivendi" the art of living"
But sapor, also derived from sapere means taste.But in English taste means two different things the feeling you have in your mouth and the quality of the thing you are tasting and makes you feel this particular taste. In Latin there are two distinct words sapore and gustus.But I am not sure if they were used consistently.In Spanish saber means to know as in French savoir.Also you can say something tastes well you say sabe bien.o tiene buen sabor, but  there is no possible confusion since the humans are the only that know and they are not eaten, only very exceptionally, so you cannot use saber in this case.


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## brian

Just wanted to point out that English does have the word "savour," though the meaning is much more specific than simply "to taste."


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