# "question" in latin & romance languages



## killerbee256

Today I was thinking about "question" in romance languages, I personally only know Spanish and Portuguese. In Portuguese the common word for "question" is pregunta, pergunta in spanish. But there is also the more formal questão/cuestión, so I look up the two Latin roots: percontor and quaestio. First I'm wondering what is the difference between in usage of Latin words; second what is the nature of questão/cuestión is it a natural evolution or is it learned? Also what about the usage of cognates in other romance languages?


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## Dan2

killerbee256 said:


> In Portuguese the common word for "question" is pregunta, pergunta in spanish.


The other way around. 

No sé exactamente cuál es tu *pregunta*, pero en español es *cuestión *de dos palabras distinctas, con sentidos distinctos.


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## gonefishing

1.  In Classical Latin (sorry I don't know anything about post-Classical or Church Latin) _quaestiō _meant the act of looking for, or inquiry (but in a legal sense) while _percontatiō _meant inquiry in a more general sense.
2. This may explain why questão/cuestión is more formal than pergunta/pregunta because _quaestiō _was used in a more formal setting when it meant 'inquiry' but I'm not sure.
3. French: Question
    Italian: Questione but more likely to use domanda


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## JeanDeSponde

_Question_ in French has several different meanings:
Same as _question _(EN), _pregunta_ (SP) = asking for sthg
Or same as _cuestión_ = subject, topic (_dans ce livre, il est question de..._)
And _torture_ in the medieval sense, i.e. during a legal investigation (possibly a religious matter): _question ordinaire, question extraordinaire_


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## francisgranada

gonefishing said:


> ...      Italian:Questione but more likely to use domanda


As far as I know, the Italian _questione _is used in the sense of the Spanish_ cuestión_ and_ domanda_ corresponds to the Spanish _pregunta_, but sometimes also to Spanish _demanda_. 

What was the Latin term for asking a "simple" question?


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## gonefishing

Hi 



francisgranada said:


> As far as I know, the Italian _questione _is used in the sense of the Spanish_ cuestión_ and_ domanda_ corresponds to the Spanish _pregunta_, but sometimes also to Spanish _demanda_.
> 
> What was the Latin term for asking a "simple" question?



Thanks francisgranada, that's what I was trying to say  although I didn't make myself very clear. Sorry!

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by 'simple' question but I would use _percontatiō _in a similar way to pregunta in Spanish.
Hopefully that helps.


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## francisgranada

For exmaple, how to say in Latin "I ask him what is his name"?
(Sp. Le pregunto cómo se llama, It. Gli chiedo/domando come si chiama)


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## gonefishing

francisgranada said:


> For exmaple, how to say in Latin "I ask him what is his name"?
> (Sp. Lo pregunto cómo se llama, It. Lo chiedo/domando come si chiama)



Both of those are using the verb forms rather than the noun forms of the words.  So I would bring another word into the mix and use the verb _rogare _which is found in a derived form in words like rogar (Sp and Port) and rogare (It).  But I see what you mean, so here is an example.
e.g. vir me sententiam _percontavit _- the man asked me my opinion.


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## CapnPrep

gonefishing said:


> e.g. vir me sententiam _percontavit _- the man asked me my opinion.


_Percontari_ is normally deponent in Classical Latin. In later Latin it became an ordinary active verb, _percontare_ (> Sp. _preguntar_, Pt. _perguntar_).


gonefishing said:


> Both of those are using the verb forms rather than the noun forms of the words.


It makes sense to ask about the verbs, because the Latin nouns for "question" were derived from the verbs (_interrogatio_, _percontatio_, etc.), and they did not generally survive as native vocabulary in the Romance languages. Instead, new nouns were created through conversion of inherited verbs: _pregunta_/_pergunta_, _domanda_/_demande_, Prov. _enterva_, etc. _Questão_/_cuestión_/_question_ are learned forms.


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## Hamlet2508

francisgranada said:


> For exmaple, how to say in Latin "I ask *him *what is his name"?



You would decide which pronoun to use once you know who exactly you're referring to by using "him"

So your translation could use one of the following pronouns

Eum/istum/illum/hunc interrogo , quod nomen sibi sit (indirect question that takes the present subjunctive)

or

Eum/istum/illum/hunc interrogo , quod nomen habeat.


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## Hamlet2508

francisgranada said:


> What was the Latin term for asking a "simple" question?



In Latin one would distinguish between various expressions for _question_

interrogatio as in _a questioning_, _inquiry_ (class.).

quaestio (as has already been pointed out) as in _public judicial investigation_,_a criminal inquiry_ 

percontatio as in _question_, _inquiry_ into anything

disceptatio as in _dispute, debate, discussion_

dubitatio  as in doubting,uncertain inquiry


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## fdb

French _question_ is a Latinism; the “genuine French” descendents of _quaerere_ and its derivatives are _quérir, quête, quêter_. Similarly, Italian _questione_ is a Latinism; _chiedere _is “genuine” (with r-r dissimilated to d-r). Romanian _chestiune_ is a loan from French; the verb _cere_ is “genuine”. I think it is similar in the other Romance languages.


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## francisgranada

fdb said:


> ... Italian _questione_ is a Latinism; _chiedere _is “genuine” (with r-r dissimilated to d-r). Romanian _chestiune_ is a loan from French; the verb _cere_ is “genuine”. I think it is similar in the other Romance languages.



The Spanish "genuine" of _quaerere_ is _querer _(which has repalced also the Latin _velle_, see It. _volere _and Fr. _vouloir_).

It's an interesting example for the evolution/changing of the meaning of words in time. In Italian, _chiedere _means "to ask" and in Spanish _querer _means "to want" and today also "to love".


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## CapnPrep

fdb said:


> French _question_ is a Latinism; the “genuine French” descendents of _quaerere_ and its derivatives are _quérir, quête, quêter_.


A quibble: the "genuine" descendant of _quaerere_ is OFr _querre_, not _quérir_. And the problem is that _queste_ does not correspond to "question". I'm not sure if there was ever a widely-used, native word in French for "question". Maybe something like _demandaison_.


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## francisgranada

CapnPrep said:


> A quibble: the "genuine" descendant of _quaerere_ is OFr _querre_, not _quérir .._.


It's also logical because of the stress (see Italian chiedere and not chiedere). 



CapnPrep said:


> ... I'm not sure if there was ever a widely-used, native word in French for "question". Maybe something like _demandaison_.


Supposing a common Proto-Romance, one could say that some word/words had to exist for saying "question" 
(Frage/pregunta/domanda) ... _Demandaison _is a bit "complicated" and too abstract. I can hardly imagine e.g. a gladiator saying in _Proto-Vulgar-Latin _"Puella pulcherrima, (h)abeo una(m) demandatione(m): Amas me?" ... 

Or, is it_ really _important or necessary to have a "simple" word for the noun_ question _from the practical point of view? Maybe not at all ... Our gladiator could also say (at least in theory): "Rogo/perconto/demando/quaero te: Amas me?". In such case, my hypothetical question would be: Which verb did the gladiator use? 

(my _Proto-Vulgar-Latin_ is a pure improvisation, of course ....)


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## killerbee256

francisgranada said:


> In such case, my hypothetical question would be:  Which verb did the gladiator use?


I think it would depend on  where in the Empire he lived, if he was in Iberia I he might have used  perconto, if Italy demando.


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## Ben Jamin

Why has nobody mentioned the Latin verb rogare?


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## CapnPrep

Ben Jamin said:


> Why has nobody mentioned the Latin verb rogare?


gonefishing and francisgranada both mentioned it already, and it is also the root of _interrogo_, also mentioned above. But the derived noun _rogatio_ (and its Romance descendants _rovaison_, etc.) do not correspond to "question".


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## Hamlet2508

francisgranada said:


> Our gladiator could also say (at least in theory): "Rogo/perconto/demando/quaero te: Amas me?".



If said gladiator did indeed ask such a question he would ask

....quaero _*ex te*_(since *quaero te *menans I'm looking for you) : Amas-*ne* me? (which would leave both _yes,I do_ and _no,I don't _as viable options)

If he put it like "*Nonne* me amas?" he would expect the answer "yes,I do"  and if he wanted to know " *Num* me amas?" he could be sure the answer was "No, I don't".


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## mataripis

killerbee256 said:


> Today I was thinking about "question" in romance languages, I personally only know Spanish and Portuguese. In Portuguese the common word for "question" is pregunta, pergunta in spanish. But there is also the more formal questão/cuestión, so I look up the two Latin roots: percontor and quaestio. First I'm wondering what is the difference between in usage of Latin words; second what is the nature of questão/cuestión is it a natural evolution or is it learned? Also what about the usage of cognates in other romance languages?


questao sounds quest/  and pregunta can be para gunta(for discussion)!


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## Alderamin

"Questão" can be a "problem", "inquiry", "investigation", and "pergunta" can mean "interrogate", "ask for information", "interpellate"... in Portuguese.


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## robbie_SWE

The general Romanian word for "question" is *întrebare*, from the verb *a întreba* < Latin _interrogāre_. (N.B. Romanian has the verb *a interoga *as well, but it was a more recent loan). 
 
As mentioned before, *chestiune *is also frequently used to designate "question". However, *întrebare *is a more general term while *chestiune *refers to a "problem, query".


In Romanian *a cere* (from Latin _quaerĕre_) has developed to mean "to demand, to request, to ask for". The verb *a ruga* (from Latin _r__ǒ__gār__e_) means "to beg for, to pray for, to beseech, to implore". Neither _percontārī _nor _dēmandāre_ survived in Romanian – although the rare verb *a **demânda* ("to command, to order") has occurred in isolated literary texts from previous centuries. It is however lost in modern Romanian but maintained in Megleno-Romanian. 

 
Robbie


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## fdb

Very good to have the Romanian input.


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## Penyafort

_Percontare _seems to be one of those many local archaisms developed in West Iberian (Spanish, Asturian, Portuguese).

In Catalan and Aragonese, it's an old loanword from Renaissance Spanish, the genuine use for asking being _demanar/demandar_.

The presence of it in Sardinia, as in the _pricunta _tradition, is regarded as Spanish in origin.


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## danielstan

Romanian verb  *întreba* had a special evolution from Latin _interrogare_, because the intervocalic *-b-* is not easy to explain.
Some Romanian etymological dictionaries (dexonline) postulate a Vulgar Latin *_interroguare _as the source of *întreba*, using the analogy with the evolution of the group [*gua*] in Romanian and Sardinian (Logudorese):
lat. _lingua _> rom. _limbă_, sard. _limba_
Note also the parallel evolution of the Latin group [*qua*] in:
lat _acqua _> rom. _apă_, sard. _abba_
lat. _quattuor _> rom. _patru_, sard. _battoro_
lat. _equa _> rom. _iapă_, sard. _ebba_

On another hand the Latin group [*qua*] had a more expected evolution in other Romanian words:
lat. _qualis_ > rom. _care_
lat. _quam_ > rom. _ca_
lat. _quando_ > rom. _când_
lat. _squama_ > rom. _scam_


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## Sobakus

danielstan said:


> Romanian verb  *întreba* had a special evolution from Latin _interrogare_, because the intervocalic *-b-* is not easy to explain.
> Some Romanian etymological dictionaries (dexonline) postulate a Vulgar Latin *_interroguare _as the source of *întreba*, using the analogy with the evolution of the group [*gua*] in Romanian and Sardinian (Logudorese)


The problem with this explanation is that Latin knows no intervocalic /gᵂ/, this phoneme only occurs as part of the cluster /ŋgᵂ/, so there seems to be no analogy for such a substitution. A much more convincing explanation, and one much harder to swallow for some Romanian etymological dictionaries, is that this is a cross with Slavic _trebati_.


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## francisgranada

Sobakus said:


> ..... A much more convincing explanation .... is that this is a cross with Slavic _trebati_.


Yes, surely.


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## Perseas

Sobakus said:


> A much more convincing explanation, and one much harder to swallow for some Romanian etymological dictionaries, is that this is a cross with Slavic _trebati_.


Is this wrong in the same page: _Latin: tréba, trijèba _?


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## Sobakus

Perseas said:


> Is this wrong in the same page: _Latin: tréba, trijèba _?


Cyrillic and Latin are the two scripts used to spell Serbian.


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## Perseas

Sobakus said:


> Cyrillic and Latin are the two scripts used to spell Serbian.


Sorry, I had misread. Thanks.


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## danielstan

Sobakus said:


> The problem with this explanation is that Latin knows no intervocalic /gᵂ/, this phoneme only occurs as part of the cluster /ŋgᵂ/, so there seems to be no analogy for such a substitution. A much more convincing explanation, and one much harder to swallow for some Romanian etymological dictionaries, is that this is a cross with Slavic _trebati_.


Meyer-Lübke - Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, page 325
(Romanian _întreba_  compared to Ancient French _enterver_ and others):





Meyer-Lübke, _Grammatik Der Romanischen Sprachen_, page 439:




Definitely this word has suffered an unusual transformation which resulted in an intervocalic _-b-_ (if the Latin hypothetic etymology is valid).
In the Slavic hypothetic etymology _trebati_ has a drastic change of meaning from "to need" to "to ask (a question)" which is not entirely unexplicable, but less convincing to me.

Romanian does have words derived from Slavic _trebati_, but they are in correlation with the original meaning of this word:
dexonline - întrebuința "to use"
dexonline - trebui "to need (something)"
Seems to me Romanians did not perceived this Slavic root with an unusual meaning.

Nationalism in Romanian etymological dictionaries (favoring Latin etymologies against Slavic ones)?
Open question (I am not in a good position to answer).


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## Sobakus

danielstan said:


> Definitely this word has suffered an unusual transformation which resulted in an intervocalic _-b-_ (if the Latin hypothetic etymology is valid).
> In the Slavic hypothetic etymology _trebati_ has a drastic change of meaning from "to need" to "to ask (a question)" which is not entirely unexplicable, but less convincing to me.


It's curious that you think it a drastic change of meaning, because precisely _тре́бовать_ means both "to need, require" and "to ask (for), demand" in Russian, and this duality of meaning seems to me to be among the most basic metaphors: English _demand_ has it, as does Latin _requīrere_ and I'm sure a whole mountain of other languages.


> Romanian does have words derived from Slavic _trebati_, but they are in correlation with the original meaning of this word:
> dexonline - întrebuința "to use"
> dexonline - trebui "to need (something)"


These derive from the infixed denominal _trebovati_, but that _întreb-_ part is just way too telling.

Note that there's no need to talk about a change of meaning, as frequent as this change is. The verb had clearly existed from the beginning, but in another phonetic form. The prefix basically remained, but the root got reanalysed from _rogare_ (which is preserved in Romanian) to the newly-arrived _treba(re)_ because the latter made more sense semantically and/or was more common. So one wouldn't talk directly of borrowing, but as I said, of a cross – especially given the clear mixing of Romance and Slavic morphemes inside the word.

That said, a change such as _terg > terw > terb > treb _would not be unprecedented at all, cf. Italian _pargolo < parwolus _in the opposite direction. Can anybody come up with parallel Romanian examples?


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## francisgranada

Hello, danielstan and Sobakus, your last posts are really interesting.

The Latin _interrogare_, given the prefix _inter_-, does not mean "simply" _to ask_ (rather _to interrogate, examine, inquire, ... _et similia) Finally, the corresponding verbs neither in Italian, Spanish, French, etc. do mean exactly  _to ask_. Further more, they are considered learned words or "latinisms".  (E.g. the Spanish genuine  verb should be rather something like _entre[r]rogar _instead of _interrogar_).

That said, it seems to me a bit improbable that the Latin _interrogare _would be part of the colloquial or vulgar Latin with the meaning of "to ask" only in some specific areas .... However, everything is possible  (to say so).

***************************
I have a question:  Independently on Romanian, is it "sure" that the Provençal _enterva _(French:  _question, demande_) and _entervar _(French:  _interroger_) derive from the Latin _interrogare _or there are other possible explanations, too?


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## Olaszinhok

francisgranada said:


> learned words or "latinisms". (E.g. the Spanish genuine verb should be rather something like _entre[r]rogar _instead of _interrogar_).


That's true, anyhow Italian _interrogare _is a very common verb (to question, to interrogate, to test, to have an oral exam, etc.)


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## Swatters

francisgranada said:


> I have a question: Independently on Romanian, is it "sure" that the Provençal _enterva _(French: _question, demande_) and _entervar _(French: _interroger_) derive from the Latin _interrogare _or there are other possible explanations, too?



The correspondence between French enterver and Provencal entervar in Meyer-Lübke made me tick a bit since usually proto Romance /VgwV/ corresponds to French /v/ but to Provencal /g/ (see aqua > OFr eve, ewe but Provencal /ajgo/, aquarium > Fr. /evje/, Pr. /e(j)gje/). This makes enterver the expected outcome of *interguare in French, but I'd have expected *entergar in provencal instead. But then I'm not sure what the outcome would be after r, if the metathesis of inter happened early.


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## Zec

Swatters said:


> The correspondence between French enterver and Provencal entervar in Meyer-Lübke made me tick a bit since usually proto Romance /VgwV/ corresponds to French /v/ but to Provencal /g/ (see aqua > OFr eve, ewe but Provencal /ajgo/, aquarium > Fr. /evje/, Pr. /e(j)gje/). This makes enterver the expected outcome of *interguare in French, but I'd have expected *entergar in provencal instead. But then I'm not sure what the outcome would be after r, if the metathesis of inter happened early.



I'm very sceptical of deriving Old French _enterver_ from the hypothetical *interguare. The /gw/ there is post-consonantal. There's too little examples of post-consonantal /gw/ to be sure how the sound would develop in that environment, but based on _lingua_ > _langue_, I'd guess *interguare would develop into _enterguer_. To get _enterver_ we would probably need an intervocalic /gw/ or maybe simply intervocalic /g/ (c.f. _rogare_ > _rover_). I don't know of any good example of intervocalic /gw/ which would show us how the cluster would develop in the relevant position: as said, it didn't exist in Latin, and the only cases where it arose secondarily that I can think of are preterites of the type *leguit > _lut_. I wouldn't use these as examples of regular sound changes as they seem to have undergone massive amounts of analogical levelling. It may we that we simply have an example of intervocalic /g/ here, along the lines of _interrogāre_ > *enterroˈgare > *enterroˈɣare > *enterroˈvare > *enterˈvare > _entervar_, _enterver_ (not necessarily according to this exacts scenario).

P.S. Some of the changes I've presented as sound changes here might actually be analogies to different forms of this verb. Fouché, for example, thinks /g/ was preserved after stress, i.e. _rogat_ > _ruevet_, and lost before stress only to be reintroduced by analogy, i.e. _rogāmus_ > *roons > _rovons_.


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## francisgranada

Zec said:


> I'm very sceptical of deriving Old French _enterver_ from the hypothetical *interguare ....


So am I ....

A propos: Why  necessarily _*inter*gu*are _and not something like e.g. *_intero*g*are _> *_intero*ɣ*gar _> *_intero*w*ar _> *_inter*v*ar _> *_inter*v*ar _?

What I want to say, is that for_ g>....>v_  in general,  we do not need an intervocalic _-gu_-, even if there exists a phonetic correspondence _gu <> w_  in Romance (e.g. _guerre < war_).  There are examples in other languages, e.g. in Hungarian (_a*gg */ a*v*as_, etc ...). I have not examined in details the evolution of French, so I may be mistaken ....





Zec said:


> ... i.e. _rogāmus_ > *roons > _rovons_.


A similar phenomenon exists also in Italian, e.g. _ruina > ro*v*ina_, _vidua > vedo*v*a_.  Also in some Slavic languages, e.g. Czech colloquial _*v*ona _< _ona_, Polish _*w*uj_, etc.  In these cases this _-v-_, in my opinion, is rather a prothetic consonant that serves to eliminate the eventual hiatus between vowels (i.e. _inside _the word or between the initial word of a noun and the last vowel of the preceding word).  Isn't it the case of the French _rovons, _as well_?_

Turning back to Romaninian:


Sobakus said:


> That said, a change such as _terg > terw > terb > treb _would not be unprecedented .....  Can anybody come up with parallel Romanian examples?


This is a fundamental question.  Otherwise, the explanation of  _întreb-_ from _interrog_- seems to be too "complicated" and improbable, taking in consideration the existence of  numerous Slavic words in Romanian (including _treb-_).


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## danielstan

Sobakus said:


> That said, a change such as _terg > terw > terb > treb _would not be unprecedented at all, cf. Italian _pargolo < parwolus _in the opposite direction. Can anybody come up with parallel Romanian examples?


See this search engine for Romanian words (with all possible declensions):
CuvinteCare.ro - Cuvinte care încep sau se termină cu anumite litere
I composed the search criterion "words that contain 'treb'" :
Cuvinte care conțin treb
and the results are all in the expected areas:
derived from a Slavic _treb _or from this misterious Romanian _întreb-_ .
Thus no other example of  _terg > terw > terb > treb _change.

For me (and possibly for Meyer- Lübke) there were some arguments in favor of the evolution _interrog_- > _întreb- :_
1. The metathesis /Cer/ > /Cre/  (C denotes a consonant) which is present in many Latin inherited words in Romanian:
lat. _inter _> rom. _între_
lat. _per _> Old Romanian _pre _> rom. _pe_
lat. _niger _> rom. _negru_

This would explain half of the supposed evolution _*interr*og_- > _*între*b-_.

2. The resemblance between Old French _enterver_, Provençal _entervar_  and Romanian _întreba_
combined with the phonetic change /gw/ > /b/ which is present in some Romance languages, but in different contexts

Now that I read the contribution of @Swatters and others contesting the Provençal _entervar < _Latin _interrogare_
I am less convinced of this alchemistic mixture of arguments resulting in a serious etymology.


In fact I found some Romanian etymological dictionary contesting the Meyer- Lübke's reasoning:
dexonline - întreba
On the last paragraph:


> *întrebá (întréb, întrebát),* vb. – *1.* A pune întrebări spre a afla un răspuns. – *2.* A cerceta, a examina. – *3.* A cere informații, lămuriri despre, a se interesa. – Mr. _ntreb, ntribare,_ megl. _antreb, antribare,_ istr. _ăntreb._ Lat. _interrogāre_ (Pușcariu 891; Tiktin; DAR), cf. v. fr. _anterver,_ prov. _antervar,_ astur. _entrugar_ (Menéndez Pidal, _RFE,_ 1920, 35). Este dublet al lui _interoga,_ vb., din lat. _interrogare_ (sec. XIX). *Rezultatul g › b, care apare și în lingua › limbă, i-a făcut pe unii cercetători să se gîndească la necesitatea unei forme lat. *interguāre (Meyer-Lübke, Rom. Gramm., I, 439; Rosetti, I, 76), presupunîndu-se că numai -gu- putea trece la b; dar această supoziție nu pare întemeiată. *


It's  interesting that Romanian _întreba_ has correspondents in Mr (Macedoromanian, better known as Aromanian), Meglenoromanian and Istroromanian, but this does not solve the dilema (Aromanian splitted from Romanian in 10th century, the others probably later).
The last part of this paragraph translates as:
"The result _g > b_, which appears also in _lingua_ › _limbă_ made some researchers think to the necessity of a form *_interguare _(...) supposing that only _-gu-_ could pass to_ b_, but this supposition doesn't seem founded."

==========================================
After this long and useful intellectual debate I see your point, @Sobakus and I consider it as a serious alternative, but not 100% sure:

In a normal evolution of Romanian:
 Latin _interrogare _> *_intreogare _> *_intregare _> *_întregare_

At some point Romanian acquired some Slavic loanwords with the _treb_- root and they corrupted the hypothetic
*_întregare _to Romanian _întrebare _(verb: _întreba_)


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## francisgranada

danielstan said:


> For me (and possibly for Meyer- Lübke) there were some arguments in favor of the evolution _interrog_- > _întreb- : _1. The metathesis /Cer/ > /Cre/  (C denotes a consonant) which is present in many Latin inherited words in Romanian:
> lat. _inter _> rom. _între_
> lat. _per _> Old Romanian _pre _> rom. _pe_
> lat. _niger _> rom. _negru _


_negru - _comes from Lat. _nigrum, _not directly from_ niger.
pe _(if the form _pre _is documented) - it could be influenced both by Slavic _pre _and Latin _prae
pe _(if the form _pre _is not documented) - it could derive directly from Latin _per
între - _it could be influenced by Latin _intro_, or by analogy with other words ending in _-re_ (e.g. < accusative -_rem_) in Romance

All I want to say is that these three examples do not seem to me convincing enough to support the theory of  the metathesis /Cer/ > /Cre/.


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## ahvalj

danielstan said:


> Romanian verb  *întreba* had a special evolution from Latin _interrogare_, because the intervocalic *-b-* is not easy to explain.
> Some Romanian etymological dictionaries (dexonline) postulate a Vulgar Latin *_interroguare _as the source of *întreba*, using the analogy with the evolution of the group [*gua*] in Romanian and Sardinian (Logudorese):
> lat. _lingua _> rom. _limbă_, sard. _limba_
> Note also the parallel evolution of the Latin group [*qua*] in:
> lat _acqua _> rom. _apă_, sard. _abba_
> lat. _quattuor _> rom. _patru_, sard. _battoro_
> lat. _equa _> rom. _iapă_, sard. _ebba_
> 
> On another hand the Latin group [*qua*] had a more expected evolution in other Romanian words:
> lat. _qualis_ > rom. _care_
> lat. _quam_ > rom. _ca_
> lat. _quando_ > rom. _când_
> lat. _squama_ > rom. _scam_


Are there any lists of words with this development _gu>b_ and _qu>p_? I am asking because it was the regular change in most non-Latin Italic languages and, since the colonization of Dacia was — as you recently cited — predominantly from the south, these forms may have been brought by former Oscan speakers, that is they would be not properly Latin, but mixed Sabellic–Latin, in contrast with the regular evolution _qu>c_ in _când_ etc.

Update. I've found an opinion that _kw>p _(and, naturally, _gw>b_) word-internally, _kw>k_ word-initially, and the couple of cases like _patru_ and _păresimi_ can be explained as phrasal changes. Can it be statistically confirmed?


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## Sobakus

Regarding _inter > intre_, when phrase-final, this is a pan-Romance change, with the notable exception of Sardinian (in several ways the closest relative of Rumanian), but precisely this doesn't happen word-internally in Fr./Prov. _enterv-_. In Asturian, where it does happen, this precedes vowel syncope, prevents /rg/ contact, and so the /ug/ sequence is maintained: _entrugar_. Rumanian, together with Sardinian, are the two languages where word-medial syncope is rarest - basically it only occurs where it was already present in the 2nd c. AD (and so mostly attested), and so we would not expect it to happen in /rug/. All the more so when the simplex verb _rugare_ was preserved intact, should have been plainly visible as being part of _interrogare _to the speakers, and this should have further prevented syncope. This makes a Romance etymology of -_treb-_ even more suspect to me.

In other news I have two more relevant sound change examples: _corrogāta > _Fr._ corvée, _Rum._ corvadă_. There's no /rv > rb/ in this word in Rum., and I don't believe single intervocalic /v/ spontaneously shifts to /b/ in that language - but possible examples will be welcome.

Correction: that word's been borrowed in this form from medieval Latin - should have properly checked the meaning!​
And another useful observation: I don't find any Rumanian verbs in -a that derive directly from Slavic - all of them seem to be denominal. This agrees well with the fact that _treb*ov*ati_ itself looks to be denominal in Slavic, from the noun _treba_ "need".

*I'm now using Rumania instead of Romania because the latter already has a different historical meaning, as well as a philological one, nowadays spelt as Romània. It also designates a modern region of Italy. This confusion is annoying and especially bad when dealing with Latin, not to mention the cultural issues involved.


ahvalj said:


> Are there any lists of words with this development _gu>b_ and _qu>p_? I am asking because it was the regular change in most non-Latin Italic languages and, since the colonization of Dacia was — as you recently cited — predominantly from the south, these forms may have been brought by former Oscan speakers, that is they would be not properly Latin, but mixed Sabellic–Latin, in contrast with the regular evolution _qu>c_ in _când_ etc.


These are all very basic vocabulary items. If Oscan speakers susbstituted /kw/ for /p/, they would have done so in all the relevant words. You would have to postulate /k/ in the Rum. c-words already in Sabellic-Latin, which is no different from postulating a regular /kw > p/ sound change in Eastern Romance with preceding exceptional /kwa > ka/ (Classical already had productive /kwo > ko/). Besides, postulating Oscan immigration on the basis of observed sound changes and then explaining said sound changes on the basis of Oscan immigration is circular reasoning. This is one reason why substrate theories are have been looked down upon in Romanistics for a good part of the last century. Sorry if this sounds a bit too critical, but you've always seemed to be someone who doesn't mind a bit of academic rigour.


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## ahvalj

The southern immigration is not my _ad hoc _idea: it is what Daniel mentioned independently in one of the recent threads in connection with La Spezia – Rimini line. We know that Oscan was still used in the Pompeian epigraphy, that is fifty years before the conquest of Dacia, and that during contacts of related idioms (including a standard language vs. a dialect) a spectrum of hybrid forms arises (compare surzhyk and trasyanka in the East Slavic case), some of which may then survive if this hybrid speech doesn't get supplanted. Again, for any discussion one needs a list of all relevant words: where this shift did occur and where it didn't.

P. S. Latin inscriptions in Gaul attest cases like: _et ad cenam omnibus tricontis ponendam_ and _sic ut petrudecameto consumatum_, where the writers used Gaulish numerals in otherwise Latin sentences. During the 080808 war I happened to listen to the Lithuanian Žinių radijas, which found a Lithuanian-speaking Georgian who used Russian forms instead of some Lithuanian ones (I recall _y_ for _ir, aprielis,_ but there were quite a few more).

P. P. S. And in particular the Latvian _četri_ that is a mixture of the expected *_*cetri_ (compare _ceturtais_) and the East Slavic _č-_.


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## Sobakus

Here's a pretty full list (ugh, it won't allow multiple spaces):
La.           — Rum.   — Sard. Logudorian (more cons.) / Campidanian (less cons.)​*aquam*     — apă      — abba  / acua​*equam*     — iapă     — ebba / egua​*sanguen*  — sânge   — sambene / sanguni, sanguini, sanghini etc.​*linguam*  — limbă  — limba / lingua​*adaquāre* — adăpă — Ø​*quattor*   — patru  — battor(o) / cuatt(u)ru, batturu etc.​*quid*        — pe ce     — ki / ki, ci _(rare)_​*cīnque*    — cinque — kimbe​*quandō*  — când   — cando​*quantum* — cât      — cantu​*quam*     — ca?       — ca? _(both = quam x quia?)_​*qu-/cōmō̆*     — cum    — commo, como​​From what I see, these are separate innovations in both languages, plus Sardinian has two separate waves of it - in fact there's a well-known suggestion that Campidanian represents a later wave of immigration. Keep in mind, that (Ledgeway, Maiden 2016):

"More generalized palatalization of these sequences [/kw, gw/ + front vowel] is attested in Romanian, Dalmatian, southeastern varieties of Italo-Romance, Sicilian, Sardinian, Friulian, and Romansh (e.g. QUI- > Dal., Pug., Lad., Srd. [ʧi] ‘who’, Ro. [ʧe] ‘what’; Wolf 2012)."​​Especially in Rumanian, the reflexes of /kwI/ and /kI/ completely coincide.


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## ahvalj

Thanks. In Romanian there is also perhaps _lepăda,_ if from *_liquidāre_.

In the list I discern two instances of the initial _kw>p _(and is _pe<quid_?); the rest are word-internal, as suggested by the idea cited in #40 in the update.

My Oscan idea (which is quite straightforward) seems to have been anticipated by Pisani. To elaborate, since Oscan speakers had troubles with pronouncing the Latin _kw,_ they could substitute it both with their _p_ or with a plain _k,_ the latter being the source of the Romanian palatalization. Again, just a speculation as a follow-up of the idea.


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## Sobakus

ahvalj said:


> and is _pe<quid_?


Of course not, I just copied it from a paper without thinking - _quid_ is Rum. _ce_, ALog. _ki_, Camp. _kini _with a somewhat mysterious _-ne_ which also appears in other Central-Southern Italian varieties, which, unlike Sardinian, otherwise seem to lack paragogic vowels. To me it's quite obviously the Latin focusing _-ne_ perhaphs crossed with _-nam_. Sardinian also has a fun surprise with _ít(t)e(u)_ which is, believe it or not, from _quid-deus_ - I wonder how soon "_mitä hittoa_" and _"vad i helvete"_ are becoming pronouns.


> My Oscan idea (which is quite straightforward) seems to have been anticipated by Pisani. To elaborate, since Oscan speakers had troubles with pronouncing the Latin _kw,_ they could substitute it both with their _p_ or with a plain _k,_ the latter being the source of the Romanian palatalization. Again, just a speculation as a follow-up of the idea.


I'm sure this has been suggested on many an occasion - the problem is that in the actual Sabellic territories this seems to be entirely absent, and neither have I seen a single instance of a labial substituion epigraphically. To even entertain such a possibility, you'd want to find other corroborating evidence for Oscanisation, and I've never read about any telling Oscanisms in either of the two languages in question, while there's a number of them in the Centre-South of Italy.


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## ahvalj

There's indeed very little Oscan in Dacian Latin. Oscan seemed to possess initial stress with tendency towards reduction of unstressed vowels, which may be continued in the Neapolitan reduction to schwa, but that's certainly not what originally happened in Dacian Latin. Oscan knew _u>iu _after _t_ and _d,_ that is some fronting tendency, which again is not discernible in Daco-Romanian (but didn't pass to local Italian as far as I imagine either). The very characteristic Oscan _nd>nn_ (attested also in Pompeian Latin) that survives in southern Italy is absent in the Balkans. So, yes, that's not the Celtic substrate coming out of every crack in Gallo-Romance. Yet, this shift of labiovelars to labials is so exotic for Romance that it is tempting to ascribe it to the speaking habits of those people. Sardinia, by the way, is located in front of Naples ,)


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## danielstan

About the affinities between Romanian and Southern Italian dialects (abruzzese, sicilian and pugliese):
Al-Rosetti-Istoria-Limbii-Romane-1986.pdf, pages 78-79
On page 78 (before the paragraph on dialectal similarities) there is a paragraph with an historical argumentation about these affinities:



My translation:
"*Political and economical orientation of Dacia.* Dacia's political and economical orientation towards West made the new province to remain in contact with the Western provinces, receiving lexical innovations started from the center: the most important commercial route was Danube: at Viminacium (today Kostolac) there was the crossing point of the commercial route linking the West with the East and Dacia. Another commercial route (Via Apia), linked Italy by Brindisi and Durazzo, to the great commercial route (Via Egnatia) going to Salonica, approximatively on the today railway course.
The orientation towards West of the Dacian commerce, the fact that, from customs point of view, Dacia was assigned to the Illyricum circumscription, and finally, the settlement in Dacia of a great number of colonists from Dalmatia make us understand the similarities between Romanian and Central and Southern Italian dialects, similarities that cannot be explained by development in the same direction, but independently, which could be observed sometimes on the dialects deriving from a primitive common language.

Jireček (Geschichte der Serben, page 8 and following) observes that Balkan Peninsula could be traversed easier from North to South, by communication ways following the rivers valleys than by West to East."
==============================================
I will add some personal historical arguments:

The Roman conquest in Balkans had the following main stages:
Illyria/Dalmatia (168 BC), Greece (Macedonian Kingdom, 146 BC), Moesia (6 AD), Dacia (105 AD)
which shows the main directions of Roman advance (and presumably Roman colonists flow) from Southern Italy (Brindisi) to today Albania and from there all over Balkans.

In Rome a political scheme of free grain distribution to the poors started from 123 BC (Cura Annonae) and this lead to the impoverishment of a large number of peasants from Central and Southern Italy. They became prime candidates for emigration (see also: emigrate vs. immigrate) to the new conquered territories.
It is reasonable to suppose they emigrated also to the Balkans, along with their dialects of Latin.


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