# Lexical influences: Turkish and Romance languages



## Amante_de_limbi

I have found a couple similarities between Romanian and Turkish (I assume because the Ottoman Empire occupied Romania for quite some time) and was wondering if anyone knew of any others. Does anyone know of any other reason for these similarities? Thanks for your help 

1) *Geam* (R) & *Cam* (T) = window (pane)
2) *Furtună *(R) & *Fırtına* (T) = storm

I have found some words in Turkish that sound like Spanish words (or perhaps just Latin in general) like: 

banyo (T)/ ba_ñ_o (S) = bathroom
fren (T)/ freno (S) = brake
far (T)/ faro (S) = headlight

Anyone know how these came to be?


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## OldAvatar

As far as I know, *furtună *is originated from the Greek word _furtuna –_ φουρτοῦνα. Though, there are scientific voices which say that it might be the other way around, assuming that Greek language has got the word from the late Latin word _furtunat_, meaning _shiprecked_. 
*Geam *comes from Turkish _cam_, indeed.
However, there are, maybe, thousands of Romanian words which come directly from Turkish or Greek.


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## Amante_de_limbi

Oh wow, I had no idea, haha! Thanks so much!


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## dawar

ba_ñ_o --> balneum in Classic Latin.
freno  -->  frenus  in Classic Latin
And I think that "faro" comes from Ancient Greek, but I'm not sure.

We can find many Turkish words like that, taken from Latin languages.


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## Claudiopolis

Amante_de_limbi said:


> I have found a couple similarities between Romanian & Turkish (I assume because the Ottoman Empire occupied Romania for quite some time) and was wondering if anyone knew of any others.



I agree with OldAvatar regarding those two words.
About the Ottoman Empire occupying Romania, just small parts were proper occupied, the rest of the provinces being under Ottoman influence for different periods.
The borrowing of words from Turkish most likely happened because of the commerce conducted with the ottoman merchants.


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## vatrahos

Actually, _*Faro*_ isn't really Greek. It was an island on the coast of Alexandria, Egypt, where the Ptolemies built the world's finest light house in the ancient world. Strangely enough, the island gave the name to the object (like the region of "Champagne" gave us the name for sparkling wine).

This is still the word for "lighthouse" in Greek (φάρος), French (phare), Italian (faro), Spanish (faro), and Portuguese (faro[l]). Except for Greek, it also means the "headlight" of a car.

I'm just now starting to learn Turkish, but I'm finding that most French words I find are from the _technology, schooling, or fashion_ of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Perhaps this is when Turkish imported these words? E.g.:

asansör = ascenseur
kanape = canapé
ruj = rouge
vitrin = vitrine
etüt = étude
lise = lycée (although this is a Greek word, I assume that it entered the Turkish language through French)


I've found only a couple words that have come straight from Latin, like the word for *lettuce* (*marul*):

In Classical Latin "amarus" meant "salty" or "bitter"; the diminutive was "amarulus" ("a little bitter thing"); the "a" was cut off by the Byzantines and it became, in Greek, "μαρούλιον", and then, in Turkish, "marul."

I'm not finding many other direct "Classical Latin" words in Turkish, though. If you have any others, I'd love to learn them. Mostly what I've found so far are words that came to Turkish through later Romance languages.

A couple of Greek words that made it into Turkish:

*omuz* (= ώμος)
*bodrum* (= ιππόδρομος)

If you have any words to add, please do!


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## Outsider

Didn't _fortuna_ exist already in Latin?

It did in medieval Latin, at least. _O Fortuna_...


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## berndf

Outsider said:


> Didn't _fortuna_ exist already in Latin?
> 
> It did in medieval Latin, at least. _O Fortuna_...


The cult of the goddess _Fortuna_ in Rome is very ancient originating in pre-Republican times.


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## bendeniz

I think Turkish doesnt have so much Spanish words. In old Turkish there was lots of words that cames from Arabic. Now some foundations are trying to omit all foreign words from Turkish. If they make it we wont understand our ancestors' books etc. inheritanced values. Actually even now I cant understand some old Turkish books.


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## OldAvatar

Outsider said:


> Didn't _fortuna_ exist already in Latin?
> 
> It did in medieval Latin, at least. _O Fortuna_...



The question was about _furtuna _not _fortuna_. I could speculate saying that the words are somehow related, but I don't think that would be advisable.


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## vatrahos

Well, yes, actually *furtuna* and *fortuna* are very related. You could say they are daughter and mother, respectively.

*Fortuna* is latin for "chance or luck," although it is a later word (not quite "Medieval" Latin, but less common in Classical) that was formed from the classical word *fors* (genitive *fortis*). This word was eventually brought into Italian (perhaps Venetian?) as *Furtuna*, meaning "bad luck." And when you're on the sea, "bad luck" usually translates to "a bad storm."

This is not an Ancient Greek word, although in Modern Greek the word exists (it was taken from the Italian).

The only case you can make for a Greek connection is through the Indo-European root *FER* -- that is to say, the words *fortuna *and *fors* are nouns formed from the verb *ferare*, which means "to bring." So, "fortune" or "luck" is whatever the future may "bring." This root was shared in Ancient Greek (cf. *φέρω*), although it never had a noun form (the Greek word for "chance" is *τύχη*).


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## sokol

vatrahos said:


> I'm just now starting to learn Turkish, but I'm finding that most French words I find are from the _technology, schooling, or fashion_ of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Perhaps this is when Turkish imported these words?


That is correct, only that this happened as a consequence of Atatürk's reforms.

Turkey, then, replaced many loans from other languages (Arabic and Persian mostly would be my guess) with Western loans, many of them being French; and also new terms for new technologies were loaned from French mainly.

This was intended as a symbol for Western orientation. I don't know about modern tendencies in Turkish, concerning loans, but plenty of French loans go back to the Post-World-War-I-years.


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## Amante_de_limbi

You guys are awesome! Thanks so much!


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## robbie_SWE

vatrahos said:


> Actually, _*Faro*_ isn't really Greek. It was an island on the coast of Alexandria, Egypt, where the Ptolemies built the world's finest light house in the ancient world. Strangely enough, the island gave the name to the object (like the region of "Champagne" gave us the name for sparkling wine).
> 
> This is still the word for "lighthouse" in Greek (φάρος), French (phare), Italian (faro), Spanish (faro), and Portuguese (faro[l]). Except for Greek, it also means the "headlight" of a car...


 
And let us not forget the Romanian one which is *far *("lighthouse")*. *

 robbie


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## franz rod

> This word was eventually brought into Italian (perhaps Venetian?) as *Furtuna*, meaning "bad luck.



No, it's wrong.  In Italian exists the word "fortuna" (not "furtuna") which means "luck".  The word "sfortuna" means "bud luck".
The word "fortunale" means a bad storm.


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## Claudiopolis

vatrahos said:


> This word was eventually brought into Italian (perhaps Venetian?) as *Furtuna*, meaning "bad luck."



As far as I know from all the Romance languages *Furtuna *exists only in Romanian and means *storm*.


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## vatrahos

franz rod said:


> No, it's wrong.  In Italian exists the word "fortuna" (not "furtuna") which means "luck".  The word "sfortuna" means "bud luck".
> The word "fortunale" means a bad storm.



Thanks for the correction!

The word "furtuna," then, would seem to be a mispronunciation (on the part of Greek, Romanian, Turkish, and Bulgarian) of the Italian "Fortuna."

It may also exist in other languages, but I only know Greek (φουρτούνα) and Bulgarian (фъртуна) -- and now, thanks to you guys, Romanian (furtună) and Turkish (fırtına).

Nevertheless, the "furtuna" of these languages is a direct descendant of the Italian "fortuna." This is also what most etymological dictionaries (of Modern Greek, Bulgarian, and Turkish, at least) maintain. There was probably a corruption of the vowel "o" as it was placed between "f" and "r" sounds. Thus argues the Triantaphyllidis dictionary:

[_φουρτούνα_ < _φορτούνα_ ( [o > u] από επίδρ. του χειλ. [f] και του [r] ) < βεν. (ή παλ. ιταλ.) fortuna `τύχη, κακή τύχη, καταιγίδα΄]

a translation:

[furtuna < fortuna ([o > u] from the influence of the labial [f] and [r]) < Venetian (or old Italian) fortuna "luck, bad luck, storm"]

My guess is that, if in Modern Italian the word for bad storm is "fortunale," as franz rod tells us, then in older Italian the word was simply "fortuna," and this was adopted by the Balkan languages before the Italian language changed it.


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## Amante_de_limbi

vatrahos said:


> My guess is that, if in Modern Italian the word for bad storm is "fortunale," as franz rod tells us, then in older Italian the word was simply "fortuna," and this was adopted by the Balkan languages before the Italian language changed it.



I definitely agree with you on this one because they say that words of Latin origin in Romanian have stayed quite unchanged for the most part (excluding the direct French influences), since it's the only Eastern European Romance language (and was cut off from the West as the language evolved) and that the part of the language that's been evolving is the Slavic part


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## Outsider

vatrahos said:


> The word "furtuna," then, would seem to be a mispronunciation (on the part of Greek, Romanian, Turkish, and Bulgarian) of the Italian "Fortuna."


In some Italian dialects, unstressed "o" is often pronounced . (This happens also in Portuguese.)


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## berndf

Outsider said:


> In some Italian dialects, unstressed "o" is often pronounced . (This happens also in Portuguese.)


Right! _Fortuna>furtuna_ appears to be a very minor sound shift, looking at the history of Latin and Romance languages.

_Fortuna_ in the sense of _storm at sea_ is historically well attested in Italian dialects/languages. http://www.etimo.it/?term=fortuna describes an interpretation of _fortuna _as _unforeseen, unexpected event_ adding "Vale pure Tempesta di mare", "also valid for storm at sea".


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## robbie_SWE

Just wanted to post this explanation provided by DEX for the Romanian word. It's in Romanian, but I'll try to give a summary. 

*



furtúnă (furtúni), – 
Quote too long. Link added.
Frank, moderator

Click to expand...

* 
It basically states that the semantic change from "good luck" < "storm" was general for the languages that have the word and that the change happened before the Romance languages. 

The fact that the Romanian word still has a sense of "bad luck" indicates that it might be a direct loan from Latin and a part of the basic Latin stock. The Turkish and Bulgarian equivalents are believed to have come from Greek (in Bulgarian there is a possibility that the word came from Romanian). 

Hope this gave some insight!

 robbie


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## franz rod

> In some Italian dialects, unstressed "o" is often pronounced . (This happens also in Portuguese.)


In which dialect?  As far as I know in Italian and in the other Italian dialects happens exactly the contrary:  unstressed "u" in Latin is pronunced "o".


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## Outsider

Perhaps I should have avoided the controversial word "dialect", but _o_>_u_ is clearly what's happening in this Sicilian example (std. It. _sordo_ = Sic. _surdu_), and in this one (std. It. _dannato_ = Sic. _dannatu_), as well as in this one (std. It. _figlio_ = Sic. _figghiu_).


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## franz rod

> but _o_>_u_ is clearly what's happening in this Sicilian example (std. It. _sordo_ = Sic. _surdu_), and in this one (std. It. _dannato_ = Sic. _dannatu_), as well as in this one (std. It. _figlio_ = Sic. _figghiu_).


Well, these examples are not correct.  Surdu came from the Latin surdu(m), not from the Italian sordo, dannatu from dannatu(m) and figghiu from filiu(m).  So, the latin "U" remains and not change from "o" to "u" as you have written.


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## Outsider

My remark was synchronic, not diachronic.

Regardless of what "came" from whatever, the fact remains that *unstressed o in Italian often corresponds to u in Sicilian*, contrary to what you claimed.


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## franz rod

> My remark was synchronic, not diachronic.
> 
> Regardless of what "came" from whatever, the fact remains that *unstressed o in Italian often corresponds to u in Sicilian*, contrary to what you claimed.


I suggest you to explain better your ideas.
We talked about the *L**atin* word "fortuna"; I said that in Italian the word remain the same and don't became "furtuna", you said that "In some Italian dialects, unstressed "o" is often pronounced ."
So,reading your comment, it seem that you said that *unstressed o in Latin *(we spoke about Latin word, not Italian one) *often corresponds to u in Sicilian.

*


> the fact remains that *unstressed o in Italian often corresponds to u in Sicilian*, contrary to what you claimed.





> My remark was synchronic, not diachronic.


Sorry but I don't like how you explain your ideas.  You knew I spoke "diachronically" (as we can see in the first sentence of your message) but after you wrote as if I had written "synchronically" only because you want to say I did a mistake.

However I live in Italy, I know Italian and, more or less, different Italian dialects (can you say the same?) and I know that the Latin "u" became "o" in the majority of the dialects;  only in some case the Latin "u" remained the same (so we can't say that the  "o" became "u").

Sorry for my poor English.


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## olric

As far as I know the shift from _luck _to _storm_ occurred by shortening the term *fortuna di mare* to *fortuna* which in the beginning was a nautical term in Italian much used in the field of insurance. 

It entered the Turkish lexicon in the early 16th century, even used in Divan poetry in 1530's.

PS: I can post links here. Google "nişanyan+taraf+fırtına"


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