COLOR WORDS IN COMPARATIVE ROMANCE

ENGLISH	LATIN/LATIN V.	ITALIAN	SPANISH	ROMANIAN	PORTUGUESE	FRENCH
BLACK	niger	nero	negro	negru	preto/negro	noir
BLUE	caeruleus/albus	blu/azzurro	azul	albastru	azul	bleu
BROWN	brunius	marrone/bruno	marron	maro	castanho	marron/brun
GRAY	cinis	grigio	gris	gri	cinza	gris
GREEN	virdis	verde	verde	verde	verde	vert
ORANGE	aurantius	arancia	naranja	portocaliu/portocale	laranja	orange
PURPLE	purpureus/viola	viola	purpura	mov, purpurio, violet	roxo	violet
RED	russus	rosso	rojo	rosu	vermelho/vermelha	rouge
WHITE	blancus/alba	bianco/bianca	blanco/blanca	alb	branco	blanc
YELLOW	galbus/amarus	giallo	amarillo	galben	amarelo	jaune

 

I created this list number 3 because I was curious to see how close these 5 languages might be to each other in written form in the words on the list. One tool that I would like to apply to this similarity/divergence is the consonant pattern exhibited among the words, by comparing how the consonants of the word match (like the c and m and p of CAMPUS), if the word begins with a consonant, or comparing the root of the word match (like out of ORTO), if the word begins with a vowel. I have been using this approach on the language learning apps, especially with Romanian and Portuguese. It has been very helpful for me.

For example, in looking at the example of CAMPUS, the root consonants c-mp of the Latin word CAMPUS is strongly similar among all 5 language words, meaning that if I know the word in Latin or Italian, then I can guess, with a good degree of accuracy, the word in the other four languages (Spanish, Romanian, Portuguese, French).

For this week’s list, I have made a list of randomly chosen words (colors), with the translations in English, Latin/Vulgar Latin/ Italian/ Spanish/ Romanian/Portuguese/French. The list of these 5 languages is based on a consonant similarity/divergence to Latin/Italian, with the assumption that Italian may be the language most similar to Latin and French may be the most divergent from Latin.


BLACK: The Latin word niger contains the consonants n-g, which is retained in Spanish word negro, with the consonants n-gr. The Romanian word negru, with the consonants n-gr and the Portuguese word negro, with the consonants n-gr (although Portuguese differentiates between negro and preto, where negro is the basic color while preto is more nuanced and poetic). Meanwhile, the Italian word nero, with the consonants n-r, drops the g consonant. The French word noir, with the consonants n-r drops the g as well
Because of the consonant pattern similarity of n-gr, there is a fair match of recognizing the word between languages.

BLUE: The latin word caeruleus does not serve as the etymological origin of blue for the Romance languages. Instead, the Arabic word (lapis) lazuli serves as the origin, so that the word lazuli, with the l-z-l consonants are the source for Italian word azurro, with the root az-rr (Italian drops the initial l consonant and adds a double rr). Then, the Spanish word azul is derived from lazuli, with the root az-l, where Spanish drops the initial l consonant. Simlarly, the Portuguese word azul also derives from the word lazuli, with the root az-l, where Portuguese drops the initial l consonant. Finally, the Romanian word albastru derives from the Latin word albus, with the root alb. On the other hand, French uses bleu, borrowed from Germanic.
In spite of the divergence of words between the five languages, the vowel-consonant pattern similarity of az-l, provides a fair match of recognizing the word between languages for three of the five languages.

BROWN: The Latin word, brunius, with its consonant br-n, is retained for one of the words of Italian for brown, bruno (which is also a masculine first name), where the br-n consonants are retained. However, Italian marrone, Spanish marron, Romanian maro and French marron use the greek word for ‘chestnuts’, with the root consonants m-r-n. The Italian word marrone and the Spanish word marron keep the consonants  m-rr-n. The Romanian word maro, uses the root consonants m-r, but drops the n consonant. Then, the French word marron uses marron for a general meaning of brown, using the consonants  m-rr-n, while brun is the more specialized word, using the consonant br-n. Portuguese has adopted the brown nut of the chestnut tree as the word for the color brown, castanho (which has similarity to the words for chestnut tree in Italian castagno, Spanish castana, and Romanian castan).
Because of the consonant pattern similarity m-r-n, four of the five languages have a good match of recognizing the word between languages (with the exception of the divergent Portuguese).

GRAY: The Latin word cinis, with the consonants c-n-s is the basis for the Portuguese word cinza, with the consonants c-nz in the word cinza, where the consonants c-n are kept, but Portuguese adds a consonant z.  The Latin word cinis is not used by the other four Romance languages, Italian, Spanish, Romanian and French. Instead, the Italian word grigio, the Spanish word gris, and the Romanian word gri use the French word gris, with the root consonants gr-s.  The Spanish word gris retains the consonant gr-s. The Romanian word gri retains the consonants gr, but drops the consonant s. Finally, the Italian word, grigio, uses the consonants gr-g(i), retaining the gr but converts the French consonant s to a g (gi).
Because of the consonant pattern similarity gr-s, four of the five languages have a good match of recognizing the word between languages (with the exception of the divergent Portuguese).

GREEN: The Latin word virdis, with the root consonants v-rd are the basis for all five languages of the list. The Italian word verde, the Spanish word verde, the Romanian word verde, and the Portuguese word verde retain the root consonants v-rd. Finally, the French word vert retains the root consonant v-r, but changes the consonant d to a consonant t.
Because of the consonant patterns similarity v-rd, all five languages have a strong match of recognizing the word between languages.

ORANGE: The Latin word aurantius derives from the Sanskrit word naranga (Latin dropped the initial consonant n) so that the Sanskrit consonants n-r-ng are the basis for the Italian word arancia, the Spanish word naranja and the Portuguese word laranja. The Italian word arancia, after dropping the initial consonant n, retains the consonants r-n, but changes the consonant g to c(i). The Spanish word naranja retains the consonants n-r-n, but changes the consonant g to a consonant j. The Portuguese word laranja, changes the initial n consonant to a l consonant, but retains the consonants r-n, and then changes the consonant g to a consonant j. Meanwhile, the Romanian word portocale derives from the Greek and Venetian word for Portugal, where the country became the word for orange. (Portuguese traders brought sweet oranges from India to Europe in the 16th century.) Finally, the French word orange dropped the initial n consonant, but retained the consonants r-ng.
Because of the consonant pattern similarity r-n, four of the five languages have a fair match of recognizing the word between languages.

PURPLE: The Latin words purpereus, with the consonants p-rp, and viola, with the consonants v-l, are the basis for four of the five languages. First the Spanish word Purpura, retains the root consonants p-rp, while the Romanian word purpurio also retains the root consonants p-rp. However, the Italian word viola, retains the root consonants v-l, while the Romanian word violet retains the consonants v-l, and the French word violet retains the consonants v-l. On the other hand, the Portuguese word roxo was originally the word for red, and diverges completely from the other four.
Because of the multiple consonant pattern divergence v-l and p-rp, four of the five languages have a slight match of recognizing the word between languages (with the exception of divergent Portuguese).

RED: The Latin word for red, russus, with the root consonants r-ss, is the basis for four of the five language words. First, the Italian word rosso retains the root consonants r-ss, while the Romanian word rosu, retains the root consonants r-s. Then, the Spanish word rojo, retains the initial consonant r but changes the ss constants to j. And the French word rouge, retains the initial r consonant, but changes the ss consonants to g. Portuguese diverges from the other four, and does not draw on the Latin russus.
Based on the consonant pattern divergence of r-ss, there is a slight match that four of the five languages recognize the word between languages (with the exception of the divergent Portuguese).

WHITE: The Latin word blancus, with the root consonants bl-nc, is the basis for the Spanish word blanco, which retains the consonants bl-nc. The Portuguese word branco retains the consonants b-nc, replacing the consonant l with the consonant r. The French word blanc retains the consonants bl-nc. Finally, the Italian word bianco, with the consonants b-nc, drops the l consonant. Only Romanian diverges, with the word alb deriving from a different Latin word origin.
Because of the consonant pattern similarity b-nc, there is a strong match that four of the five languages recognize the word between languages. However, there is no match between Romanian and the other four languages, as Romanian alb retains the Latin alb-.

YELLOW: The Latin word galbus, with the root consonants g-lb is the origin the Romanian word galben, retains the root consonants g-lb. Then, the Italian word giallo, with the consonants g-l, adds a second consonant l. Meanwhile, the Latin word amorus, with the root amor, is partially retained in the Spanish word amarillo, with the root amar. The Portuguese word amarelo also has the root amar. Finally, the French word jaune does not match the patterns of the other languages. Because of the variance in words, the pattern similarity between all five languages is slight.