COMPARATIVE ROMANCE WORDS OF TREES #7

 

ENGLISH	LATIN/VULGAR L.	ITALIAN	SPANISH	ROMANIAN	PORTUGUESE	FRENCH
BEECH	fagus	faggio	haya	fag	faia	hetre   *faine
CEDAR	cedrus	cedro	cedro	cedru	cedro	cedre
ELM	ulmus	olmo	olmo	ulm	olmo, orme	orme
MAPLE	acer	acero	arce	artar	acer	erable
OAK	quercea	quercia	roble	stejar	carvalho	chene
PINE	pin	pino	pino	pin	pinho	pin
POPLAR	populus/ ploppus	pioppo	alamo	plop	choupo	peuplier
WILLOW	salicem	salice	sauce	salcie	salgueiro	saule

 
I created this list number 7 because I was curious to see how close these five languages might be to each other in written form. 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 root consonants c and m and p of CAMPUS), if the word begins with a consonant, or comparing the root of the verb abit-, 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 example, in looking at the Latin word campus, the root consonants of c-mp is strongly similar among all five 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 of trees , with the translations in English, Latin/Vulgar Latin, Italian, Spanish, Romanian, Portuguese, and French. As Latin is the root language for Italian, Spanish, Romanian, Portuguese and French, the list gives the verb in each of these five languages. The list of these five languages is based on similarity/divergence to Latin, with the assumption that Italian may be the language most similar to Latin and French may be the most divergent from Latin.

BEECH: Two of the five languages of this list are fairly similar to the Latin root fagus. The Romanian word, fag, retains the Latin consonants f-g. Then, the Italian word, faggio, retains the Latin consonants f-g, while adding another consonant g. The Portuguese word, faia, retains the initial consonant f. The French word hetre, from a Frankish source, replaced the older Latin fau, where the initial f consonant was retained, and which survives as the french word for beechnut, faine, where the initial f consonant is retained. Finally, the Spanish word, haya, showcases the substitution of the initial f consonant in the word faya for an h consonant, resulting in haya.
Because of the divergence of two of the five languages, there is a poor match of recognizing the words between languages.

CEDAR: All five of the languages are remarkably similar to the Latin cedrus, with its consonant pattern of c-dr. The Italian word, cedro, with its consonant pattern c-dr, the Spanish word, cedro, with its consonant pattern c-dr, the Romanian word cedru, with its consonant pattern c-dr, the Portuguese word cedro, with its consonant pattern c-dr, and the French word cedre, with its consonant pattern, follow the original Latin consonant pattern.
Because of the remarkable similarity of all five languages, there is an excellent match of recognizing the words between languages.

ELM: Four of the five languages are similar to the Latin word ulmus, with its root of ulm. First, the Romanian word ulm, exactly matches the Latin root. Then, the Italian word olmo, the Spanish word olmo and the Portuguese word, are similar, as they add the vowel o to the root of olm. Finally, the French word orme, replaces the l consonant with an r consonant.
Because of the similarity between all languages, there is a strong match of recognizing the words between languages.

MAPLE: The Portuguese word acer, with the root acer, is exactly similar to the Latin word acer, with the root acer. The Italian word, acero, adds the vowel o to the root acer. The Spanish word, arce, with the root arce, rearranges the letter combination. The Romanian word arter, rearranges the letters and replaces the consonant c with the consonant t. The French word erable, mixes the Latin word acer with the Latin word arbor.
Because off the divergence of three of the five languages, there is a poor match of recognizing the words between languages.

OAK: Only the Italian word quercia, with the consonant pattern of q-rc, retains the Latin consonant pattern, q-rc, of the Latin word quercea. The Spanish word, roble, derives from the Latin word rōbore. The Romanian word stejar, possible derives from a Bulgarian word. The Portuguese word carvalho has no clear source of origin. The French word chene derives from the Latin word casnos or caxinos.
Because of the divergence of four of the five languages, it is impossible to recognize the words between languages.

PINE: All five languages strongly resemble the Latin word pin, with the consonant pattern p-n. The Romanian word pin, with the consonant pattern p-n and the French word pin, with the consonant pattern p-n, directly match the Latin consonant pattern p-n. Then the Italian word pino, with the consonant pattern p-n, and the Spanish word pino, with the consonant pattern p-n, add the vowel o at the end of the word. Finally, the Portuguese word pinho, with the consonant pattern p-n, adds ho at the end of the word.
Because of the strong similarity between all five languages, there is an excellent match of recognizing the word between languages.

POPLAR: The French word peuplier, with the consonant pattern p-pl-r, is the strongest match to the original Classical Latin. Then the Romanian word plop, with the consonant pattern pl-p, strongly matches the Vulgar Latin ploppus, with the consonant pattern of pl-pp. The Italian word pioppo, with the consonant pattern p-pp, substitutes the vowel i for the consonant l. The Spanish word, alamo, which is the name of the famous Texas battle, derives from the Latin word alnus. The Portuguese word choupo, through metathesis, alters the pl of ploppus.
Because of the divergence of two of the five languages, there is a poor match of recognizing the word between languages.

WILLOW: The Latin word salicem, with the consonant pattern of s-l-c, is directly retained in the Italian word salice, with the consonant pattern s-l-c. The Romanian word salcie, with the consonant pattern s-lc, is a good match. The French word saule, with the consonant pattern s-l, has cut the final c consonant. The Spanish word sauce, with the consonant pattern s-c, has dropped the middle consonant l. The Portuguese word salgueiro, with the consonant pattern s-lg, derives from an alternative source, salicarius.
Because of the divergence in three of the five languages, there is a fair match of recognizing the word between languages.