tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1717411293890343884.post4410935803448364803..comments2023-12-23T22:00:43.344-05:00Comments on The Linguistics Club: The etymology of BRUJA (La etimología de BRUJA)El Profehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12083739079245474323noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1717411293890343884.post-34369485564073387802010-10-25T20:14:20.121-04:002010-10-25T20:14:20.121-04:00The phenomenon of "reshaping" would help...The phenomenon of "reshaping" would help to explain the apparent discrepancy. When the native speakers of language A wish to reproduce the phonemes of a word in language B, and those phonemes either do not exist in language A or are excluded either by A´s canonical forms, neutralization, or allophone patterns, those speakers will choose the phoneme closest in sound quality as an approximation. The speakers of Gallego-Portugués, Portugués and Catalán may simply not have been able to reproduce the sound of /x/ and replaced it by the aleveolar voiceless fricative that they all shared in common (but which was absent in Castellano). Think of how English distorts the sounds of the German /x/ such as "Bach," and "ich;" Japanese cannot pronounce "beer" and changes it to "biru" to accommodate the word to Japanese canonical syllable structure. Such may well have happened to the perceived Hebrew source of the word "blessed." Thanks for your comments, Aaron.El Profehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12083739079245474323noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1717411293890343884.post-78529883256989321472010-10-23T20:46:45.820-04:002010-10-23T20:46:45.820-04:00My problem with this hypothesis is that, as the Wi...My problem with this hypothesis is that, as the Wikipedia article notes, this word is also attested in Portuguese, Catalan, and Galician, and those languages suggest that the historical form was [bruʃa]. Consider Portuguese bruxa [bruʃa], Catalan bruixa [bruʃa], and Galician bruxaría [bruʃaria], "witchcraft." If we suppose a Hebrew etymology, we would have to assume that all of these languages borrowed Hebrew [bruxa] and adapted [x] as [ʃ], then Spanish underwent the ʃ>x shift, by coincidence restoring the original pronunciation. Note that since [x] did not exist in Spanish before the 16th century (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Spanish#Modern_development_of_the_Old_Spanish_sibilants), and the Jews were expelled in 1492, the Spaniards would most likely not have borrowed Hebrew [bruxa] with the velar fricative (and even if they did, we have to explain what happened with Galician, Portuguese, and Catalan). The issue that arises, then, is whether Spanish, Galician, Portuguese, and Catalan would adapt foreign [x] as [ʃ]. Since those languages did not have [h], I suppose that using [ʃ] is possible... but my instinct would be to suspect that [x] would be adapted as [k] or [Ø]. Are there any other attested cases where a language containing the phonemes [ʃ] and [k], but lacking [h] and [x], adapted foreign [x] as [ʃ]?Aaron Rubinnoreply@blogger.com