WotD: Reliquary

Johannes Patruus

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Oct 26, 2012, 3:01:03 AM10/26/12

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http://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry:showfullentry/true?t:ac=Entry/161971

Patruus

Evertjan.

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Oct 26, 2012, 3:59:37 AM10/26/12

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Johannes Patruus wrote on 26 okt 2012 in alt.language.latin:

> http://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry:showfullentry/true?t:ac=Entry/16
> 1971

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliquary>

--
Evertjan.
The Netherlands.
(Please change the x'es to dots in my emailaddress)

Ed Cryer

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Oct 26, 2012, 7:44:02 AM10/26/12

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Johannes Patruus wrote:
>
> http://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry:showfullentry/true?t:ac=Entry/161971
>
> Patruus

Quoted from the definition;
The u in Middle French reliquaire is purely graphic, as also in English
relique , variant of relic n. The modern pronunciation of the English
word with /w/ (recorded already in 18th-cent. sources) probably arose as
a result of association with post-classical Latin reliquiarium or with
classical Latin reliquiae relics (see relic n.).

I know that modern French pronounces "qu" as "k"; but there's a
suggestion in the above that the /w/ sound in English only came in quite
recently.
How recently?

And how about classical Latin pronunciation? How did Cicero pronounce
his brother's name; Quintus?

Ed

John W Kennedy

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Oct 26, 2012, 10:32:34 AM10/26/12

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Definitely as "kw-". The whole reason that the letter Q survives in
Latin (it was deleted from Greek) is the recognition by those who
adapted the alphabet to Latin that the "k" sound in "kw-" is sounded
further back in the mouth. In the West Semitic languages (as is still
the case in Arabic -- thus, such words as "Iraq"), "k" and "q" were
distinct phonemes, although they are allophones in most Western
languages. Apparently, in Archaic Latin, they either were not
allophones, or were allophones that were nevertheless recognized as two
distinct phones even by non-specialists, like the two sounds of "ch" in
Modern German.

--
John W Kennedy
"The grand art mastered the thudding hammer of Thor
And the heart of our lord Taliessin determined the war."
-- Charles Williams. "Mount Badon"

Johannes Patruus

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Oct 26, 2012, 10:54:11 AM10/26/12

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Alas the pertinent academic paper has only its first page freely visible -
http://www.jstor.org/stable/409104

Patruus the Relic

Johannes Patruus

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Oct 26, 2012, 3:06:12 PM10/26/12

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See also pp.84-87 of -
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=zEBHglB7zOIC&pg=PA84

Patruus

Will Parsons

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Oct 26, 2012, 5:43:33 PM10/26/12

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I'm not sure if that necessarily follows. After all, English uses the
"qu" combination when from a purely phonemic point of view it could be
replaced with "kw" (or "cw"), because it inherited the graphical
combination from Latin and French. In Latin, too, it may be due to its
use in Etruscan/Greek that Latin took it over, and has no phonemic
significance. It does have a marginal utility in distinguishing a few
words, such as "qui" /kwi/ from "cui" /kui/.

--
Will

John W Kennedy

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Oct 26, 2012, 8:18:49 PM10/26/12

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But you're thinking in terms of standard spelling, which did not exist
in Archaic Latin.

--
John W Kennedy
"But now is a new thing which is very old--
that the rich make themselves richer and not poorer,
which is the true Gospel, for the poor's sake."
-- Charles Williams. "Judgement at Chelmsford"

Will Parsons

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Oct 27, 2012, 1:15:34 PM10/27/12

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I don't think "standard spelling" has anything to do with it. In
adapting the Greek and Etruscan alphabets for writing Latin, it's
natural that the Roman adapter(s) would use the spelling conventions
of the source language, and only subsequently, and perhaps
incompletely, would these be tuned to better represent the new
language.

--
Will

John W Kennedy

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Oct 28, 2012, 9:11:17 PM10/28/12

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When Greek used Qoppa, it used it with back vowels generally. I don't
know enough about the use of Q in Etruscan to address it one way or the
other, but I mistrust any claim of "spelling conventions" in the
pre-classical period. Ancient peoples seem to have adjusted their
spellings pretty easily, whether by changing spelling to reflect a
limited change in sound, as witness the "-OS" -> "-US" shift in the 2nd
declension, or by altering the value of a letter to reflect a global
change, as in the bifurcation of "C".

--
John W Kennedy
"Those in the seat of power oft forget their failings and seek only the
obeisance of others! Thus is bad government born! Hold in your heart
that you and the people are one, human beings all, and good government
shall arise of its own accord! Such is the path of virtue!"
-- Kazuo Koike. "Lone Wolf and Cub: Thirteen Strings" (tr. Dana Lewis)