{"id":21978,"date":"2022-02-22T17:07:57","date_gmt":"2022-02-22T17:07:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=21978"},"modified":"2022-02-22T17:07:59","modified_gmt":"2022-02-22T17:07:59","slug":"stellar-stars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=21978","title":{"rendered":"Stellar Stars"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/mcrosbie\/8988554020\/in\/photolist-eGhFXj-5H9pq-7cz5vr-2kZemh-X4BDB-3ggyGX-eyUaQ-3ULxDr-Rj7DSq-e4Jqwo-MrZPk-e4Jsjf-e4Jqbf-e4JpPS-sGmdj-8XpcSi-f9ycfN-2mziDAA-Ku1x3y-MsgH5G-25F6JQ-5dtLch-6AUFCS-6AUFqU-5zQQvf-zFknD6-2gt1Nca-2mziDx9-8XwBDV-2ajMGp8-CLhQum-97xNXz-VUAfE3-2kVu2Kf-5J6k94-5MXhFD-cVHZUL-DJuVwY-qot4JY-9MM7Kz-f147im-CQJW1K-cCMiy7-bcXjbF-eZNKt6-eZNKD8-NKJnqu-duRfYn-cpwqYE-funbU9\" title=\"Stars\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/3782\/8988554020_67537f41c4_z.jpg\" alt=\"Stars\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\"><\/a><script async=\"\" src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s an interesting question that I was sent to me by email:<br \/>\n&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8211;<br \/>\nI am curious as to why some of the languages that developed from Latin had to put an extra &#8216;e&#8217; at the start of some of their words.<\/p>\n<p>Here are some examples:<\/p>\n<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<th>Latin<\/th>\n<th>Italian<\/th>\n<th>French<\/th>\n<th>Spanish<\/th>\n<th>English<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>st\u0113lla<\/td>\n<td>stella<\/td>\n<td>\u00e9toile<\/td>\n<td>estrella<\/td>\n<td>star<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>status<\/td>\n<td>stato<\/td>\n<td>\u00e9tat<\/td>\n<td>estado<\/td>\n<td>state<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>spero<\/td>\n<td>speranza<\/td>\n<td>esp\u00e8re<\/td>\n<td>esperanza<\/td>\n<td>hope<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>sp\u014dnsa<\/td>\n<td>sposa<\/td>\n<td>\u00e9pouse<\/td>\n<td>esposa<\/td>\n<td>wife<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>It looks as if the Gauls, and the people living in the Iberian peninsula, couldn&#8217;t cope with the st- and sp- beginnings, and had to stick an &#8216;e&#8217; on the front. Is this because words in the Celtic languages they spoke didn&#8217;t have such beginnings? I can&#8217;t find any similar words in modern Welsh.<br \/>\n&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>Incidentally, the words for <strong>hope<\/strong> have a cognate in English &#8211; <strong>esperance<\/strong>, which is a old word for hope or expectation [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/esperance#English\">source<\/a>], and the ones for <strong>wife<\/strong> have a cognate in <strong>spouse<\/strong> (husband, wife).<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s look at the origins of some of these words to see how they have changed over time.<\/p>\n<p>The Latin word <em>st\u0113lla<\/em> (star), comes from the Proto-Italic <em>*st\u0113rol\u0101<\/em> (star), from Proto-Indo-European <em>*h\u2082st\u1e17r<\/em> (star). This became <em>estoile\/esteile\/estelle<\/em> in Old French, and <em>estoile<\/em> in Middle French. It was <em>(e)strela<\/em> in Old Portuguese and <em>estrella<\/em> in Old Spanish So the extra e has been there for a while [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/stella#Latin\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>In Proto-Celtic the word for star was <em>*ster\u0101<\/em>, from the same PIE root as the Latin <em>st\u0113lla<\/em>. This became <em>*ster<\/em> in Proto-Brythonic, Old Breton and Old Cornish, and <strong>ster<\/strong> in modern Breton and Cornish. So at least some speakers of Celtic languages could cope with the initial <strong>st-<\/strong>. In Old Welsh it was <em>*ser<\/em>, in Middle Welsh it was <em>ser \/ syr<\/em>, and in modern Welsh it\u2019s <strong>s\u00ear<\/strong>. It was also borrowed into Old Irish as <em>ser<\/em> [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/Reconstruction:Proto-Celtic\/ster%C4%81\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>The Latin word <em>status<\/em> means state, status, condition, position, place or rank. It became <em>estat<\/em> in Old French, from which we get the English word <strong>estate<\/strong>. Meanwhile in Old Spanish it was <em>(e)strela<\/em>, and in Old Portuguese it was <em>estado<\/em> [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/status#Latin\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>It was borrowed into Old Irish as <em>stad<\/em> (stop, stay, delay), which is the same in modern Irish [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/stad#Irish\">source<\/a>]. Proto-Brythonic borrowed it as <em>*\u0268stad<\/em> from the Vulgar Latin <em>*istatus<\/em>, this became <em>(y)stad \/ (y)st\u00e2t<\/em> in Middle Welsh and <strong>ystad<\/strong> (state, condition, situation) in modern Welsh [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/ystad#Welsh\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>Do any of you have any thoughts on this question?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s an interesting question that I was sent to me by email: &#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8211; I am curious as to why some of the languages that developed from Latin had to put an extra &#8216;e&#8217; at the start of some of their words. Here are some examples: Latin Italian French Spanish English st\u0113lla stella \u00e9toile estrella star [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[92,97,104,107,111,128,10,34,35,173,43,45,46,64,77,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breton","category-cornish","category-english","category-etymology","category-french","category-italian","category-language","category-old-french","category-old-irish-goidelc","category-proto-brythonic","category-proto-celtic","category-proto-indo-european","category-proto-italic","category-spanish","category-welsh","category-words-and-phrases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21978"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21995,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21978\/revisions\/21995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}