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From: mcv@inter.NL.net (Miguel Carrasquer)
Subject: Re: Question on Romance lexicon
Message-ID: <CzJr33.9B2@inter.NL.net>
Organization: NLnet
References: <39qt37$nce@fs7.ece.cmu.edu> <dacosta.784739488@causus> <3aifn2$dja@fs7.ece.cmu.edu> <STOLFI.94Nov19153946@stack.dcc.unicamp.br>
Date: Sun, 20 Nov 1994 03:30:39 GMT
Lines: 44

In article <STOLFI.94Nov19153946@stack.dcc.unicamp.br>,
Jorge Stolfi <stolfi@dcc.unicamp.br> wrote:
>
>    > [Paulo da Costa:] "Vermelho" took over from "roxo", which now
>    > means "purple".
>    > 
>    > [Marcelo Bruno:] I am not sure if Port roxo has ever meant
>    > "red", but definitely it is morphologically related to Sp rojo.
>    > 
>    > Assuming that Port roxo actually used to mean "red", we may have a very 
>    > interesting case of semantic shift since, as you said, the modern meaning
>    > of Port roxo is "purple" , not "red". 
>
>For all it is worth, "red" is "rosso" in Italian and "rouge" in French.
>So, all odds are that the meaning of Portuguese "roxo" shifted.
>
>However, my English dictionary (Oxford) says that the French "rouge"
>comes from Latin "rubeus", whereas my Portuguese dictionary
>(Melhoramentos) says that Portuguese "roxo" comes from Latin "russeu".  
>Am I supposed to be confused, or what?
>

Yes.  Ultimately, both words stem from the same IE stem (*reudh),
which also means "red" in Germanic, Slavic, etc.

rubeus		gives Fr. rouge and Sp. rubio ("blonde"),
russ(e)us	gives Sp. rojo 

I'm not sure where Cat. ros "blonde" and roig "red" fit.

Other Latin forms are `rufus', `raudus' and `rutilus', supposedly of Oscan,
Celtic(?) and Messapian(?) origin, giving five different developments 
of the IE -dh- sound.

rub- < ruv- < ruf- < ruT- < ruth- < rudh-
rubeus        rufus         rutilus

russus comes from rudh-tos, with characteristic Celtic-Italic-
Germanic tt > ss.

-- 
Miguel Carrasquer         ____________________  ~~~
Amsterdam                [                  ||]~  
mcv@inter.NL.net         ce .sig n'est pas une .cig 
