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From: dacosta@natlab.research.philips.com (Paulo da Costa)
Subject: Re: Portuguese Etymology
Originator: dacosta@bach
Sender: news@natlab.research.philips.com (USEnet Subsystem)
Message-ID: <dacosta.857476510@bach>
Date: Tue, 4 Mar 1997 11:55:10 GMT
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References: <5ff6h8$o5h@news01.aud.alcatel.com>
Organization: Philips Research Laboratories Eindhoven, Netherlands
Keywords: portuguese etymology
Lines: 22

In <5ff6h8$o5h@news01.aud.alcatel.com> shhouche@aud.alcatel.com (Stephen H. Houchen) writes:

>Does anyone know offhand where the Portuguese word "janela" comes from.
>It doesn't sound at all like the corresponding word from other Romance
>languages.

I looked that up in a dictionary once, it was from (vulgar?) Latin "januella",
dim. of "janua", a word for door. It is a "native" word, albeit different from
the ones used in other Romance languages. The reason for me to look it up
at the time was that I had heard from a friend that "janala" in Bengali has
the same meaning: it turns out that the Bengali word comes from Portuguese,
not the other way around.





-- 
      Paulo M. Castello da Costa     /\/\/\  Minha terra tem palmeiras   /\/\/\
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