Newsgroups: sci.lang
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!MathWorks.Com!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!howland.reston.ans.net!EU.net!sun4nl!mcv
From: mcv@inter.NL.net (Miguel Carrasquer)
Subject: Re: Hello
Message-ID: <Cxn30G.HJC@inter.NL.net>
Keywords: ciao, good bye
Organization: NLnet
References: <henryCx7K4K.Do5@netcom.com> <STOLFI.94Oct12115359@atibaia.dcc.unicamp.br> <39803@ursa.bear.com>
Date: Fri, 14 Oct 1994 01:33:52 GMT
Lines: 32

In article <39803@ursa.bear.com>, Wm del Solar <solar@block15> wrote:
>In article <STOLFI.94Oct12115359@atibaia.dcc.unicamp.br>
>    stolfi@dcc.unicamp.br writes:
>
>>Italian uses "ciao" for both "hello" and "bye".  I believe the word
>>derives from "schiavo" (= "slave", as in "I am your slave"); possibly
>>through the Venetian dialect pronuntiaition "s'ciavo".
>>
>>Curiosly, the Brazilian Portuguese word for "bye" is "tchau",
>>a direct derivation from the Italian "ciao".
>
>I recall seeing "tschau" used the same way as "ciao" in somebody's
>.sig; when I asked him about that, he said that he had picked it up
>when he was a high school exchange student in southern Germany.
>
>Is Brazilian "tchau" derived from south German "tschau" 

No

>and how are
>they both related to Italian "ciao?"
>

Yes, they're both derived from Italian "ciao".  So is Spanish
"chau" (or "chao").  It's just a question of spelling the [tS]
sound.  Catalans would spell "txau", Dutch "tsjou", Poles "czau",
Hungarians "csau"...

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