Ancestors

Written by Yoïn van Spijk on 2025-01-30 at 19:16

Italian 'quello', Portuguese 'aquele', and Spanish 'aquel', all demonstrative adjectives meaning "that", have an interesting origin.

The part '(a)qu-' comes from Popular Latin 'eccum', meaning "look".

This word came to be used as an intensifier of demonstratives: 'eccum ille' ('look, that') became 'quello', 'aquele', and 'aquel'.

Italian even preserves 'eccum' as a standalone word: 'Ecco la ragione!' ("That's the reason!").

Click my new graphic to learn all about Romance demonstratives.

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Written by Yoïn van Spijk on 2025-01-31 at 12:46

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An addition to the graphic above:

Another interesting Italian word is 'codesto': "that (near you)", now archaic outside Tuscany.

It comes from Old Italian 'cotevesto'.

This word descended from Latin 'eccum tibi istum', literally something like "here's this for you".

In isolation, these words became 'ecco', 'ti', and '(qu)esto'.

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Written by Marc van Oostendorp on 2025-01-31 at 15:11

@yvanspijk I am not sure I understand what you mean by 'an archaic word' that is 'archaic outside of Tuscany': that it isn't archaic in the Italian as spoken in Tuscany? But other Italo-Romance languages have also retained a difference between e.g. chistu (close to me)/chissu (close to you)/ciddu (distal). Or do you mean their etymology is different?

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Toot

Written by Yoïn van Spijk on 2025-01-31 at 15:14

@fonolog Indeed, from what I've read, 'codesto' isn't archaic in Tuscany while elsewhere it is. And I'm indeed only referring to the etymology of this Standard Italian word.

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Descendants