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Quick Catalan question

Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2022 12:48 pm
by alice
Where did /ʧ/ come from, aside from devoicing of word-final /ʤ/?

Re: Quick Catalan question

Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2022 4:53 pm
by Linguoboy
alice wrote: Thu Jun 09, 2022 12:48 pmWhere did /ʧ/ come from, aside from devoicing of word-final /ʤ/?
Foreign borrowings. Examples:

Aragonese fardacho > Catalan fardatxho "ocellated lizard"
English sketch > Catalan esquetx "sketch"
French bachelier > Catalan batxiller "bachelor; busybody"
Italian salsiccia > Catalan salsitxa "pork sausage"
Mozarabic číčaro > Catalan xítxero "pea"
Spanish machete > Catalan matxet "machete"

I'm sure there are some examples of irregular internal developments, but I can't think of any at the moment.

Re: Quick Catalan question

Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2022 1:44 pm
by Kuchigakatai
Sanskrit cakra > Catalan txakra "chakra"


"clotxa" might be inherited from Latin cochlea, but the sound change -CL- > -tx- is admittedly very weird, cf. the regular -CL- > -ll- [ʎ] sound change in vetulum > "veclu" > vell, oculum > ull, auricula > orella.

The possibly related Spanish cuchara < cuchar + -a < cochleāre also shows a weird -CL- > -ch- change... cf. viejo, ojo, oreja.