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> Hi everyone, Hi, Christophe! > Lately I've been wondering about semantic changes from Proto-Romance to the > different Romance langs. Principally I've been thinking about the different > translations of French "parler": to talk, to speak, in different Romance langs > I know. Thus I found: > French: parler > Italian: parlare > Spanish: hablar > Portuguese: falar > > French and Italian seem to derive the verb for "to talk" from the same origin > (I would guess VL *parlare, tell me if I'm wrong. If I'm not, then I would > really like to know what it meant in Latin). Which should be from 'parabulare', a verbalization of 'parabula', a Greek loan meaning 'short story with didactic purposes'. So Italian 'parlare' and French 'parler' originally meant 'to tell a short story', hence 'to talk'. Northern Italian dialects often use 'dis+currere', from the verb 'currere', 'to run'. Lombard has 'discurr'. > For what I know of Spanish and > Portuguese sound changes, they derive their verb from an earlier *fablar that I > would connect with Latin *fabulare (not sure it exists) and fabula, which in > turn gave in French "fable": "(unbelievable) story" and "fabuler": "to tell > unbelievable stories". So the semantic shift 'tale' -> 'to talk' is quite common... even if different langs have used different words for 'tale'. Luca