[YG Conlang Archives] > [romconlang group] > messages [Date Index] [Thread Index] >


[Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next]

Re: [romconlang] casa etymology?



Carl Edlund Anderson scripsit:

> Can anyone suggest an etymology for Latin _casa_?  I notice that it 
> doesn't display the usual /s/ > /r/ rhoticism, and figure it must be a 
> dialect word or other borrowing -- but from where?  I haven't found 
> discussion of this word's origins in my (admittedly very limited) 
> collection of resources, nor online.

It probably does come from another dialect.  In Classical Latin it
meant "hut, cottage, shack", and probably was the word for an ordinary
person's house -- as opposed to "domus", a more upscale sort of place
altogether, as shown by its use in the Romance languages to mean
"cathedral", and by association "roof, dome".

It is surely connected with castrum = fort, and perhaps with cassis <
cad-sis = helmet, head covering, which are from IE *kes-.

-- 
Dream projects long deferred            John Cowan <jcowan@hidden.email>
usually bite the wax tadpole.            http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
        --James Lileks                  http://www.reutershealth.com