Talk:cloșcă

Etymology Discussion

The etymology field presents the word as originating from Bulgarian. The proposed term does not exist in Bulgarian in the proposed form. From this point of view, I don't see the proposed etymology as valid. On the contrary, as shown in the linguistic atlas below, the italian word (and especially the dialectal forms of the word) are very similar to Romanian (especially in the dialects in Nord-East Italy/Istria). Since Romanian has many words inherited from Latin just as Italian (and also borrowings from Italian), I don't think the similarity can be ignored. It may be not a directly inherited borrowing from latin, but it could be a later borrowing from vulgar latin or a dialect of italian. Especially that the word is indeed similar in Croatian (kvočka) but not in Bulgarian or Serbian.

Linguistic and Ethnographic Atlas of Italy and Southern Switzerland: https://navigais-web.pd.istc.cnr.it/ Map 1123 (chioccia) 2A04:EE41:80:D2C8:40E:B250:BF62:A7B 09:25, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

The word exists as a dialectal word in Bulgarian. The standard Bulgarian language uses квачка instead (related to the Croatian word you mentioned). I added the reference to the Bulgarian Etymological Dictionary, which discusses this etymology.

The Romanian words inherited from Latin follow certain sound changes. Among them is "cl" that always turns into "chi/che" (this is a sound change common with Italian, existing in Late Latin before the Romanian and Italian languages split, but after the rest of the Romance languages split).

• Latin clarus -> Romanian chiar, Italian chiaro
• Latin clamare -> Romanian chema, Italian chiamare
• Latin clavis -> Romanian cheie, Italian chiave
• Latin *genunclum -> Romanian genunchi, Italian ginocchio (etc.)

If the verb were to be inherited from a Latin *clocīre, it would have to chioci, just like Italian has chiocciare.

Also, since the Italian word is chioccia (derived from chiocciare), it's not possible to have the Romanian word borrowed with "cl". Also, the word cloșcă is attested in 1650, well before the influx of Italian words.

Bogdan (talk) 11:36, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Regarding the possible italian origin, I was thinking more of an early borrowing, from a north-italian dialect and not a learned borrowing in the late 1800s.

If you check the map, in those dialects the cl->chi shift did not occur (map https://navigais-web.pd.istc.cnr.it/?map=1123).

In the timeframe you mention, dialects were mostly spoken so the variant from which Standard Italian formed was not widely used.

At any rate, my point is that, due to the striking similarity between the north italian dialectal forms and the words used in Romanian (but also Croatian, and dialectal Bulgarian, as you point out), some degree of relatedness cannot be dismissed. 2A04:EE41:80:D2C8:8177:BD0E:EEC2:7770 10:03, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

And neither can it be confirmed. Linguistics looks at more than just "striking similarity" cause if that were the case fiu would be from Hungarian fiú, treabă from Catalan treball and omorî derived from (eu) mor. Robbie SWE (talk) 18:24, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

Yes, in general, some strong argument is needed. In this case here, the question is whether the etymology from Bulgarian is plausible. It could just as well be that the dialectal Bulgarian word is an influence from the Romanian word (regardless whether it comes from Italian or it is just onomatopoeic) 213.55.220.227 20:53, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

exactly. look the current etymology. What is that argument for the Bulgarian origin? Is it more than "striking similarity" ? Consider that the word (albeit with changed meaning) is found in Turkish, Bulgarian, Croatian, Romanian, Italian....

My problem here is that I don't find the rationale for accepting the possible dialectal Bulgarian origin while entirely rejecting the dialectal Italian origin. 213.55.220.227 20:59, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

More than that ch can't become cl again, not to mention the implausibility of Latin cl staying cl in Romanian?! This is not linguistics anymore, just guess work and POV pushing – basically nothing we should be doing on Wiktionary. Remember that many words pertaining to agricultural life and farming are of Slavic origin – an undeniable fact. You haven't even bothered explaining where the ș came from - can you give me another example where a Romance [t͡ʃ] becomes [ʃ] in Romanian. Robbie SWE (talk) 19:20, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

As Robbie said, the "ș" cannot be explain either as being a Romanian internal derivation, but from Bulgarian it can be explained.

Also, it cannot be of "dialectal Italian" origin, since Romanian did not have any direct links with any Italian dialects after the Late Latin phase. Likely the split between Romanian and the Late Latin spoken in Northern Italy came around 450-700 AD and we cannot speak yet of Italian at that time. It was generally still called Late Latin until 750-900 AD.

All Late Latin words (including those that were of clear Northern Italian regional origin) went through the regular phonetic changes as the rest of the Latin words. For instance a North Italy Late Latin *zembrus ended up in zâmbru, as expected, with the "â" before a nasal consonant. Bogdan (talk) 20:20, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

The early borrowing would be in the Late Latin dialect that became Romanian. As far as I know, there is no Romanian word inherited from Latin which preserved the "cl" cluster.

As for the similarity, it's not unexpected, since they are all ultimately derived from onomatopoeia.

BTW, there is another word which is an internal derivation in Romanian: clocă (dialectal, it's used by my grandmother in Dâmbovița County). Bogdan (talk) 21:22, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

yes, there are several variations, including "cloță". 213.55.220.227 20:50, 10 March 2023 (UTC)