{"id":9101,"date":"2013-06-13T12:37:25","date_gmt":"2013-06-13T16:37:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nadeaubarlow.com\/?p=9101"},"modified":"2014-02-20T14:28:56","modified_gmt":"2014-02-20T19:28:56","slug":"does-spanish-word-toro-come-from-latin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nadeaubarlow.com\/fr\/does-spanish-word-toro-come-from-latin\/","title":{"rendered":"Does the Spanish Word Toro Come from Latin?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Does<\/a>

Photo: Manuel Gonz\u00e1lez Olaechea<\/p><\/div>\n

There has been some confusion as to whether or not the word toro<\/i> (bull) originates from Latin. Toro <\/i>is commonly believed to have come from the Latin taurus<\/i>. However this is a general misconception. Like we explain in our book, The Story of Spanish<\/i> (on page 10), the word toro<\/i> comes from a pre-Roman language of Spain.<\/p>\n

The Spanish philologist Rafael Lapesa writes, on page 47 of Historia de la lengua espa\u00f1ola<\/i><\/a> that \u201cThe list of words of Celtic or pre-Celtic origin includes substantives that refer to the land.\u201d He then presents a long list of words that includes puerco <\/i>(pig) and toro<\/i>. He explains that the two terms appear in an inscription engraved in the religious site of Cabe\u00e7o das Fraguas, in Portugal, where they are written as porcom <\/i>and taurom <\/i>which \u201canticipates the latin porcus <\/i>and taurus<\/i>.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n

Simply put, Latin, like Greek, Celtic, Germanic and Sanskrit languages, belongs to a family of languages called Indo-European. The source of these five languages is a hypothetical culture that is thought to have existed in 8000 BC in Turkey, and then fanned out in many different directions spawning many tongues. That explains why a number of words used in domestic life and agriculture in these languages bear uncanny resemblances. The Spanish toro <\/i>resembles the Latin taurus<\/i>, as well as the Greek tauros<\/i> and the Celtic tarvos<\/i>.<\/p>\n

There is no doubt that it is a pre-Roman term. It is also worth mentioning that languages like Basque, Finnish and Hungarian are regarded as pre-Indo-European because their roots predate the Indo-European phenomenon. However, the word toro <\/i>is not pre-Indo-European, it is simply pre-Roman.<\/p>\n

More information about the origins of Spanish words can be found in our book, The Story of Spanish<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There has been some confusion as to whether or not the word toro (bull) originates from Latin. Toro is commonly believed to have come from …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9102,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[30,17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nadeaubarlow.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9101"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nadeaubarlow.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nadeaubarlow.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nadeaubarlow.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nadeaubarlow.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9101"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/nadeaubarlow.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10829,"href":"https:\/\/nadeaubarlow.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9101\/revisions\/10829"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nadeaubarlow.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nadeaubarlow.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nadeaubarlow.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nadeaubarlow.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}