3 ms·
> but languages are generally pretty resistant to borrowing grammatic features wholesale versus, say, borrowing vocabulary. Not always check Spanish for exampl
by afroboy 8y ago
> but languages are generally pretty resistant to borrowing grammatic features wholesale versus, say, borrowing vocabulary.
Not always check Spanish for example they took a lot from Arabic, like 'EL'.
- nivexous 8y agoEl does not come from Arabic.
- _ak 8y agoLOL, what? Spanish "el" is etymologically derived from Latin ille/illa/illud, which became el/la/lo in Spanish.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- IncRnd 8y agoWhy do you believe Spanish took "el" from Arabic? https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/el#Spanish https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/el#Spanish
- bloak 8y agoDo you mean the sound combination "el", or the fact of having a definite article? Latin did not have articles. The use of articles is a grammatical feature that has been borrowed between languages. But yes: that kind of borrowing is a lot less frequent than borrowing of vocabulary.