Reconstruction:Latin/acca

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 This Latin entry contains reconstructed terms and roots. As such, the term(s) in this entry are not directly attested, but are hypothesized to have existed based on comparative evidence.

Latin

Alternative forms

Etymology

The earliest Latin name of H was ha. The loss of /h/ in common speech before the end of the Republican period made this name indistinct from a (“the letter A”), driving its replacement by *acca much later.

The OED sees *acca as a phonological normalisation of *ahha, a reinforcement of ha (compare the later development of michi, nichil). Sheldon instead sees here a fusion of ha + ka (“the letter K”). He notes that the practice of Latin grammarians was to separate the alphabet into vowels, "semivowels" (continuant consonants) and mutes. The list of mutes was B C D G H K P Q T, and in recitation of this sequence, ... ge ha ka pe..., the ha and ka could have accreted together. This would also explain the variant form *aca, found in Portuguese.

Pronunciation

Noun

*acca (Proto-Italo-Western-Romance)

  1. The name of the letter H.

Synonyms

Coordinate terms

Descendants

  • Catalan: hac
  • Corsican: acca
  • Italian: acca
  • Old French: ache
    • Middle French: ache
      • French: ache (see there for further descendants)
    • → Middle English: ache
      • English: aitch (see there for further descendants)
    • → Spanish: hache
  • Occitan: acha
  • Portuguese: agá (< *acá)

References

  • Sheldon, E. S. (1890) The origin of the English names of the letters of the alphabet., Harvard University, pages 82-87
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