Moved to !latin@piefed.social

239 readers

1 users here now

founded 7 months ago

Ubi estne? (infosec.pub)

submitted 3 months ago by PugJesus@lemmy.world to c/latin@lemm.ee

5 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

the genitive is for reasons only Iupiter might know, Jesu.

Blame Greek:

Case	Latin	Greek
NOM	Iēsūs	Ἰησοῦς Iēsoûs
ACC	Iēsūm	Ἰησοῦν Iēsoûn
ABL	Iēsū	N/A
GEN, DAT, VOC	Iēsū	Ἰησοῦ Iēsoû

Latin didn't borrow just the name, it borrowed the whole declension for the name. And at least in theory this should've happened with Chrīstus too, the genitive would end as *Chrīstū; but I think it was regularised because it looks like a native 2nd declension name way more than Iēsūs does.

[–] b_tr3e@feddit.org 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Yes. Most of the middle eastern transcripts were into ancient Greek. I doubt, however, that anyone out in rural Palestine of 0 BC was speaking Greek so the origins should be somewhat more obscure.

[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I doubt, however, that anyone out in rural Palestine of 0 BC was speaking Greek so the origins should be somewhat more obscure.

The root was likely borrowed from Aramaic or Hebrew. However the origin of the genitive itself is Greek - unlike Latin, Greek typically didn't borrow full declension tables, it borrowed the root and plopped a native Greek declension. And that's clearly the case here, none of the Semitic languages use an -s for the base form, so Greek changed even the nominative:

Aramaic: ישוע yešūʿ /jeˈʃuʕ/
Hebrew (syncopated, Tiberian reading): יֵשׁוּעַ /jeːˈʃuːʕ/ [jeˑˈʃuː.aʕ]
Greek: Ἰησοῦς Iēsoûs /i.e:.su:s/