Little words in English of foreign origin

>>so I would tend to think of savvy as a Spanish borrowing. Quibbling over a Spanish or Portuguese origin is a little silly, when the word in question would be pretty similar in either language.<<

Then why quibble over it pushing Spanish over Portuguese?

>>And I would think most Caribbean creoles would have a heavy Spanish influence.<<

And French and English...

Just seems like you'd run into a lot more Spanish in the New World than Portuguese. But perhaps I'm making assumptions here -- "savvy" may have been borrowed into English at a differnt time and place. I don't know its history and certainly can't claim to be an expert!

LAA--you wrote:
"The name "Mexico" is actually of Nahuatl origin, and it is properly pronounced (Me-shi-ko). The name was horribly bastardized by the Spanish. I just thought that tid-bit would be interesting to some of you. "

I wrote:
"There was no bastardization--at the time, that was how the Spanish word would have been pronounced. Evidence for this is the Andalucian city of Jerez de la Frontera. Originally (and occasionally today) spelled Xerez, it is the region where sherry is made. The word sherry is derived from the historically pronunciation of Xerez, as "Sherez."

Also, I have heard that French pronunciation of certain loan-words that were historically Spanish have maintained the "sh" sound, which today does not exist in Spanish."

Thus, the current pronunciation of Mexico is not a bastardization any more than the entire Spanish Language is a bastardization of 16th Century Spanish, or than any language is a bastardized version of the same language as it was 500 years ago.

Also, you need to realize that [B] (the b in sabe) is not the same as [v]. [v] Does not exist in most dialects of Spanish.

I think the only conclusion that can be drawn is that savvy is of either Spanish, French, or Portuguese origin. Any opinions as favoring a particular language over another are mere speculations.

Well, with reason in mind, I believe that it is highly unlikely that English "savvy" came from French "savois" which is pronounced completely different.


"Thus, the current pronunciation of Mexico is not a bastardization any more than the entire Spanish Language is a bastardization of 16th Century Spanish, or than any language is a bastardized version of the same language as it was 500 years ago."

As far as I know, Mexico has always been pronounced (me-hi-ko) in Spanish, which the native peoples of Mexico to this day resent.

"Also, you need to realize that [B] (the b in sabe) is not the same as [v]. [v] Does not exist in most dialects of Spanish."

Just as you said, it's a matter of dialects, or more properly, "regional accents". In some places, people pronounce my mother's name, "Viviana", as "Bibiana". My uncle's wife, who is from Mexico City, can't help but pronounce her shortened name, "Viv", as "Bib". We find it highly annoying and/or amusing. Where my family is from, we tend to pronounce most Spanish "b"s, as "v"s. Granted, there is a slight difference between this and the English "v" sound, but for purposes of writing out foriegn words phonetically here o
n antimoon, that is the best I can do, and the closest English equivalent there is.

I've never heard pronunciation "v" as anthing but [B] in Spanish, but then I grew up with mostly Cubans. As such, I cannot dismiss savez (sah-vay, savoir conjugated in the vous position) as an origin, because it seems just as close.

The English is sah-vee and the Spanish is sah-beh. It seems to me sah-vay [Fr] and sah-beh [Sp] are equidistant from the English sah-vee. Both the Spanish and French version have different vowel sounds in the second syllable than English. If anything, the French has the advantage as it contains the consonant "v", but I would not be so quick to rule anything out.

Why are you so quick to dismiss the possibility that it may have come from French, LAA?

That is right. Where my family is from, we also tend to pronnounce Bs as Vs. It's usually only when spelling something that we drag out the sound of the V to make the distinction or harden the B to make a distinction. Either that or resort to the old "V de Vaca" or "B de Burro" technique.

But as for Savvy, I think that it is most likely Spanish based, although I'm not ruling out the possibility of French or Portuguese origins.

Dictionary.com says:

[From Spanish sabe (usted), (you) know, from saber, to know, from Old Spanish, from Vulgar Latin *sapre, from Latin sapere, to be wise...]

And Merriam-Webster says it comes from Portuguese. The dictionaries prove nothing, just that there is no agreement of origin, except that it is Latin based.

LAA : « Well, with reason in mind, I believe that it is highly unlikely that English "savvy" came from French "savois" which is pronounced completely different. »

Mais qui te parle de <savois> [savwa] ? Il est question de <savez> [save] !

From the Online Etymology Dictionary:

Savvy
1785, as a noun, "practical sense, intelligence;" also a verb, "to know, to understand;" W. Indies pidgin borrowing of Fr. savez(-vous)? "do you know?" or Sp. sabe (usted) "you know," both from V.L. *sapere, from L. sapere "be wise, be knowing" (see sapient). The adj. is first recorded 1905, from the noun.

I did a quick cursory search about its disputed origins on google. Most sources claim the dispute is between Portuguese and Spanish. Wiktionary claims that it came from the Caribbean, from a pidgin of Portuguese where the word was "sabi".

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Savvy

Of course, Wiki- is not the be all, end all.

Ok, I read wiktionary too quickly. It says exactly what the Online Etomolgy Dictionary does... though it insludes some reference to Portuguese which was what confused me.

Well Tiffany, now that I see savois in the conjugated form with vous, I have changed my mind. I no longer rule out French origin as a possibility. But since the word became commonly used by English sailors in the Carribbean in the early 17th century, I think the chance that it came from Spanish is greater than it being from French. This is speculation on my part, but it seems that there is a greater likelehood that it came from Spanish/Portuguese, as the French did not become as active in the region until a later time period, once the Iberian American empires were on the decline, or ceased to exist.

<<..people pronounce my mother's name, "Viviana", as "Bibiana". >>

<<I've never heard pronunciation "v" as anthing but [B] in Spanish,...>

This puzzles me, as a native Spanish speaker for me there's no difference between the sound of [B] and [V], there's absolutely no difference pronouncing "vaso" (glass) and "bazo" (spleen)

Does a difference exist in English ?

Yeah, I almost always pronounce "b"s as "v"s, with exceptions like "burro" or "burrito", beber, barrio, bebe, etc. But I never pronounce "v"s as "b"s. For instance, I wouldn't say, "bibe" instead of "vive", or "baca", instead of "vaca", "bibiana".

Also, I noticed that my family's pronounciation of things with a "gua" sound, is much different from the academic pronounciation, or those of other regions. As an example, I wouldn't say agua (ag-wuh). The way my family pronounces it is silent, as in (ah-wuh).

It's hard to understand how I could make another sound for the [b] or [v]. What's the difference ? Could it be the sound almost like a "f" so "Viviana" sounds like 'Fifiana" ?

<<I noticed that my family's pronounciation of things with a "gua" sound..>

Yes, I've heard that way of pronouncing "agua" and "aua" in other countries and even in other persons, making the "g" mute. The syllable "gu" in many words makes this possible because the general sound and then the meaning of the word is not so affected if one omits the "g" as in "auacate" (aguacate=avocado).