On Sun, 12 Dec 2021 18:18:29 -0800 (PST) Paul Heinlein <heinl...@madboa.com> dijo: >After ABC 2 comes "ABC: Revenge of the Clef"
'Clef' < French, < Latin clavem/claves, acc.sg/acc.pl 'key.' Note that in Western Latin languages nouns developed from the accusative forms because, as Latin slowly lost its case inflections, the accusative forms ended up becoming the default forms, and eventually the only forms. In Latin clavem referred to a metal key for locking/unlocking doors, etc. By extension the word eventually gained by metaphor the means to figure something out, as well as its meaning in music. In French and Occitan 'clef' has both the base and the extended meanings. In Spanish 'clave' has only the extended meanings, while 'llave' retained the base meaning, but then added the meaning 'wrench.' * In English we use 'key,' which is derived from an Anglo-Saxon word 'caig.' It also ended up with the extended metaphoric meaning. As far as I know, there is no evidence as to the origin of 'caig,' except that it is clearly related to similar words of the same meaning in other ancient Germanic languages. The question that lies in my mind is whether 'caig' and its fellow travelers in other Germanic languages are related to Latin 'clavis,' i.e., were 'clavis' and 'caig' honestly inherited by Latin and Anglo-Saxon respectively directly from Indo-European? The differences could be just coincidence, but could also be due to several thousand years of drift from a common origin. If only the Indo-Europeans had developed alphabetic writing! * On the road from Julius Caesar's Rome to present day Madrid a word-initial 'cl' usually became [ʎ], a palatal lateral, normally spelled 'll.' However, sometimes the original form was retained, usually with a technical, scientific or religious meaning. Sometimes, as in this case, both forms were retained, with somewhat different meanings.
