(16-07-2026, 12:35 PM)Pointless.. wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I don't know if this particularity has been considered.
The word "ros" was common, everyday spoken word for "red" in some specific regions and areas of Northern Italy, such as Friuli and the Dolomite valleys, during the 15th century.
The primary mechanism that turned the Latin russus (or early Italian rosso) into ros was the the dropping of final unstressed vowels.
Historical linguists date the apocope of final vowels in Gallo-Italic and Rhaeto-Romance languages to the early Middle Ages, roughly between the 8th and 11th centuries.
Because this phonetic shift was fully completed centuries before the 1400, it is a linguistic consensus that the populations speaking these dialects in the 15th century were already saying ros. This refers only to the spoken language; in writing they would have used roço or rosso.
Well, I can confirm in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. 'red' is 'ros' ['ros] nowadays.
I'm not so sure the mechanism was the dropping of the final unstressed vowel, rather it was the dropping of the case desinence -us, which is 100% expected in Eastern Lombard. In Italian instead (where 'red' is 'rosso' ['ros.so]) the -us desinence was uniformly replaced by -o.
Why 'u' changed to 'o' in both languages I don't know, nor I know when the linguistical shift russus->ros, rosso happened. If you can give me a reference to a study about it already happening by the 15th century I'd be glad.