• ShortFuse@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    It’s abecedario in Spanish (ABCDs). I’d imagine the -rio is like diccionario, which is like a collection.

    • Lvxferre@lemmy.ml
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      11 months ago

      It is kind of the same suffix but the story is a mess.

      That -ario and all words using it are reborrowed* from Latin. And originally it was two related suffixes, fulfilling two purposes:

      • masculine -arius, feminine -aria: transform noun into adjective. Like “a be ce de” (ABCD) into “abecedarius” (alphabetic).
      • neuter -arium: noun denoting a place for another noun. Like “dictio” (saying) into “dictionarium” (dictionary, or “where you store sayings”)

      Except that Latin allowed you to use an adjective as if it was a noun (Spanish still does it), so that “abecedarius” ended as a substantive again. And Spanish merged Latin masculine and neuter, further conflating both versions of the suffix.

      *the inherited doublet is the -ero in llavero (place for keys) and herrero (related to iron - professions took the suffix and systematised the re-substantivisation).