Why is insomni@ masculine in Spanish?

[archaicos]

I'm really curious about this recent finding of mine

Comments

[dcseain]

I'll go out on a limb and suggest Basque influence. That often explains oddities in Iberian languages, though i've no meaningful clue if that's the case here.

[muckefuck]

Actually, it seldom if ever does. For a thorough demolition of this myth, see chapter 6 of Larry Trask's History of Basque.

[dontbeakakke]

Basque has no gender.

[gorkabear]

Insomnio comes from latin "insomnium" which is a gender neutral word from the second declination. Neutrum became masculine. However, since the plural of "insomnium" would be "insomna" the explanation might be here.

Source: http://buscon.rae.es/draeI/SrvltConsulta?TIPO_BUS=3&LEMA=insomnio

[archaicos]

That (DRAE) explains how we got it in Spanish. Really, the surprise is why it's different from the two close linguistic and geographical neighbors, Italian and Portuguese? Maybe even three, taking into account French. Looks like some freak accident, but it's probably not.

On a second thought, there are many Latin words that have different genders in different descendants of (Vulgar) Latin... I think it might be a part of a bigger thing. And I wonder if it's anyhow related to the articles which every language seems to have invented or reinvented on its own.

Again, I know nearly nothing about the language history, so, please forgive me for any stupid or bold statements there might be.

[gorkabear]

I'm no expert either but this gender didn't suprise me! As far as I know (I have no ethimological dictionary here) this could have been a word that entered our languages with humanism as a "cultism".

BTW, I made a mistake, the plural of somnum would be somni

[voleala]

There were two words in Latin: somnium (pl. somnia) and somnus (pl. somni).

[tisoi]

Interesting, DRAE is saying that insomnio is from Latin "insomnium"...

You know, I do notice that Spanish "sueño" is "somni" in Catalan. Insomni but not in insueño.

[archaicos]

There're a number of interesting things that you can't miss.

Latin -> Spanish:
qualĭtas -> cualidad, calidad
causa -> causa, cosa

And just some peculiar irregularities like this in Spanish:
decir -> dicho but bendecir -> bendito

[sollersuk]

"Insomnia", "sleeplessness", is found used by Terence and Suetonius as a feminine noun, but "insomnium" (neuter noun, plural "insomnia") meaning "bad dream" also exists, in conjunction with the word "somnium". Hispania dropped out of the main Roman sphere of influence at about the same time as Britannia did, so possibly the neuter word, which later became masculine, predominated there.

[voleala]

Bad dream? This is strange. Could you tell me where did you see this meaning?

[sollersuk]

Chambers Murray Latin-English Dictionary, Sir William Smith and Sir John Lockwood (originally 1933): refers to Virgil and Tibullus

[voleala]

Thank you.

[muckefuck]

In Catalan, the form could've been influenced by the existing "cultism" somni "dream". This explanation doesn't work for Spanish, of course.