When I was working on my video game project I came across a few toponomies that I couldn't find much or any anything about, thus I'm setting about trying to construct Latin forms of these toponomies based on research. One of them is Apchier, google finds nothing, but if I had to guess is likely an old castle. Working from An introduction to old Occitan by William D. Paden I've reconstructed a hypothetical Latin forum as *Appcarium as -ier comes from Latin -aricum, which is common in place names. I added another "p" based on the word apelar from Latin Appellare and I reduced the ch to c as a typical gallo-romance trend is for c to become ch. How'd I do? Does this look sensible?
Occitan Apchier into latin?
- Thread starter killerbee256
- Start date
It looks that to get -chier we need a kt before -āriu-:
vs.
Simple tj and kj give ʦ>s:
On the other hand, ktj>ʦ>s: *districtia>destressa.
Thus, I'd suggest something like **Appactārium.
P. S. This toponym can also descend from a Germanic personal name (*…-harjaz), in which case it won't have a Gaulish/Latin source.
vs.
porcārius>porquièr (porcarius - Wiktionary)
arcārius>arquièr (arquier - Wiktionary)
fīcārius>figuièr (figuièr - Wiktionary)
arcārius>arquièr (arquier - Wiktionary)
fīcārius>figuièr (figuièr - Wiktionary)
Simple tj and kj give ʦ>s:
On the other hand, ktj>ʦ>s: *districtia>destressa.
Thus, I'd suggest something like **Appactārium.
P. S. This toponym can also descend from a Germanic personal name (*…-harjaz), in which case it won't have a Gaulish/Latin source.
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-chie- can also derive from -ca- in many words so it could be something like Apcarus - Apcara - Ab cara - Ab carum - Ab caram. That could also explain the variant in -che, another possible outcome of -ca.
Occitan is very dialectally diverse. There are dialects with the assibilation of ka and ga to š and ž (Dialect Boundaries and the Question of Franco-Provençal page 128 map 5-16), but they are found in the north, in areas contiguous with French, whereas Apchier is located in Languedoc (Lozère (département) — Wikipédia), thus it should either have ʦ>s or retain k.
Latin doesn't have words in abc- or apc- (ab+c→absc: ab+caedō→abscīdō), so it is hard to tell what would be the continuation of a Gaulish toponym with such a cluster (and those are not attested anyway). Intervocalic p and b gave ƀ>b in Languedoc, but does it devoice before š? I'd rather expect vocalization into auch like in deute (debitum - Wiktionary).
Latin doesn't have words in abc- or apc- (ab+c→absc: ab+caedō→abscīdō), so it is hard to tell what would be the continuation of a Gaulish toponym with such a cluster (and those are not attested anyway). Intervocalic p and b gave ƀ>b in Languedoc, but does it devoice before š? I'd rather expect vocalization into auch like in deute (debitum - Wiktionary).
One does not actually have to posit an unusual consonant cluster in Latin: As this old Occitan dictionary shows, Latin p + yod gives pch in some Occitan dialects, which means Apchier could easily derive from Ap(p)iārium.
