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by The_Colonel 1327 days ago
> The prefix de- is used in Czech normally since forever and to this day

It's only used in loan words. Like "depilace" is a normally used loanword in Czech, non-loan word variant would be "odchlupeni". But "dechlupeni" (using "de-" instead of "od-" + native Czech word) would be completely nonsensical.

Claiming that "defenestrace" is originally a Czech word seems absurd to me. It might have been "invented" in Czech lands, but clearly from the latin form.
1 comments
Huh1337 1327 days ago
Hmm, a lot of Czech words aren't actually Czech, then. I think that makes even less sense. The fact is the Czech language loans heavily from many different languages (Latin being one of the top donors) - but that doesn't mean we speak a mix of languages in one sentence.

The prefix de- is not used only in loanwords, you can construct new words with it just fine. It doesn't sound right in your example but that doesn't mean it's nonsense.

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The_Colonel 1327 days ago
"defenestrace" is a Czech word, "defenestration" is an English word, but they can both trace their origin to the latin "defenestratio".

> The prefix de- is not used only in loanwords, you can construct new words with it just fine.

Listing some examples would strengthen your argument immensely.

> It doesn't sound right in your example but that doesn't mean it's nonsense.

To my native ear, it sounds nonsensical. I wouldn't be able to guess what it is supposed to mean.

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Huh1337 1327 days ago
Defenestratio is not a Latin word, you wouldn't describe the act like that as a Latin speaker. You'd say something involving the words "de fenestra", but definitely not as one word.

It was the Czech person who first combined the Czech/Latin prefix, the Latin stem and the Czech/Slavic suffix in a decidedly Czech sentence.

> Listing some examples would strengthen your argument immensely.

You said one yourself. Nobody would say it because there's already a better way to say that, but everybody would understand the meaning and the grammar is fine.

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The_Colonel 1327 days ago
"dechlupeni" is not a Czech word.

> but everybody would understand the meaning and the grammar is fine.

No, I certainly wouldn't. It's nonsense.

Can you name a word formed like that which is present in some dictionary?

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Huh1337 1327 days ago
Even if you're right about that, it still doesn't make the word Latin. Latin speakers wouldn't say it as one word, and there would also be a verb in a Latin sentence - "de fenestra" by itself is nonsense.

(I had the displeasure of studying Latin in school)

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The_Colonel 1327 days ago
> Latin speakers wouldn't say it as one word

Note that all Latin speakers in that time period spoke Latin as their second (third...) language, and it was pretty common to see influence of other (mother) languages onto the used Latin. It wouldn't be surprising if e.g. a German native speaker (where such word concoctions are common place) coined such a Latin word.

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