inglés
WORDS REFERRED TO ROMAN FAMILY
“FAMILY”
ENGLISH WORD: “family”, “familiarity”.
CURRENT MEANING: a group of people united by ties of kinship, we can use as synonym “household”; a group of people that descend from one another; the children of a marriage, offspring; figuratively, it refers to a group of people or things with common features.
ORIGIN: in contrast to what we understand today by family, the Roman familia was formed not only by parents, children and relatives, but also for all those who kept a dependency relationship with the pater familias, i.e., slaves, freedman or libertus and customers. Etymologically, the term family it refers to famuli “servants”. The family was the basic unit of Roman society and within it the most important issues were resolved.
Ara Pacis: processional frieze showing Augustus as high priest of Rome, accompanied by members of his familiy (south face).
“DOMESTIC"
ENGLISH WORD: “domestic”.
CURRENT MEANING: pertaining to the home, the household, the household affairs, or the family.
ORIGIN: etymologically it comes from the Latin domus. The domus was a single-family house belonging to the rich, with one or more courtyards.
"GERMAN"
ENGLISH WORD: “german”, but we can find the same origin in “Germanic”, “German”, “germen” and others.
CURRENT MEANING: we can use “german” or “brother” to say that someone has the same parents as oneself or is son of the same father or the same mother. On the other hand, “Germanic” and “German” are words referred to Germany, the German language, or any people that speak a Germanic language. The same origin has “germen” with the meaning of rudimentary form.
ORIGIN: it has its origin in latin germanus/a, adjective meaning literally “originated from the same germ”. The Latin term to refer to brohers were frater and to sisters soror. We keep it in “fraternal”, “fraternise”, “fratricide”, “fraternity” or “confraternity”.
A Pompeian Interior. Luigi Bazzani. Dahesh Museum of Art.
"NEPOTISM"
ENGLISH WORD: “nephew”, “nepotism”.
CURRENT MEANING: a “nephew” is a son of one´s brother or sister, in earlier period meant a direct descendant, especially a grandson. We use the term “nepotism” to refer to favoritism shown to relatives or close friends by those with power or influence.
ORIGIN: it has its origin in the Latin term nepos, nepotis that meant both “grandson” and “nephew”. The practice of nepotism emerged at the end of the Middle Ages, in the context of the Roman curia, when many ecclesiastical charges were granted to relatives of noble families that had a member in the curia.
“COGNATE”
ENGLISH WORD: “cognate”.
CURRENT MEANING: in linguistics, the cognates or doublets are words that have a common etymological origin.
ORIGIN: this term derives from the Latin cognatum, whith the meaning of blood relative.
Curia Iulia at Forum Romanum. Rome. Restored between 1930 and 1936 on the basis of the reconstruction by Diocletian. 283 AD.