-tania
Sign in to saveThe suffix -tania or -etania (English demonym "-tanian", "-tanians") denotes a territory or region in the Iberian Peninsula. Its historical origin is in the pre-Roman Iberia. Its etymological origin is discussed by linguists. Spanish Jesuit philologist Hervás y Panduro proposed their link to the Celtic languages, in which the root *tan or *taín means department or region. "In Irish, tan (genitive, tain) expresses the idea of country, territory."
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6 sectionsContents
- Examples
- Outside the Iberian Peninsula
- See also
- Notes
- References
- Sources
The suffix -tania or -etania (English demonym "-tanian", "-tanians") denotes a territory or region in the Iberian Peninsula. Its historical origin is in the pre-Roman Iberia. Its etymological origin is discussed by linguists. Spanish Jesuit philologist Hervás y Panduro proposed their link to the Celtic languages, in which the root *tan or *taín means department or region. "In Irish, tan (genitive, tain) expresses the idea of country, territory."
Other philologists such as Pablo Pedro Astarloa suggest a combination of the Basque abundance suffix (as in Arteta, Lusarreta, Olleta) with the Latin root *nia used in place names (such as Romania, Hispania, Italia).