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Why is French jus said to be from Latin jūs or iūs, while Spanish jugo is said to be from the Latin sūcus? I don't know if there's a link between sūcus and jūs, but jus and jugo look like they are from the same root.

I saw it in several dictionaries, but for example, here is what Wiktionary says about jus and about jugo.

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    It's not uncommon for things to look similar by coïncidence. These "false cognates" show up all over the place, and just happen. Dec 8, 2019 at 18:13
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    I don't know what sound change explains Latin /s/ → Spanish /x/, but I think I don't see a way Latin iūs would become Spanish jugo: the ending seems unjustified. I see that as a stronger argument against than for, even if the /s/→/x/ sound change proved obscure, although I bet someone else will shed light on it. Italian has succo and sugo with similar meanings, from the two variants of sūcus... if you know French, you may be led to wonder "why is this not the same root as French?", but knowing Italian, I'd similarly wonder "how would this not be the same word as Italian?".
    – LjL
    Dec 8, 2019 at 22:21
  • Maybe @Draconis can dig up the sound change in record speed, as well as explain how this is a clearly a language-specific grammar or usage question, since both those things are, at this stage, not shown here.
    – LjL
    Dec 8, 2019 at 22:23

1 Answer 1

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sorry - no time to write, just posting a screenshot from Penny 2002:

enter image description here

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  • It's very useful, I bookmark this, but why dictionary gives "succus" and "jus", and not the same root word for both in this case?
    – Quidam
    Dec 9, 2019 at 9:47
  • @Quidam because the concept of genetic root does not include the possibility of convergence. Why are all linguists adamant about the fairy tale of the unconditioned sound change, even if they do not come from the same parents: convergence!
    – vectory
    Dec 9, 2019 at 15:30
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    @Quidam I'm afraid I don't understand your question.
    – Alex B.
    Dec 10, 2019 at 1:03
  • @Quidam because in the Spanish case, the root word is succus, and in the French case, it's jus. The snippet provided explains how the Spanish is derived, and shows it is not a unique case.
    – LjL
    Dec 10, 2019 at 3:52

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