Appendix:Italian terms inherited from Latin

In Italian, more than perhaps any other Romance language, it can be difficult to distinguish inherited vocabulary from words that were later borrowed from Latin due to its conservative phonology.

If you are not certain whether a given word was inherited from Latin or borrowed, then please avoid adding using either or  and use  instead.

Several characteristics of Latin borrowings are identified below.

Retention of /i/ in unstressed /tiV/ sequences
In Latinisms, the /i/ survives in such sequences as /j/.

Retention of /rj/ in unstressed /riV/ sequences
In native (Tuscan) vocabulary, /r/ is regularly lost in this environment, while in words borrowed from other languages of Italy, it is rather the /j/ that is lost. In any case, the sequence /rj/, with both elements intact, is the sure sign of a Latinism.

Retention of intervocalic /b/
Virtually every Italian word that retains a single Latin /b/ between vowels is a borrowing.

Retention of /n l/ followed by unstressed /i/ or /e/ and another vowel
In native vocabulary, /n/ and /l/ usually palatalize in this environment. That is not the case for Latinisms in Standard Italian.

Retention of /d/ followed by unstressed /i/ or /e/ and another vowel
In inherited words, /d/ palatalizes and affricates in this environment.

Retention of /l/ after a consonant
In inherited words, /l/ consistently palatalizes to /j/ in this environment.

Retention of stressed /i u/
Borrowings consistently retain short Latin /i/ or /u/ in stressed position. In native vocabulary, the outcomes are usually /e/ and /o/. Caveat: native vocabulary may retain stressed /i u/ (or, more accurately, redevelop them) if followed by an original /nɡ/ or /nk/. Likewise if /i/ was followed by an /l/ that palatalized:

Retention of /e-/ before /ksC/
/e-/ was consistently eliminated in this environment in native vocabulary.

/ɛ ɔ/ for stressed Latin /ē ō/
Italian Ecclesiastical Latin has a five-vowel inventory with no distinction between short and long Latin vowels. Hence stressed Latin /e ē/ are both rendered as /ɛ/ in borrowings, while stressed Latin /o ō/ are both rendered as /ɔ/ (unless the word has a recognizable Italian ending with /o/, such as -ore or -one). Inherited vocabulary, on the other hand, shows a distinct outcome for each Latin mid-vowel, although this is not always reliable.

Semantics and usage
The more poetic, rare, or abstract a word is, the more likely it is to be a borrowing. No phonological criteria could tell one, for instance, whether the word radicale was inherited from Latin rādīcālem or borrowed, but it is clearly the latter, judging by the abstract nature of its meanings, all removed from mundane day-to-day life. That it is also effectively a modern Wanderwort reinforces that conclusion (cf. Finnish radikaali, Turkish radikal, Indonesian radikal).

For cases such as noverca (from Latin noverca), which has the unremarkable meaning of 'stepmother', one has to rely on non-semantic criteria. First, it is literary and rarely used in everyday speech. A search on Google serves to confirm this: mia noverca pulls up a mere 61 results, compared to 742,000 for mia matrigna. Next, as indicated in the FEW entry, the word was rare in medieval Italian as well, where it was limited to legal jargon or poetry. Third, a look at other Romance languages, per the same source, shows that only in Aromanian does noverca survive as a clearly inherited everyday word (nuearcã). On these grounds, Italian noverca is most likely a borrowing, and similar reasoning can be applied in other difficult cases.

Etymological dictionaries
Sapere and, somewhat less reliably, Treccani indicate latinisms with 'dal lat.' (examples: 1, 2).

For those who can read German, it is always worth looking up the French cognate of a given Italian word in the FEW (Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch) and checking the end of the entry for commentary on the latter.