# Linguistics and "the" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 27, 2003, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/linguistics-and-the/184835 "2003-06-27T20:20:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![quelquechose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/6f9a4e/32.png) [@quelquechose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/quelquechose)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2003, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/linguistics-and-the/184835/1 "2003-06-27T20:20:29Z")
French, Spanish, and Italian are all mainly derived from Latin. Latin doesn’t have any definite articles (as far as I know), yet all of these languages do. Spanish has el, la, los, and las; French has le, la, and les; Italian has il, la, i, le and some more. So, why do these languages have definite articles, and why are they all so similar? What about indefinite articles? ---
**Author:** ![Palo\_Verde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/65b543/32.png) [@Palo\_Verde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Palo_Verde)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2003, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/linguistics-and-the/184835/2 "2003-06-27T20:25:58Z")
Good question for the **General Questions** forum. P.S. They all have indefinite articles too. P.P.S. These languages all derive there definite articles from the Latin \*ille, illa, illud… \* ---
**Author:** ![quelquechose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/6f9a4e/32.png) [@quelquechose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/quelquechose)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2003, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/linguistics-and-the/184835/3 "2003-06-27T20:27:49Z")
Sorry, this was supposed to be in General Questions…Could a mod please move it? ---
**Author:** ![TWDuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e495f1/32.png) [@TWDuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TWDuke)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2003, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/linguistics-and-the/184835/4 "2003-06-27T20:48:11Z")
I don’t doubt you’re correct, **autz** , but you raise some more questions. _Illa agricola_ would usually translate as “that farmer”, not “the farmer”, and “the farmer” would become simply _agricola_ in classical Latin. “That” becomes _ese_ in Spanish and _ce_ in French. So when did a demonstrative pronoun become a definite article and where did the new demonstrative pronouns come from? ---
**Author:** ![quelquechose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/6f9a4e/32.png) [@quelquechose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/quelquechose)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2003, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/linguistics-and-the/184835/5 "2003-06-27T21:06:41Z")
> [@](#): > > “That” becomes ese in Spanish and ce in French. So when did a demonstrative pronoun become a definite article and where did the new demonstrative pronouns come from? And on a related note: Why are French demonstrative pronouns so different from Spanish, not only in spelling/pronounciation but usage as well? ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2003, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/linguistics-and-the/184835/6 "2003-06-27T21:16:16Z")
**Moderator’s Note:** Moving from Great Debates to General Questions. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2003, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/linguistics-and-the/184835/7 "2003-06-27T21:47:02Z")
Demonstrative pronouns have a way of turning into definite articles in various language families. Latin _ille_ \> Italian _il_, French _le_, etc. English _the_ comes from a Germanic demonstrative pronoun. Old English _se_, originally meaning ‘that’, crossed with the _th_- from the oblique form _that_, is the ancestor of Modern English _the_. Old English _se_ came from the Proto-Indo-European demonstrative nominative case pronoun \*so- ‘this, that’, which also produced the Greek article _ho_ and the Latin demonstrative _sic_. The Proto-Indo-European demonstrative pronoun \*to- was used for oblique cases; the Old English instrumental case of _se_ was _the_ ‘by the’. The _ha-_ in Arabic _hâdhâ_ ‘this’ and Hebrew _ha-zeh_ ‘this’ is from the Proto-Semitic source of Hebrew _ha_ ‘the’. The Arabic article _al-_ is likewise derived from a Proto-Semitic pronoun form. The Hungarian definite article _a_ is a shortened form of _az_ ‘that’; which is obvious since the article reverts to its long form _az_ before a word beginning with a vowel. In all these examples, the definite article grows out of a specialized usage of a demonstrative pronoun. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2003, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/linguistics-and-the/184835/8 "2003-06-27T22:11:20Z")
That it happened is not in doubt, but the question was why. Certainly some languages do not have articles (e.g. Russian) and others do. The only conclusion is that they are not absolutely necessary but are sufficiently useful that people tend to create them. And I guess demonstrative pronouns are already close in meaning. Incidentally, the articles in French at least, is not the same as the English since the French definite article is often used where we would use the indefinite article or a plural. When the province of Quebec attempts to produce English translations, the worst mistakes are in the use of articles. (“_The_ student _will_ register…”.)