[leish-l] Re: Leishmaniasis versus leishmaniosis

[jeffreyj at usp.br]

Quoting Jorge Alvar Ezquerra <jalvar at isciii.es>:

> The sufix -sis in Greek is used as -asis  if the word is feminine or -osis
> if the word is masculine. Leishmania is a feminine substantive (the vocal
> "a" is the most common end for feminine words in romanic languages, in Latin
> these words belong to the 1st declination, like "rosa -ae", Spa. "la rosa")
> derived from a proper noun Leishman (whos gender is not a questionable
> matter!), reason why the correct way is leishmaniasis; for the same reason,
> there are diseases ending as -osis because the origin is from a masculin
> word (2nd declination) and it doesn´t mean any contradiction as explained.
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Jorge Alvar
> 
>