Talk:List of Spanish words of Basque origin

Inclusion criteria etc.

• These words are grouped by the source language, even though many of

them entered Spanish from an intermediary (example: albergue is ultimately from Germanic, but entered Spanish by way of [[Provençal language|Old Provencal]]). Names of ancient tribes, names of languages, and words denoting a person's ethnic group or nationality are included. Words not included, among others, are personal names, place names, names of mountains, rivers, cities, etc. as the list would become too expansive and there are other lists which can cover these lexical items. Many of these words have related forms (estampar and estampada) which are not included here unless, for various reasons, their relationship to each other is not obvious. Many of these words also contain Latinate affixes (example: in "alcantarilla," -illa is a [[dimunutive suffix]]) and components but have at least one component from another language (example: béisbol). Latin contained many words of [[Ancient Greek]] by the the time the Romans became involved in Iberia and those words are not included here except when 1. they were introduced to Spanish through a language other than Latin (example: albaricoque is from Ancient Greek but enter Spansih through Arabic) or 2. the word is attested in Greek, but is thought to stem from some other language (example: celta). Words which derived from attested Latin words are only included when 1. The Latin word is known to derive from another language except Ancient Greek (example: barca) 2. The Latin word is thought to have dervied from another language (example: batir). The Greek and Latin words will be grouped under "uncertain derivation." Some of the words grouped under "uncertain derivation" are documented, but are examples of onomatopoeic creations which can't be definitively attributed to a particular region or timeframe.--Hraefen 15:39, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Other theories

• There are often competing theories for word origins. If you know of

a competing theory, feel free to add information about this alternate theory after the word and add your reference to the list of references, but do not remove this word from this list because it is sourced. Rather, follow the procedure stated above, and then add the word to "List of Spanish words of X origin." (along with reference)--Hraefen 15:39, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Defintions, subdivision, etc.

• Definitions are currently not given, but they will be. Some of these

words may need to be subdivided into languages within a language family. I will be doing both of these tasks as soon as I can get to it.--Hraefen 15:39, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

conejo

• Surely conejo comes from latin cuniculus? (usgned comment by 212.201.79.65 Jul 1, 2006)
• Cuniculus would be the diminutive of Latin cunus "wedge," right? I don't see how that would come to mean "rabbit," but weirder things have happened. I'll look in the "Breve diccionario" and get back to ya.--Hraefen 23:18, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

• • Conejo does indeed come from Latin cuniculus; however, the Latin word was itself a borrowing, as Latin texts attest to, from Iberian (a.k.a. proto-Basque or a related language). The rabbit's natural habitat and distribution seem to have originally been restricted in part to the Iberian peninsula. The name, Spain, is considered to have originated in Phoenician, as a name meaning "land of the hyraxes," as the hyrax is a similar-looking animal. In any case, you can find this etymology in Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged. --Flibjib8 16:33, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

A more modern (and more credible) hypothesis suggest that "cuniculus" is a Celtic (Iberian Celtic) word, from cun "dog", meaning "little dog" (see Ballester and Quinn CUNICULUS ‘RABBIT’ — A CELTIC ETYMOLOGY with parallels for the meaning. Dumu Eduba (talk) 20:24, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Surnames

Should surnames be erased from the list? Bolivar, Garcia, and Jimenez are surnames. --Chokolandivar 06:47, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

You're probably right, feel free to remove them, as they are not actually words. Mariano(t/c) 10:09, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion: split list into three major sections

Hi all,
It would seem to me that the current list contains an admixture of:

• Fair dinkum Spanish loan-words from Basque;
• Spanish words that might come from Basque; and,
• Spanish words that someone has put a case forward, however tenuous, for coming from Basque.

The current lead section reads

This is a list of Spanish words which are supposed to be of Basque, Iberian origin, or coming from some other pre-roman language in the Iberian Peninsula.

Moving the article to, say, List of Spanish words supposed to be of Basque/Iberian origin would appear to me to defeat the purpose of list.
Your thoughts on this matter?
--Shirt58 (talk) 12:08, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
ps: despite article title, Iberian language considerations would appear to be of negligible significance in this matter.

Rather than Basque / Iberian, it should be called Basque / pre-roman. --Jotamar (talk) 23:41, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Very good point. But then again, there were other Paleohispanic languages before Latin arrived in the Iberian Peninsula, including Celtic languages. Taking all that into account, the article should be [[List of Spanish words supposed to be of Basque/pre-Roman (explicitly excluding Iberian, Tartessian, or anything remotely - yes, Lusitanian and Celtiberian, I *am* talking about you - Indo-European, but including the theorised Finno-Ugric and/or proto-Basque substrate of the Germanic languages) origin]]. Umm. Or to put it another way, I think the article needs clean-up and better references for verification. --Shirt58 (talk) 11:07, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

One problem is that Basque loanwords are mostly Medieval to contemporary, as Basque and Castillian were in contact in the first times of Castillian/Spanish, and then, after the XIXth century, mostly by some neolgisms. Albeit it is not very logical to mix pre-roman substratum with Medieval adstratum, maybe the page could be named as suggested by Jotamar (though rather Basque and pre-roman than Basque/pre-roman, as Basque is rather an adstratum).

But why to exclude Iberian, Tartessian, Celtiberian, Lusitanian and so? Any word of alleged (but unknown) pre-roman origin may come from one of these languages (for example, the phonetics of "paramo" could be explained as Lusitanian, whereas "cuniculus" ("conejo") has been explained as Celtic, as could also "cerveza".

As for the references, many sources are outdated or especulative, but this is a problem we have to live with (since the usual is to explain any word of unknwn origin as pre-roman substratum. Dumu Eduba (talk) 20:58, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that here someone put words originated frompre-roman words together with words of modern (that is, post-Roman) Basque origin. Some are simple guesses, as "perro" of unknown origin and hence suggested pre-roman. Others are from Indo-European origin (Indo-European pre-roman languages of the Iberian Peninsula) such as "Paramo" and probably "conejo", from languages families not related with Basque neither with the Iberian language. If the title were changed to "List of Spanish words of pre-roman origin" then there is no place for Basque. So the article should be splited (there are BAsque, unknown pre-roman, Celtic pre-roman, Indo-European non Celtic pre-roman, alleged for unexplained pre-roman origin.Dumu Eduba (talk) 20:30, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

I have seen that there is an article on [List of Spanish words of Celtic origin] that deals a similar subject to this one, as this includes not only Basque words and alleged Iberian words, but also pre-roman words. There are two questions in this. The first is that there is no sure Iberian words (Iberian is an unknown language) and that many sources call Iberian not for [Iberian language] words, but for substratum words of the Iberian Peninsula. The second is that there are pre-roman words of probably Indo-European origin (but dubious as Celtic), and others only probably Celtic.

Another question to take into account is that some Celtic words in Spanish come (or may come) to it through Latin (that is to say, it is not an Iberian substratum, but for example Gaulish and from here to Latin and then to Spanish). It is not always clear if it came from Celtiberian or from Gaulish, though.

I think it is a good idea to keep here the Celtic substratum, especially since many times it is not clear whether it is Celtic or only Indo-European, but the article could be re-structured.

For example: 1) one section for ancient Spanish words of clear Basque origin (especially those previous to the XVI century). Not words that look like Basque, but with a reasonable parallel. 2) another section for modern Basque loanwords (especially proper for the Basque neologism of the XIX-XX century as abertzale or ertzaintza). 3) another section for the rest of the pre-roman material with a comment on its possible explanations (akin to Basque, possibly Indo-European, possibly Celtic, etc. a good example could be "páramo" or "conejo" while terms as "cerveza" are more problematic as seem to come to Spanish through Latin, not as a substratum and look better in the other article). Any comments? Dumu Eduba (talk) 10:00, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Some notes to changes

• on 'vega'; 'ibaiko' is an invented non existent Basque word (see Trask The histoy of Basque" 420). Of course river in Basque is "ibai" not **"bai".
• 'zarza' I could not corroborate Basque form sartzia (?) according to Trak the comparison is with sasi' from early Basque Çarzi" (=zarzi).

Dumu Eduba (talk) 16:18, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

I quote here some words of pre-roman Celtic origin but sure or probably came to Spanish through Latin from Gaulish instead of from some Iberian Celtic language: "braga", "camino", "carro", "cerveza", and "legua"; maybe: "cambiar" and "estanque" (?). From Celtic, but through Italian: "embajada" (from "ambactus"). Dumu Eduba (talk) 10:19, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

I put out "bayoneta" as according to Corominas (BDELC) comes from French in XVI (and the French word from the city of Bayonne. Even if this is a Basque name of place seems dubious. Of course it can be put back if someone consider it to be a valid Basque loanword. The same on "*bacalao "cod" (< Ned bakeljauw, cf. Basque bakailao)", because according to Corominas was first attested in Flandres in XIIth century (as "cabellauwus" in Latin), so it seems a foreign loanword in Basque. Corominas does not claim that it entered in Castillian through Basque. The Basque etimology of "Becerro" needs a source. It is very dubious for its meaning: bei is a female and zekor a young male, the compound looks very odd. Dumu Eduba (talk) 10:49, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Note on revisanda terms: "cachorro" (DRAE <catulus but very odd evolution); "chiquito" (DRAE <"chico" < lat. ciccum but Basque "txiki"); "garrapata" (DRAE <"caparra" < lat. *crabrus, looks odd).Dumu Eduba (talk) 16:17, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Delete the demonyms?

I see in the list the words "vasco" and "vizcaíno", and I beleive they should be deleted. There are many pre-roman demonyms, but their place should be in toponimy (so demonyms as "Ibérico", "gallego", "cántabro", "cordobés", etc. has the same rights to be included, but do not sem a good idea). Even there is a pre-roman demonym which is a despective adjective "capetovetónico", which perhaps should be included. Even if the idea is to include only the Basque demonyms (also a dubious idea), then there is no place for "vasco" as it is not a Basque word, but an exonym. Dumu Eduba (talk) 14:55, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Another source

I am adding material from this (good) source, after checking data in more orthodox sources. Dumu Eduba (talk) 15:38, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on List of Spanish words of Basque origin. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110607202936/http://www.sussex.ac.uk/linguistics/documents/lxwp23-08_edb.pdf to http://www.sussex.ac.uk/linguistics/documents/lxwp23-08_edb.pdf

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 12:40, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on List of Spanish words of Basque origin. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110722060507/http://clt.unical.it/Doc_Varie/Letture/TrumperMalattiesuine.pdf to http://clt.unical.it/Doc_Varie/Letture/TrumperMalattiesuine.pdf

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 11:40, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

farra

farra "loud party" (also Catalan parranda) (cf. Basque farra, farre ~ parra, parre "laugh") (BDELC). "Uncertain, possibly from Portuguese farra (“party”), which could ultimately be from dialectal Arabic فَرْحَة‎ (farḥa, “joy", dialectally "party”)." Portuguese farra: "Uncertain origin. Possible origins include: from dialectal Arabic فَرْحَة‎ (farḥa); from Latin pānis farreus (“spelt bread”); from fanfarra (“fanfare”). https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/farra --Manfariel (talk) 02:30, 24 September 2019 (UTC)