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Sp. lengua vs. Sp. idioma—and Eng. idiom
As we saw in the preceding section, the word idioma in Spanish is synonymous with one
of the meanings of the word lengua. However,
as is typically the case with synonyms, the two are not typically used in all the
same contexts or with exactly the same connotations. The word idioma is used in a context in which a particular
language is contrasted with other languages, in particular in the context of ‘foreign
languages’. Thus, for instance, in school one studies lengua española (or castellana)
‘Spanish language’, not idioma español
(or castellano), but one studies idiomas extranjeros ‘foreign languages’
(not typically called lenguas extranjeras),
sometimes in a escuela de idiomas
‘language school’ (not usually called escuela
de lenguas).
The Spanish word idioma
is a cognate—and false friend—of the English word idiom, which means ‘a phrase the meaning
of which cannot be fully predicted from the meaning of the words that compose
it’, e.g. (cf. Part I, Chapter 4,
§4.12).
These words come from the Late Latin third declension neuter noun ĭdĭōma. (The nominative and accusative
case wordforms were the same, ĭdĭōma;
the genitive was ĭdĭōmatis, and so the
full regular stem from which other words were derived was ĭdĭōmat‑, see below). In Classical Latin, this word meant ‘style or
peculiarity of language’, ‘special term or phrase used by an individual or
group’ (OED). In Late Latin, however, around the 7th century, this word came to
mean ‘language’ too, the meaning the word has in Spanish, and it later acquired
other meanings in Medieval Latin as well.
This Latin word was a loanword from Greek ἰδίωμα (idíōma) ‘peculiarity, specific
property, unique feature, peculiarity of style, peculiar phraseology’. This noun
was derived from the root ἰδῐ‑
(idi‑) of the adjective ἴδιος
(ídios) ‘one’s own, personal, private (not public), peculiar, separate,
distinct’ plus the noun suffix -μᾰ (‑ma; genitive ‑μᾰτος, regular stem ‑μᾰτ‑ ‑mat‑), which was used to form neuter nouns from roots. (In
between these two morphemes comes the linking vowel ‑o‑, cf. Part I, Chapter 8,
§8.5.1.2.).[1]
English idiom [ˈɪ.ɾɪ.əm] may have been borrowed at
different times from both Latin idioma
and from French idiome. The word was
borrowed into French from either Greek or Latin around 1534 with the meaning of
‘speech distinctive to a people or country’. A few decades later, the word
appears in English with that same meaning. Eventually, however, in the 17th
century, the English word idiom came
to be used with one of the meanings the original word had in Ancient Greek, something
like ‘peculiar phraseology’, which is similar to the meaning the word has
today, namely ‘a group of words established by usage as having a meaning not
deducible from those of the individual words’ (COED). Spanish idioma first appears in Cervantes’ Quixote in 1605, where it already had the
sense of ‘a nation’s own language’, the main meaning it has today. Considering
that French had borrowed the word almost a century earlier, there is little
doubt that the word came into Spanish through French, not directly from Latin
or Greek.
What we just saw explains how the cognates Eng. idiom ~ Sp. idioma (and Fr. idiome) came
to have the different meanings they have today. In particular, the main meaning
of Eng. idiom is related to one of the meanings the original Greek word had
(‘peculiar phraseology’), whereas the main meaning of Sp. idioma (and Fr. idiome)
is one that developed in Late Latin, namely (‘language peculiar to a people’).
The French and Spanish words have the same meaning (they are
‘true friends’), which is different from that of the English word idiom (they are ‘false friends’). The
meaning ‘idiom’ is expressed in Spanish with a number of different expressions,
such as modismo, giro (idiomático), expresión
idiomática, and even idiotismo. The
latter term is a rather technical and rare one, a loanword from Fr. idiotisme, which borrowed it from Lat. ĭdĭōtismus
‘the common or vulgar manner of speaking’ (L&S), a loanword from Greek ἰδιωτισμός (idiōtismós) that meant ‘way
or fashion of a common person’ or, when referring to speech, ‘vulgar phrase’.
English also has the word idiotism,
which means ‘idiotic conduct or action’ or ‘idiocy’ (RHWU). The word is rare,
however, and many dictionaries do not even carry it. The English word idiotism has been used before with the
meaning ‘idiom’ too, like its French and Spanish cognates, but that sense is
now obsolete. By the way, Sp. idiotismo
has also been used in the past with the meaning ‘idiotic conduct or action’,
but that meaning is expressed in Modern Spanish with the word idiotez ‘words or deeds proper of an
idiot’ (DLE) since at least the time of Cervantes (who used it in 1613).
We should mention that Eng. idiom has other meanings besides the main one of expression ‘cannot
be understood from the individual meanings of its elements’ (AHD). Some
dictionaries even mention a meaning that is very similar to the one the French
and Spanish cognates of this word have, cf. ‘the language proper or peculiar to
a people or to a district, community, or class’ (WNTIU), which can refer to a
language or a dialect, as in the working-class
idiom (Sp. el lenguaje de la clase
trabajadora) or the local idiom (Sp.
el habla del lugar). As we can see,
this sense of Eng. idiom does not
translate into Spanish as idioma or lengua but rather as lenguaje or habla ‘speech’. Another meaning of Eng. idiom that most dictionaries mention is ‘the style of writing,
music, art, etc. that is typical of a particular person, group, period or place’
(OALD), as in neo-Impressionist idiom
or the idiom of Bach. (Actually, most
dictionaries only mention music and art, not writing.) This sense is rather
technical and not known to most English speakers and it translates into Spanish
as lenguaje or estilo.
Before we leave the idiom
~ idioma cognates, we should mention
that Greek had an adjective derived from it, which also made it into Latin and
into the modern languages. The adjective was ĭdĭōmatĭcus in Latin and ἰδιωματικός (idiōmatikós) in Ancient
Greek (ĭdĭ‑ō‑mat‑ĭc‑us).
Remember that the regular root of this word, from which other words were
derived, was ĭdĭōmat‑ in Latin and ἰδιωματ‑
(idiōmat‑) in Greek. The derivational suffix here is Lat. ‑ic‑ or Greek ‑ικ‑ (‑ik‑), which derived adjectives
from nouns. These suffixes were cognates, since they are both derived from Proto-Indo-European
*-ik‑ or *‑iḱ‑, which was formed from the i-stem
suffix *‑i‑ and the adjectival suffix
*‑ko‑. From this word we get the cognates
Eng. idiomatic [ˌɪ.ɾɪ.ə.ˈmæ.ɾɪk] ~
Sp. idiomático/a [i.ði̯o.ˈma.ti.ko] (and
Fr. idiomatique). Both of these words
are used in the equivalent phrases Eng. idiomatic
expression ~ Sp. expresión idiomática,
which basically mean ‘idiom’. English idiomatic
is also used with the meaning ‘containing expressions that are natural to a
native speaker of a language’, as in She
speaks fluent and idiomatic English (OALD). This typically refers to
language that contains idiomatic expressions, which are often lacking from the
language of non-native speakers. This aspect of the meaning of the word is
contained in the OED’s definition of this sense, which is ‘adhering to the
manner of expression considered natural to or distinctive of a language; typically using idioms’. There is no simple
way to translate this sense of the word idiomatic
into Spanish and one must use expressions such as que no suena a extranjero ‘that does not sound like a foreigner’ or
que contiene giros idiomáticos, for
example, depending on the context. Most English-Spanish dictionaries, however,
do not explain this use of the word idiomatic
and insist that the equivalent of Eng. idiomatic
is Sp. idiomático.
Go to part 3
Go to part 3
[1] The adjective ἴδιος (ídios) (feminine ῐ̓δῐ́ᾱ, neuter ῐ̓́δῐον) has been reconstructed
as being derived from the word ἕ (hé) ‘him’, the accusative case of οὗ (hoû);
(2) the connecting consonant ‑δ‑ (‑d‑);
(3) the adjectival suffix ‑ι‑ (‑i‑);
plus (4) the first-second declension adjectival inflections ‑ος (‑os), ‑ᾱ (‑a), ‑ον (‑on)
(masculine, feminine, and neuter, respectively). The root ἕ (hé)
goes back to the Proto-Indo-European root *s(w)e-
‘separate, apart’, related to the reflexive words Sp. se, su, and Eng. self.
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