[This entry is an excerpt from the chapter "Spices, herbs, and other condiments" of Part II of the open-source textbook Spanish-English Cognates: An Unconventional Introduction to Spanish Linguistics.]
Go to the listing of entries on spices, herbs and other condiments
Go to the listing of entries on spices, herbs and other condiments
Eng. caper and Sp. alcaparra
Caper is the name
of ‘a cooked and pickled flower bud of a bramble-like southern European shrub, used
in pickles and sauces’, as well as of ‘the shrub from which capers are taken’ (COED). The plant, which is native to
the Mediterranean region, is also known as caper
bush or Flinders rose. Its
botanical name is Capparis spinosa, a
member of the Capparaceae family, whose taxonomic status is controversial.[1]
Both the plant’s flower buds—the
capers—and the plant’s
fruit—the caper berries—are consumed, both typically pickled
in a salt or salt and vinegar solution. The flower buds are used as seasoning
or garnish.
The English word caper
[ˈkʰeɪ̯.pəɹ] comes from Latin
cappăris (the genitive
is also cappăris), which
was the name of both the caper bush and its fruit, the caper. As we can see,
this Latin word has given the name to the genus Capparis in botanical New
Latin. This Latin word was a loanword from Ancient Greek κάππαρις (kápparis). The word came into English around
the turn of the 15th century, presumably from Latin. The French equivalent is câpre (originally caspres), which is supposedly a late 15th century loanword from
Italian cappero.
Figure 168: Fruit and seed of ripe Capparis
spinosa[ii]
The Spanish name for the caper berry and the caper bush is alcaparra
[al.ka.ˈpa.ra]. This word is obviously related to Lat. capparis, but it came into Spanish with Arabic as the intermediary,
since it comes from Andalusian Arabic الكبر
(alkappárra), as can be seen by the tell-tale initial al‑ found in many words of Arabic origin in Spanish. The word for
‘caper’ in modern-day Arabic (without the article) is an obviously related word,
which comes in several variants, such as كَبَر
(kabar), كَبَّار (kabbār), and قَبَّار (qabbār). It is not clear where
Arabic got the word from. It is possible that Arabic too got it from Greek or,
more likely, that both Arabic and Greek got it from some other language in the
eastern Mediterranean region in ancient times.
Capers are typical of Italian cuisine, in particular
southern Italian and Sicilian cuisine. They are used in salads, pasta salads,
meat dishes, and pasta sauces (Wp). Capers are also often used in tartar sauce
(spelled tartare sauce in the UK),
which is ‘a thick cold white sauce made from mayonnaise, chopped onions and capers,
usually eaten with fish’ (OALD). Not all versions of tartar sauce have capers
or the same ingredients for that matter, however, but in the United States,
tartar sauce typically has ‘chopped pickles or prepared green sweet relish,
capers, onions (or chives), and fresh parsley’, as well as hard-boiled eggs and
olives (Wp). This sauce was named in France in the 19th century after the
Tatars (Sp. tártaros), a Turkic
people living today mostly in Tatarstan, a republic of the Russian Federation. English
got the name of the sauce from French sauce
tartare, since the sauce is said to have originated in France, though its
antecedents are not known. The name for this type of sauce is attested only
since the 19th century (mayonnaise itself was not invented until the 18th
century.) However, there doesn’t seem to be any connection between the sauce
and the Tatar people and thus, the name of this sauce is a misnomer. The name probably
came about because this sauce often accompanies deep-fried breaded dishes of
the type common in Eastern Europe and because it was common in Europe at the
time to confuse the Tartar people with the Huns, who invaded Europe in the 4th
and 5th centuries from the east and who supposedly left behind some influence on
Eastern European cuisine.
As in the case of bay
(see above), there is more than one word caper
in English that are unrelated and, thus, homonyms. Besides the caper we just saw that names the
condiment, there is a second noun caper
means ‘a playful leap or hop’ or ‘a frivolous escapade or prank’ (AHD). The OED
defines its main meaning as ‘a frolicsome leap, like that of a playful kid; a
frisky movement, esp. in dancing; said also of horses; fig. a fantastic
proceeding or freak’. There is also a derived homonymous verb to caper that means ‘to skip or dance
about in a lively or playful way’ (COED). The noun caper also has an additional
slang meaning in English, namely ‘An illegal plot or enterprise, especially one
involving theft’ (AHD). These are not everyday words, but they have an
interesting story.
This second noun caper
started as an abbreviation of the noun capriole,
a word used in the art of horsemanship and horseback riding (Sp. equitación) for ‘a movement performed in
classical riding, in which the horse leaps from the ground and kicks out with
its hind legs’ (COED). This word is a late 16th century loanword from French capriole (now obsolete). French itself
had borrowed this word a little bit earlier from Italian capriola ‘leap, somersault’, a word derived from capriolo ‘roebuck, wild goat’, a
descendant from Lat. capreolus, diminutive
of Lat. caper ‘billy goat, he-goat’
(genitive: caprī; cf. Lat. capra ‘she-goat’ and Sp. cabra ‘goat’).
Spanish also borrowed this Italian word, as cabriola, changing the Italian p to b
by influence of the word cabra ‘goat’.
In French too, the word capriole later
changed to cabriole presumably under
the influence of cabri ‘kid, young
goat’ (cf. Sp. cabrito/a). French cabriole now means primarily ‘leap,
prancing (of an animal), cavorting, (acrobatic) somersault’. It also has the
meaning of Eng. capriole in
equitation and, in ballet, it means ‘a jump in which one leg is extended into
the air, the other is brought up to meet it, and the dancer lands on the second
foot’ (COED). English has borrowed the word cabriole
from French with just that last meaning.
Most dictionaries only give us these two nouns caper. The
OED, however, mentions a few more that are now obsolete. There was a word caper
in English that meant ‘a privateer (also caper-vessel); the captain of a
privateer; a corsair’ and, secondarily, ‘a captor, seizer’. From this noun, a
verb to caper, meaning ‘to
privateer’, was derived, now also obsolete. Then there is another noun caper, also spelled kaper, used in Scottish English that means ‘a piece of oatcake and
butter with a slice of cheese on it’. It is a loanword from Gaelic ceapaire ‘piece of bread and butter’. In
addition, the OED also mentions two other, even rarer words caper in English.
[1] Some think that there
are several species of the genus Capparis, some think that there is one species
with several subspecies, and some still think that plant is a hybrid of Capparis
orientalis and Capparis sicula.
[i] Source: “კაპარი
Capparis spinosa Kapernstrauch” by Lazaregagnidze - Own work. Licensed under CC
BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%E1%83%99%E1%83%90%E1%83%9E%E1%83%90%E1%83%A0%E1%83%98_Capparis_spinosa_Kapernstrauch.JPG#/media/File:%E1%83%99%E1%83%90%E1%83%9E%E1%83%90%E1%83%A0%E1%83%98_Capparis_spinosa_Kapernstrauch.JPG
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