Sunday, November 25, 2018

Eng. -age ~ Sp. -aje, Part 18: Spanish words in -aje (c)

[This entry is an excerpt from Chapter 18, "Eng. language and Sp. lenguaje: words ending in Eng. -age and Sp. -aje", of Part II of the open-source textbook Spanish-English Cognates: An Unconventional Introduction to Spanish Linguistics.]

[GO TO THE LISTING OF ALL THE PARTS OF THIS CHAPTER]


andamiaje (1925) ‘scaffolding; staging’: this is native Spanish word derived in the 20th century from andamio (attested as early as the 13th century). Spanish andamio, often used in the plural, andamios, today means primarily ‘scaffold’ or ‘scaffolding’, that is, ‘a structure built next to a wall, for workers to stand on while they build, repair, or paint a building’ (DOCE).[1] The derived word andamiaje is common today instead of andamios to refer to a whole system of interconnected structures used for this purpose.

Originally, the word andamio meant ‘platform, stage’ (1295). It is of uncertain origin, and only shared with Portuguese. It first appeared in a dictionary in Nebrija’s dictionary of 1495. There is little doubt, however, that the word andamio is ultimately related to Sp. andar ‘to walk’, though the nature of the derivation is a mystery. Corominas mentions that there are two more cases of a suffix-like ending ‑amio in Spanish, which he thinks could be of Celtic origin.[2]


aprendizaje (1832) ‘the act of learning’, ‘apprenticeship’, ‘training period’ (aprend-iz-aje). This word would seem to be derived from the noun aprendiz ‘apprentice; (fig.) beginner’, which is what dictionaries tell us. It is not likely that this word would exist in Spanish if it wasn’t because French has a very similar word apprentissage that means ‘apprenticeship’, ‘training’, and ‘learning’, just like its Spanish counterpart and cognate. Fr. apprentissage is first attested in 1395, whereas Sp. aprendizaje does not appear in the DRAE until 1832 (though it does appear in another Spanish dictionary in 1786).

Sp. aprendiz is a 14th century loanword from 12th century Old French word aprentis ‘apprentice’ (later apprentif, Modern French apprenti, fem. apprentice). This is the source of Eng. apprentice as well as of Old Sp. aprentiz, both borrowed in the 14th century. Later, Spanish aprentiz was changed to aprendiz presumably under the influence of the verb aprender ‘to learn’, which has a d in the stem, not a t. French apprenti(s) presumably comes ultimately from Vulgar Lat. apprenditīcĭum, derived from the stem apprendit‑ of *apprenditus, a regularized past participle of Vulgar Lat. apprendĕre ‘to learn’, derived from Lat. apprehendĕre ‘to seize, to take, or lay hold of, to apprehend’ (original passive participle: apprehēnsus; cf. learned Eng. apprehend, adj. apprehensive).

As we saw, in the late 14th century, French developed the noun apprentissage from the noun apprentis, and around 1800, more than 300 years later, Fr. apprentissage was calqued into Spanish as aprendizaje under the influence of Sp. aprendiz ‘apprentice; (fig.) beginner’.

The relation of aprendiz and aprendizaje to the patrimonial Spanish verb aprender ‘to learn’ is obvious to any speaker of Spanish, since they seem to share the root aprend‑, but the nature of the derivation is not regular or obvious, since ‑iz‑ is not a noun-forming suffix, but rather a verb-forming one (e.g. carbonizar ‘to carbonize’). But the words aprendiz and aprendizaje came through French and they never had this Spanish ‑iz‑ suffix. The word aprender, on the other hand, is a patrimonial one.



[1] The English word scaffold is a loan from an unattested Norman French word that is cognate with Central Old French schaffaut or eschaffaut, ultimately from Vulgar Latin *catafalicum, of uncertain origin, though perhaps from Greek. Eng. scaffold meant at one time ‘a raised platform or stand’, including ‘an elevated platform on which a criminal is executed’. Vulgar Latin *catafalicum gave us Sp. cadafalso, through Occitan cadafalcs (cf. Old Catalan cadafal), which later became cadahalso and, eventually, cadalso, which meant originally ‘platform or stage for solemn events’ and, mostly in recent times, ‘platform erected to execute those condemned to death penalty’, one of the meanings that Eng. scaffold had in the past.

[2] The two words are (1) the rare aramio ‘land left unsown after plowing’ (= tierra labrantía), derived from arar ‘to plow’; and (2) the even rarer paramio ‘protected land’ (Sp. ‘tierra privilegiada, protegida’), derived from parar, from Lat. parāre ‘to prepare’. Sp. paramio is not in the DLE or any other major Spanish dictionary, though it is the name of several parishes in Northern Spain and Portugal.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Words about sex and gender, part 12: Eng. feminine ~ Sp. femenino/a

 [This entry is taken from a chapter of Part II of the open-source textbook  Spanish-English Cognates: An Unconventional Introduction to Spa...