Compañero and companion, Part 3

[This entry comes from Chapter 14, "Compañero & companion", of Part II of the open-source textbook Spanish-English Cognates: An Unconventional Introduction to Spanish Linguistics.]

Sp. acompañar, Eng. accompany, and related words

There are two cognate verbs derived from the stem of the words Sp. compañero and Eng. companion, namely Sp. acompañar and Eng. accompany. Their meanings are quite similar, but the two verbs differ somewhat as to the registers they are associated with, since the Spanish verb is a rather common word and the English one is rather fancy (cf. Part I, Chapter 2, §2.5).

The English verb accompany [ə.ˈkʌm.pə.ni] is an early 15th century loan from Middle French accompagner ‘to be in company with, etc.’, from an earlier Old French coinage acompaignier ‘to take as a companion’, derived from the noun compaignon and first attested in the 12th century (cf. Modern Fr. accompagner [a.kɔ̃.pa.ˈɲe]). In other words, French coined the verb out of the noun by using the prefix a‑ (derived from Latin ad‑ ‘to’) and the infinitival verbal ending -er. This is an exact analog of Sp. acompañar (a+compañ+ar), with the same meaning, also first attested in the 12th century, in the Cantar de Mío Cid (cf. Part I, §10.7).[1] Because of the early appearance of this verb in the various Romance languages, it is quite possible that this verb had its origins in Vulgar Latin or early Romance. The original meaning of this verb seems to have been ‘to take someone as companion, to associate with’.

The verb accompany has several senses (meanings). Dictionaries differ as to how many senses this verb has, but most agree on three, one of which has two subsenses. We follow here the definitions and examples in Merriam-Webster’s Advanced Learner's Dictionary.

1. ‘to go somewhere with someone’: this is a fancy way to say to go with or to come with, etc., e.g. She accompanied me to the store (cf. the less formal She walked me to the store)
2. [typically passive] (a) ‘to happen or occur at the same time as or along with (something)’, e.g. The thunderstorm was accompanied by high winds; (b) ‘to go together with or to be included with (something)’, e.g. A delicious sauce accompanied the grilled fish. 
3. ‘to play music with (someone who is singing or playing the main tune): to perform an accompaniment for (someone)’, e.g. He will be accompanying her on the piano. 

We can refer to these three senses of the word accompany as the ‘escort’ sense, the ‘supplement’ sense, and the ‘musical’ sense. The Spanish verb acompañar has all three senses as well. This doesn’t mean, however, that all cases in which one would use one of these verbs should be translated by expressions with its cognate in the other language. As we have already mentioned, there is a difference in register for these verbs, since the English verb accompany is more ‘formal’ than its Spanish cognate. Thus, for example, in Spanish, it is quite normal for someone to ask a friend something like ¿Me acompañas?, meaning ‘Will you come with me?’, whereas the literal English translation, Will you accompany me?, sounds much more formal.

Additionally, sometimes English has expressions with verbs other than accompany whose translation typically calls for Sp. acompañar, as in the following use of the ‘escort’ sense in Spanish:

• She saw/walked us to the door: Nos acompañó a la puerta

Furthermore, there are a number of idiomatic expressions with Sp. acompañar that do not usually translate into English with accompany. For example, the ‘supplement’ sense of Sp. acompañar is used in idiomatic expressions with subjects such as suerte ‘luck’ and buen tiempo ‘good weather’, e.g.

• Nos acompañó la suerte ‘We were lucky’ (lit. ‘Luck accompanied us’)
• Nos acompañó el buen tiempo ‘We enjoyed good weather’ (lit. ‘Good weather accompanied us’)

The ‘escort’ sense of Sp. acompañar can also be used metaphorically in a common idiomatic expression to give condolences (Sp. dar el pésame) in a way that its English cognate cannot be used:

• Te/lo/la acompaño en el sentimiento ‘Please, accept my condolences’

Finally, let us mention that this verb’s past participle, acompañado/a, can be used as an adjective as well, like most past participles. The following are some examples of this use:

• Estoy bien/mal acompañado ‘I am in good/bad company’
• Juan vino acompañado de sus hijos ‘Juan came together with his children’
• Este plato viene acompañado de guarnición ‘This dish comes with accompaniment/garnish’

There are also a couple of nouns derived from the verb acompañar in Spanish: acompañante, acompañamiento. The noun acompañante is formed with the agentive suffix ‑ante that comes from the accusative form ‑a‑nt‑em of the Latin first conjugation present active participle ending (nominative ‑āns). (The equivalent suffix for second and third conjugation Spanish verbs is ‑iente, e.g. ardiente ‘(adj.) burning’ < arder ‘to burn’; cf. Part I, §5.6.2.2, §8.4.3.3.3.3.) This was a regular inflection of Latin verbs, which derived present participles (adjectives) from verbs. In Spanish, this suffix is not a regular inflection but a derivational one that many but not all verbs have. It produces adjectives and nouns, such as hablante ‘(adj.) speaking’ and ‘(noun) speaker’ from hablar ‘to speak’. A verb that does not have this derivation is, for example, acusar ‘to accuse’, for the is no derived word *acusante in Spanish, whether as an adjective or as a noun.

The word acompañante can in theory be an adjective, or so dictionaries say, but it is actually almost always a noun, which translates as accompanying person or accompanying thing. The former can  be equivalent to the word companion in some cases, as in the phrase los acompañantes de Juan ‘Juan’s companions’. Note that this phrase is not equivalent to los compañeros de Juan, yet another way in which Sp. compañero and Eng. companion are different. The phrase los acompañantes de Juan refers to anybody who happens to be accompanying Juan at some point, whereas los compañeros de Juan refers to people who have a more permanent association with Juan, such as living together, studying together, working together, and so on.

The Spanish noun acompañante is also probably the best translation for Eng. chaperon.[2] Furthermore, this noun is also used for food or drink that is consumed alongside with other, more central foods in a meal, as in Este vino es un buen acompañante para esta carne ‘This wine goes well with this meat’. The noun acompañante is used in a number of collocations such as the following, with different degrees of idiomaticity:

• ir de acompañante: to chaperon
• sin acompañante (= no acompañado/a): unaccompanied
• viajar de acompañante: to ride shotgun
• servicio de acompañante: escort service

As we can see, one of these expressions, sin acompañante, is equivalent to the English adjective unaccompanied, the antonym (opposite) of the adjective accompanied, which is equivalent to the Spanish adjective acompañado/a, as in Eng. an unaccompanied minor, a phrase which can be translated as un menor de edad sin acompañante, un menor de edad no acompañado, or un menor de edad sin acompañar. Spanish uses these phrases since it does not have an antonym for the adjective acompañado like English has, one that was created in the 16th century using the Germanic negative prefix un‑.

In the music world, the word acompañante has a special meaning, namely ‘a person who provides a musical accompaniment’ (COED), which is related to the ‘musical’ sense of the verb accompany. English has a special word for such a person, one derived from the same root, namely accompanist. The English word was coined, in English, in the first half of the 19th century out of the verb to accompany and the agent suffix ‑ist. Because the nouns Eng. accompanist and Sp. acompañante are equivalent (in the music context) and contain the same stem, acompan‑, but different derivational endings, we say that the two words are paronyms (cf. Part I, Chapter 1, §1.3.3).

The second word derived from the verb acompañar is the noun acompañamiento, derived from the verb by means of the nominal suffix ‑miento that creates nouns from verbs with the sense of action or process and which comes from Late Latin ‑ment‑um that expressed instrument, medium, or result and is itself derived from the Latin plural suffix ‑ment‑a of collective nouns (cf. Part I, §5.6.2.2). The word acompañamiento is a cognate of Eng. accompaniment [ə.ˈkʰʌm.pə.ni.mənt] that was mentioned earlier, a late 17th century borrowing from Modern French accompagnement, which is first attested in the 12th century. As for the source of Spanish acompañamiento, we just know that it first appeared in a dictionary in 1495 (Nebrija) and, because the senses of this word match quite closely those of the French word, it is possible that the word or at least some of the senses were borrowed from French.

According to most English-Spanish and Spanish-English dictionaries, the main or only translation of Eng. accompaniment is Sp. acompañamiento, and vice versa, but this is obviously an oversimplification. There is some overlap between the meanings of these two cognate words, but the two are not perfect friends (cognates).  Below you can see the five senses of Sp. acompañamiento in María Moliner’s dictionary and the three senses of accompaniment according to Merriam-Webster's Advanced Learner's Dictionary.

acompañamiento	accompaniment
(rare) act of accompanying
(rare) person or people who accompany someone, especially in a solemn ceremony (Eng. retinue, escort)
(rare) actors in plays or movies that have minor roles
Notes that harmonically complement a melody	music played to support a person who is singing or playing a musical instrument
Side dishes for a main dish	(rare/formal) something that is added to another thing to make it better or more appealing, e.g. A nice tie was a fine accompaniment to his new suit; especially : something added to or served with food or a meal, e.g. This dish can be served as an accompaniment to most meat main dishes.
	(rare/formal) something that is done or that happens at the same time as something else , e.g. She made the announcement to the accompaniment of loud applause

As we can see, there is only one matching sense, the musical one, and another one that partially overlaps, though using acompañamiento for a side dish in Spanish is much more common than using accompaniment for the same thing in English, e.g. El pollo viene con papas fritas de acompañamiento ‘The chicken comes along with fries (?for accompaniment)’. Also, note that the word acompañante can substitute some of these senses of acompañamiento, including the ‘dish’ sense, meaning that the two words can be synonyms for some of the senses. Finally, we should note that the two non-musical meanings of the English word are somewhat rare and formal, as are the first three Spanish ones.

---

[1] The initial ‘morpheme’ a‑ in verbs such as acompañar does not seem to add any meaning to the derived word but is very commonly found in derived verbs, e.g. alargar ‘to lengthen’ < largo ‘long’, amueblar ‘to furnish’ < mueble ‘piece of furniture’, cf. Part I, Chapter 5, §5.6.1.1. Another such prefix found in derived verbs is en‑, e.g. engordar ‘to get fat’ < gordo/a ‘fat’.

[2] Other options are escolta, a cognate of Eng. escort, which implies protection; and carabina, which is colloquial and dialectal.  The term carabina is a cognate of Eng. carbine and both of these words, which date to the late 16th century, refer to ‘a short-barreled lightweight firearm originally used by cavalry’ (MWC).

Compañero and companion, Part 2

[This entry comes from Chapter 14, "Compañero & companion", of Part II of the open-source textbook Spanish-English Cognates: An Unconventional Introduction to Spanish Linguistics.]

This is Part 2. Go to Part 1

Eng. company & Sp. compañía

Eng. company and Sp. compañía are cognates and they are obviously related to the nouns Eng. companion and Sp. compañero, which are not exact cognates, but paronyms. Eng. company and Sp. compañía appear to derive from Late Latin *companĭa, though this word is not attested. This word would have been derived from the same stem compan‑ as companion, but with the derivational ending ‑ĭ‑a used in Classical Latin to form abstract nouns, typically but not exclusively, from adjective stems, words like absentia ‘absence’ (Sp. ausencia), audacia ‘audacity’ (Sp. audacia), and scientia ‘science’ (Sp. ciencia). This derivational suffix came primarily from Ancient Greek -ία (-ía) and -εια (-eia), though Latin ‑ĭ‑a was also the feminine form of ‑ĭ‑us, a derivational suffix that typically formed adjectives from nouns. This would indicate that the word originally meant something like ‘companionship’, a meaning that these words still have. Another possibility is that the ancestor of Eng. company and Sp. compañía was derived from the plural of companĭum, which was also companĭa (both in the nominative and the accusative).

One thing we know is that if the source of these words was Late Latin companĭa, the resulting word in Old Spanish would have been compaña, for that is how regular changes worked in patrimonial words. In other words, Lat. nĭ always became ñ in Old Spanish before a vowel (cf. Part I, Chapter 10, §10.4.6.4). And that is exactly what we find in Old Spanish. The word compaña is found in Old Spanish and it is used as late as in Cervantes’ El Quijote (1605, 1615) as an alternative to compañía, though compaña is now obsolete as a regular word, other than in some expressions in some dialects. The current word compañía is thus a semi-learned word (semicultismo), that is a refashioning of patrimonial (cultismo) compaña to make it look more like the original Latin word.

That the original word had the Latin ‑ia ending is obvious in the French version (cognate) of this word, which ends in ‑ie in the spelling, which is what happened to that Latin suffix in this language. The word is attested in Old French, in the 11th century, with various spellings, from cumpainie to compaignie. The word in Modern French is compagnie, pronounced [kɔ̃.pa.ˈɲi]. This French word was borrowed by English from Old French (Anglo-Norman), where it is attested with many different spellings, resulting in Modern English company [ˈkʰʌm.pə.ni].

Notice that the English reflex of the Latin ‑ia ending is traditionally spelled ‑y, as in infancy and pharmacy (cf. Sp. infancia and farmacia). As we said earlier, the ultimate origin of the noun-forming suffix ‑ia in Latin can be either Latin or Greek. It typically comes from either -i- or -ī- ‘formatives’ (part of a word), which would have been ‑ei‑ in Greek, plus the inflectional suffix -a. Latin ‑ia, with short ĭ, is equivalent of Ancient Greek -ία (‑ia). Latin ‑īa, with long ī, is equivalent of Greek -εια (‑eia). The Latin suffix ‑ia can also come from the feminine form of -ius, a singular or neuter plural noun or adjective ending.

In Spanish, the Latin suffix ‑ia (actually either ‑ia, or ‑īa) may turn up as either the two-syllable suffix ‑ía ([ˈi.a], with hiatus), as in the word librería ‘bookstore’, or else as the one-syllable suffix ‑ia ([i̯a], with diphthong), as in the wod farmacia ‘pharmacy’ in Spanish. The latter is mostly found in learned and New Latin words. (For more on these endings, see Part I, Chapter 8, §8.5.3.2.)

In English the result of the Latin suffix ‑ia is always ‑y, as in library and pharmacy, if it comes from French ‑ie, which is pronounced [i] in modern French, just like in English. Occasionally, this Latin suffix result in English words that end in ‑ia instead. These are learned words that come directly from Latin or that were created in New Latin from the Latin suffix. The Latin version ‑ia of the suffix—as opposed to the one found in words that came through French, namely ‑y—is found in words that come from New Latin words, such as names for diseases (Sp. & Eng. malaria, Sp. & Eng. anemia, Sp. neumonía ~ Eng. pneumonia, Sp. afasia ~ Eng. aphasia, Sp. & Eng. anorexia), botanical genera and zoological classes in New Latin scientific terminology (Sp. poinsetia ~ Eng. poinsettia, Eng. reptilia), collective names (Eng. regalia and memorabilia), and a few others (Sp. milicia ~ Eng. militia).

At some point, Spanish refashioned the word compaña, from Vulgar Latin compania, to look more like the original Latin word, which is why Spanish has the word compañía [kom.pa.ˈɲi.a], which has replaced the patrimonial compaña [kom.ˈpa.ɲa]. The semi-learned Sp. compañía is not that recent either. It is found already in the 13th century (Gonzalo de Berceo).

The Spanish word compañía and the English word company are very close friends, i.e. they are cognates that have very close meanings. The Concise Oxford English Dictionary (COED) gives us three major senses for the word company, all of which are found in the Spanish word compañía as well:

1.   ‘A commercial business’, as in oil company or car company (synonym: firm) [cf. Sp. compañía petrolífera, compañía automovilística]

2.   ‘The fact or condition of being with another or others’, as in She is excellent company or I am expecting company (synonym: companionship [kəm.ˈpʰæ.njən.ʃɪp], an abstract noun derived, in English, with the Germanic suffix ‑ship) [cf. Sp. Ella es excelente compañía, Vamos a tener compañía]

3.   ‘A group of people gathered together’, from ‘a body of soldiers’ (in the army, a company is a group within a battalion composed of several platoons) [cf. Sp. compañía militar] to ‘a group of actors, singers, or dancers who perform together’, as in a theater company [cf. Sp. compañía de teatro]

We should note that in British English, since one has a synonym that is sometimes preferred, namely the word firm, which presumably is a loanword from German, which itself borrowed it from Italian, Spanish or Portuguese firma ‘signature’, a noun derived from the Latin verb firmāre ‘to confirm’ and, in Late Latin, ‘to ratify by one’s signature’ (cf. Eng. affirm ~ Sp. afirmar).

The following are some common English and Spanish collocations that exemplify the semantic equivalence of the two cognate words, Eng. company and Sp. compañía. Do note that the other terms of these expressions are not always cognates, though sometimes they are.

• en compañía de amigos: in the company of friends
• hacerle compañía a alguien: to keep somebody company
• compañía de seguros: insurance company
• en buena compañía: in good company
• malas compañías: bad company
• compañía de teatro: theater company
• compañía de teléfonos: (tele)phone company
• compañía eléctrica: power company
• compañía naviera: shipping company
• compañía privada: private company
• compañía (suministradora) de agua: water company (also: water authority or water board)
• compañía de fusileros: rifle company

The cognates company and compañía, good friends as they are, are not perfect friends, however. Sometimes the word compañía is used in Spanish where English prefers other synonyms, especially in collocations and idiomatic phrases:

• compañía area: airline
• compañía de baile: dance troupe
• Compañía de Jesús: Society of Jesus (the official names of the Jesuits)
• beber en compañía: to drink socially
• servicio de compañía: escort service
• sin compañía: unaccompanied

Likewise, English idiomatic expressions that contain the word company do not always translate into Spanish with phrases that contain the word compañía, e.g.

• to part company (with somebody): separarse (de alguien); diferir (de alguien)
• to expect company: esperar visita
• to have company: tener visita
• to be good company: ser sociable/agradable, etc.
• to be bad company: no ser sociable/agradable, etc.
• a public limited company (UK, plc; US: publicly traded company): sociedad anónima
• a trading company: una sociedad mercantil
• company law: derecho corporativo or derecho de sociedades
• company policy: política de la empresa
• company town: (there is no Spanish term; it can be described as ciudad que depende de la actividad económica de una sola empresa (OSD)

Go to part 3 of  3

Compañero and companion, Part 1

[This entry comes from Chapter 14, "Compañero & companion", of Part II of the open-source textbook Spanish-English Cognates: An Unconventional Introduction to Spanish Linguistics.]

This is Part 1

Sp. compañero and Eng. companion

The word compañero [kom.pa.ˈɲe.ɾo], fem. compañera, is learned early by students of Spanish, since it is a common Spanish word and in a school environment, it is necessary to refer to schoolmates and roommates. The noun compañero can translate as companion [kəm.ˈpʰæ.njən] in some contexts, as in compañero de viaje ‘travel companion’ (also ‘travel mate’). A companion is primarily ‘a person with whom one spends time or travels’ or ‘each of a pair of things intended to complement or match each other’ (COED). The word also has additional specialized meanings along the way, somoe of which are dated, such as ‘a member of the lowest grade of certain orders of knighthood’ (COED), and others are technical, such as in In astronomy, where a companion is ‘a star, galaxy, or other celestial object that is close to or associated with another’ (OAD). Thus, a companion star is ‘the fainter of the two stars that constitute a double star’ (RHWU), cf. Figure 119 (cf. Sp. estrella compañera).[1]

Figure 119: The point of light (b) to the star GQ Lupi (A) is its companion[i]

The pair Sp. compañero/a and Eng. companion are paronyms or semi-cognates, since they share a stem, but have different derivational endings (cf. Part I, Chapter 1, §1.3.3). It is easy to make the connection between the word compañero and the English words companion, company, and accompany in English, since they obviously share a stem. Sp. compañero, however, more commonly translates into English as partner or mate, especially in compounds such as compañero de cuarto ‘roommate’ or compañero de equipo ‘teammate’. In some contexts, compañero/a even translates as comrade, as in compañero de armas ‘comrade in arms’ (cf. comrade’s Spanish cognate camarada).

The words Sp. compañero and Eng. companion have analogs in other Romance languages, including French, of course, which is where English got the word companion from. They all share the Latin morphemes (word parts) com‑ ‘with’ and pan ‘bread’. Because of this, we might have expected these words to be derived from a Latin word. However, this word was not originally a Latin word. Rather, it was created in the early Middle Ages in early Romance languages by analogy with a Germanic word. Linguists call a word created that way a calque, or word translation, a coinage from patrimonial parts that mimics the structure of a word or a phrase in another language, that is, a part-for-part translations of another language’s expression (cf. Part I, §4.7).

All the words that contain the compan‑ stem are Romance calques of Germanic words such as Gothic gahlaiba, from hlaifs ‘bread’, a word that is a historical cognate of English loaf, and ga-, a prefix which indicates company or togetherness and is thus equivalent to the Latin prefix con-, which comes from the preposition cŭm ‘with’, from which comes Modern Spanish con. The Germanic analogy of Romance companion are not only found in Gothic. The same pattern is found in Old High German galeipo ‘mess-mate’. The concept of sharing bread among friends was an important one in Germanic culture, resulting in the word gahlaiba in Gothic, which meant something like ‘bread fellow’ or ‘mess mate’.

Gothic	ga	+	hlaif	+	a	=	gahlaiba
Late Latin	com	+	pan‑	+	ĭōn‑	=	companion
	‘with’		‘bread’		n.

This phrase was then calqued into Late Vulgar Latin from where it was passed on to the Romance languages. Nowadays, however, the fact that all these words are related to the words for ‘with’ and ‘bread’ is probably totally opaque to any modern speaker of Spanish or French until this fact is pointed out to them.

The original derivational suffix for the construct that contained the stem compan‑ in Late Latin seems to have been the suffix ‑iōn‑ that derived nouns, typically from verbs (nominative ending: ‑iō, accusative ending: ‑iōn‑em). Admitedly, this was an odd choice of a derivational suffix, since the stem compan‑ is not a verbal one, but these where not Classical Latin times either. The result of this derivation in Old French was compa(i)gnon, from which English borrowed the word companion in the 13th century.. The descendant of this word in Modern French is compagnon [kɔ̃.pa.ˈɲɔ̃]. The shortened version of this word, copain [kɔ.ˈpɛ̃], feminine copine [kɔ.ˈpin], is actually more common.[2]

Although English is a Germanic language, did not have an equivalent of Gothic ghalaiba or Old High German galeipo. Instead, Old English had an equivalent word gefera, which meant ‘travel companion’, formed with the prefix ge, cognate of Gothic ga, and the verb faran ‘to go, fare’. After the word companion was borrowed from French in the 13th century, it eventually replaced the native word gefera.

In different varieties of Romance, different varieties of this Late Vulgar Latin word companion can be found. The one with ‑on ending from Lat. ‑iōn‑ is found mostly in what is now France. There was another version of this word in Old Spanish, namely compañon, a cognate of Eng. companion, with the ‑on ending. It came into Spanish from Frankish (northern French) influence. However, compañon became obsolete in Old Spanish, supposedly because it came to be used as a euphemism for a man’s testicles (a pair of inseparable companions) and, as is well known, euphemisms are often short-lived (cf. Part I, §6.4.2).

In other Romance dialects, the abstract ‑ĭ‑(um) ending was added instead to the stem compan‑, giving us Vulgar Lat. companium. It seems that this alternative may have been used originally with the meaning ‘body of warriors’. This is the source of another version of this word in Medieval Spanish, namely compaño [kom.ˈpa.ɲo], which eventually it came to be a synonym of compañon. From Vulgar Lat. companium also come Catalan company, pronounced [kom.ˈpaɲ], and Italian compagno, which is pronounced just like Old Spanish compaño.

There was yet a third derivational ending that this word could have in some Romance varieties, namely the one that gave us Sp. compañero. That is because the Spanish word compañero is not an exact cognate of French compagnon, or of Old Spanish compaño or compañon, but rather their paronym or semi-cognate, one that has the same meaning and the same stem, but not the same derivational endings (cf. Part I, Chapter 1). At some point a Romance version of the suffix Latin suffix ‑arĭ‑(us/a), which in Old Spanish was -er‑(o/a), was added to the original word compaño, resulting in compañero (compañ‑er‑o). The Latin suffix ‑arĭ‑(us/a) primarily turned nouns into adjectives adding the meaning ‘of, relating to, or connected with’, but these adjectives could later be turned into nouns as well. (The Spanish suffix ‑er‑o is still found in both adjectives and nouns.) The Latin suffix ‑arĭ‑ is also the source of the English suffix -ary, as in the revolutionary, which is both an adjective and a noun, derived from the noun revolution (cf. Sp. revolucionario/a).

Vulgar Latin	Spanish
com-pan-ĭōn‑(em)	compañon (obsolete; cf. Fr. companion)
com-pan-ĭ‑(um)	compaño (obsolete)
com-pan- ĭ‑ārĭ‑(us)	compañero

The addition of this suffix is not restricted to Spanish, since other southwestern Romance varieties, in the Iberian Peninsula and southern France, also have cognates of Sp. compañero, e.g. Portuguese companheiro and Occitan companhier. Other Romance languages, however, such as the northern French dialect that English got the word companion from, have versions of the word that seem to derive from Late Latin compāniōn‑. As we just saw, Old Spanish too borrowed this word, compañon, which is attested in Old Spanish.

All of these Late Latin words calqued from Germanic replaced many of the uses of the Classical Latin word sŏcĭus, meaning ‘associate, companion, ally’. The only areas where this word was not replaced by derivate of the word companion are Romania, Southern Italy, and Sardinia. Of course, Modern Spanish has the word socio, but it is a learned word, brought back into Spanish at a later time (it is first attested in the 15th century). Its main meaning in business is ‘partner, associate’; in commerce, ‘shareholder’; and in an organizations such as clubs, ‘member’. In some dialects of Spanish, socio can be used colloquially to mean something like ‘mate’ or ‘pal’.

By the way, from the word sŏcĭus, Latin derived many other words which are still with us and which have given us many Spanish-English cognates, most of them learned words. From the adjectival suffix ‑āl‑, Latin derived the adjective sociālis (socĭ‑āl‑is), which is, of course, the source of English and Spanish social (Eng. [ˈsoʊ̯.ʃəl] and Sp. [so.ˈθi̯al]). Other common English and Spanish cognate words derived from the root sŏcĭ‑ are the following:

• Eng. sociable ~ Sp. sociable, from Lat. sŏcĭābĭlis (sŏcĭ‑ā‑bĭl‑is) ‘that may be easily united, sociable’, from the verb sŏcĭāre ‘to unite, join, associate, etc.’ (sŏcĭ‑ā‑re)
• Eng. associate ~ Sp. asociar, from Lat. assŏcĭāre, a verb derived from the sŏcĭāre by addition of the prefix ad‑ ‘to’
• Eng. society ~ Sp. sociedad, from Lat. sŏcĭĕtātem (sŏcĭ‑ĕ‑tāt‑em; accusative form of sŏcĭĕtās) ‘fellowship, association, union, community, society’
• Eng. socialize ~ Sp. socializar, created first in French (1786) as socialiser, from the adjective social and the suffix ‑iser of Greek origin; English borrowed it in the early 19th century and Spanish in the late 19th century (RAE: 1925)
• Eng. socialism ~ Sp. socialismo, created first in French or English around 1832 from the adjective social and the suffix ‑isme of Greek origin; Spanish borrowed the word soon thereafter (RAE: 1852)

Going back to Sp. compañero, as we mentioned earlier, the word can be used in phrases that translate English compounds with the words mate, partner, or companion in them:

• compañero de armas: comrade-in-arms
• compañero de baile: dance partner
• compañero de casa: housemate
• compañero de clase: classmate
• compañero de escuela/colegio: schoolmate
• compañero de cuarto/habitación: roommate, roomie
• compañero de equipo: teammate
• compañero de estudios: fellow student
• compañero de fatigas: fellow sufferer, brother in arms, etc.
• compañero de juego: playing/game companion, playmate
• compañero de oficina: office colleague
• compañero de piso: flatmate, housemate, roomie, roommate
• compañero de trabajo: co-worker, work colleague, fellow worker
• compañero de viaje: travel companion, fellow traveler
• compañero del alma: soulmate, kindred spirit
• compañero/a sentimental: significant other (partner)

The plural compañeros can refer to a peer group. It can be used in phrases such as the following:

• enseñanza por compañeros: peer instruction
• red de antiguos compañeros: old boy network
• relación entre compañeros: peer interaction
• tutorías por compañeros: peer coaching

To conclude our survey of the word compañero, we should mention that there exist in Spanish shortened versions of this word that are used in colloquial speech, such as compa and compay, also meaning things like ‘buddy’, ‘mate’, or ‘pal’. According to the DLE, compa can be a colloquial short version of compañero, but also of compadre, in parts of the Americas in which compadre is synonymous of compañero and means ‘buddy, mate’ (the original meaning of the word is ‘godfather of one's child or father of one's godchild’ (OSD), which is still the only meaning in many dialects. The noun compay has the same meaning and is typical of Cuba and Venezuela.

We should also mention that according to some major US English dictionaries, the word compañero is also as an English word, borrowed from Spanish, used in the southwestern U.S. meaning ‘male companion, partner, buddy’. Dictionaries that contain this word include the Random House’s Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary and Webster's New Third International Unabridged Dictionary. The word is even written with the letter ñ. No other dictionaries, however, including the OED, seem to contain this word.

Finally we should mention a word derived from the word compañero in Spanish, namely compañerismo, formed with the suffix ‑ismo, which is cognate of English ‑ism. Its meaning is ‘companionship, fellowship, comradeship, collegiality, team spirit, etc.’ Two synonyms of the noun compañerismo are camadadería (cf. Eng. comradeship and camaraderie) and solidaridad (cf. Eng. solidarity).

Go to part 2 of 3

---

[1] From the noun companion, a formal and rare verb to companion has been derived that is synonymous with the verb to acoompany (see below). There is even a second noun companion that is a nautical term that means ‘a covering over the hatchway leading to a companionway’ or ‘a companionway’ (COED), derived from the Dutch word kompanje ‘quarterdeck’.

[2] The letter combination or digraph gn is the way the sound [ɲ] (= ñ) is spelled in French. The ñ sound (the IPA symbol is [ɲ]) in the Spanish word compañero and the French word compagnon is due to a blend of the n and the semivocalic i before another vowel, in this case o. That is only one of the sources of the sound [ɲ] in French and Spanish. Another source is the Latin consonant cluster gn, which explains why this sound is spelled 〈gn〉 in French (cf. Part I, §7.11.2, §10.4.4.5).

---

[i] Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Sub-Stellar_Companion_to_GQ_Lupi.jpg, from the European Southern Observatory, https://www.eso.org/gallery/v/ESOPIA/Stars/phot-10a-05-fullres.jpg.html (obtained: 2018.05.24)