Tag Archive for: origin

Words

Trade routes disappear but words remain.

Over the centuries, Portuguese explorers, traders, and colonists have left marks on words used around the world.

Take the word Albino that comes from the Portuguese word albino (‘whitish’). Portuguese explorers coined this term in the 17th-18th centuries to describe persons with an unusually white skin they encountered in Africa. The word spread from Portuguese into Spanish, English and other languages to describe the genetic condition of albinism – the lack of melanin pigmentation in skin, hair, and eyes – in people or animals. 

Cashew comes from the Portuguese caju, which itself was borrowed from the Tupi (the indigenous Brazilian language) word ‘acajú’, referring to the cashew tree and nuts. The tree itself was later introduced by the Portuguese to parts of Africa and Asia.

Caste derives from the Portuguese word casta. Meaning ‘lineage, race or breed’. Portuguese traders used casta in the 16thy century to describe the social divisions they observed in India (particularly in the Hindu community), applying the term already in use for breeds/lineages of animals. The word caste, became the standard term for describing India’s hereditary social hierarchy.

Cobra comes directly from the Portuguese word cobra, which is derived from the Latin ‘colubra’ (meaning snake). The full Portuguese term is actually cobra the capelo – literally ‘snake with a hood’- referring to the spread of the snake’s neck ribs into a broad hood when threatened. The Portuguese encountered these snakes in India and other parts of Asia during their colonial expansions.

Coconut doesn’t sound very exotic until you know where it comes from.  In the past Portuguese sailors called it coco, a word for ‘skull’. Once you notice the three dark holes in the shell, it is difficult to ignore.

The word Dodo is commonly traced to Portuguese doido, meaning ‘fool, silly or stupid’. Portuguese sailors, who were amongst the first Europeans to encounter the flightless bird on the island of Mauritius in the early 1500s, reportedly gave it its name because the dodo showed no fear of humans and seemed clumsy or foolish – it had evolved with no natural predators, so it’s didn’t flee. 

And what about the word Fetish? It derives from the Portugues word feitiço (meaning spell) which traders used to describe sacred or symbolic objects – believed to possess spiritual or magical powers – they encountered in West Africa during the Age of Discovery in the 15th century.

Flamingo comes from the Portuguese flamengo, which traces back to the Provençal word ‘flamenc’ which meant both ‘flame-colored’ and ‘Fleming’ ( a person from Flanders). Flemish people were stereotyped as having ruddy or fair, flame-like complexions, so the word played on both meanings at once. Portuguese sailors encountering the bright pink birds in Africa and the Americas, adopted this name because of their flame-like colouring.

Many people associate Marmalade with Britain but the word comes from the Portuguese word marmelada, a preserve originally made from ‘marmelo’ (quince). The name survived, even as the recipe evolved over time.

Molasses has a similar story. It comes from melaço (‘honey-sweet’) and carried along the trade routes that moved sugar, spices, and slaves along the Atlantic.

In several languages, the word Oranges points back to Portugal.
In Greek ‘portokali’, in Turkish ‘portakal’ and in Arab ‘burtuqāl’.
When oranges began to circulate widely, they were associated with Portuguese traders. For many people the orange fruit was quite simply called ‘Portugal.’

Portuguese tanque means ‘reservoir’, used for water storage. Portuguese colonizers in India used tanque (cistern) to describe large water reservoirs. This usage was picked up by English speakers in colonial India, eventually entering English as Tank, referring to a container for holding liquid.   

Even further away, in Japan, there is Tempura, introduced in the 16th century by Portuguese Jesuit missionaries who abstained from eating beef, pork and poultry during Catholic fasting days in each of the four seasons of the year. Instead, they ate fried vegetables and fish. This was the first contact of the  Japanese with fried food. The name is probably derived from the Portuguese ‘tempero’ (act of seasoning, of adding spice to food).

And finally – as a closing remark – a word pointing to a remarkable phenomenon but without any connection to the Portuguese language whatsoever.
Nüshu – meaning ‘women’s script’ in Chinese – is the only exclusively female writing system in the world that emerged from the marginalisation of women in southern China, passing exclusively between mothers and daughters, and between sisters in Jiangyong, a remote mountainous region in the Hunan province.

Enjoy your week          Aproveite a semana              (pic Wiktionary)















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Coffee

qahwa -kaffa – kahve –capha- cafeh – caffé – café – koffie – coffy – coffee

The origin of the word coffee is probably derived from Kaffa, the name of an Ethiopian kingdom in the 15th century. At that time in Yemen a beverage was prepared from a plant of Ethiopian origin, which proved to be useful to keep the Sufi mystics awake for praying at night. The word used for the beverage was qahwah, and considering that the plant came from Kaffa, it is not unreasonable to think that there would be a relationship.

Etymologists, however, are inclined to consider the word being a derivation from a word that meant ‘wine’ in Arabic. A non-alcoholic wine; the perfect solution for Muslims who needed a stimulant but were not allowed to drink alcohol.
Coffee sales were centred in the Yemeni city of Moca and spread from there throughout the Arabian Peninsula.

In the 16th century, the governor of Yemen, Ozdemir Pasha, took the coffee to the court of Suleiman the Magnificent, and from then on coffee became popular in Istanbul, and thereafter in the entire Ottoman Empire, under the Turkish Ottoman name kahve.
Cafés were booming in the capital, and the sultan introduced coffee masters in his court. Anyone who wanted to be someone in the Empire had to have at least someone who knew how to prepare good coffee; nowadays called baristas!

From Istanbul, it wasn’t difficult for the beverage to reach Venice, one of the biggest trade centres in the world. There might have been those who thought it a little suspicious for Christians to drink a Muslim beverage but when beverage coming from the depths of Arabia delighted the palate of the Pope, no Christian hesitated to have a coffee, which the Italians called caffè.

The popularity of coffee thereafter spread across the capitals of Europe, and finally arrived in Paris, where it ended up being one of the central elements of the city’s identity under the French name café, the same name also used for the beverage in Portugal, where the first coffee roasters appeared in Lisbon in the 17th century.

But there was – besides the southern route across land via Istanbul – a second northern route through which the habit of drinking coffee spread throughout the continent, in a similar way as tea was introduced in Europe. And once again, Dutch ships were involved, which transported the product directly from Yemen to the UK.

In 1652, the first English coffeeshop was opened in Oxford and soon after coffee shops expanded as popular meeting points in London. Unlike the word café – which came via the South – the word coffee comes from the Dutch word koffie.

The word espresso comes from the machine that, from the mid-20th century onwards, was used to create espresso coffee. Previously, the beverage was prepared in the Turkish way, mixing the ground beans with boiled water. Now, with the machine, the coffee is prepared with hot water passing under pressure over the ground beans and running through a small spout (called bica) into the cup.

In Portugal, the usual word to ask for an espresso is the word café (or bica).
So, whoever asks for café – just like that – is asking for an espresso.

Enjoy the week                                                 Approveite a semana




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Shorties

Language is the door to culture’

The National Education Federation (FNE) is warning of a decline in the Portuguese language education abroad. We are therefore going to discuss Portuguese mini-expressions with only one consonant and the letter ‘a‘.
We’ll travel in alphabetical order; courtesy of Marco Neves.

Bá  Just like that doesn’t exist in the Portuguese language.
In Angola, the dictionary tells us that bá means < amazement or encouragement >
Cá  Means < here > For example: I’ am here ( Estou cá).
Dá  < Give (it to me) > From the verb dar ( to give).

Fá   Is the name of a music note.
Gá   To keep the syllable with the ‘a’ and get a word with meaning, you would have to double it: gagá meaning < weakened, aged >
In Guine-Bissau gã with tilde means < family >
Há   Means < there is > From the verb Haver. In French  < Il y a >
For example: There is bread today ( Há pão hoje).

Já  < Already or right now > For example: I’ am coming ( Vou já).
Lá  < There > For example: There it is ( Lá esta).
Má  < Bad > For example: You are bad ( És má).
Ná  The quick saying of < no > especially in the south of the country.
For example: Don’t say that ( Ná digas isso).

Pá  < Shovel > Also a common popular saying.
For example: Hey man, do you have a cigarette? ( Ó pá, tens um cigarro?) or
Hey man, give me a hug ( Ó pá, dá um abraço).
Rã  < Frog >
Sá  < Healthy > Also a solid surname. For example: Pedro Gomes de Sá.

‘Tá  < Okay > With the apostrophe it is the abbreviation of the word está from the verb estar, that means to be.
For example: Is everything all right (‘Ta tudo bem?).
Vá  < Go! > From the irregular verb ir (to go).
Xá  < Shah > Indeed, the one from Persia. From xáh (king) in Persian.
In northern Mozambique xá means < Oh! > (surprise or admiration).

-> Ká – Qá – Wá and Zá have no meaning in the Portuguese language.     

Enjoy the week                                                 Boa semana

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Speak!

‘Another language is another view of life’ (Frederico Fellini)

More than 7000 languages are spoken today. Calculating the part that a language plays in the world is not an easy task. One of the possible ways to calculate the number of speakers is to consider how many people use a language as their mother tongue.

Following this criterion, Mandarin (Chinese) leads the world ranking, followed by Spanish, English, Hindi, Bengali and Portuguese according to data from Ethnologue, a reference that provides detailed information about world languages.

If we count not only the first language but also the second language of the speakers of a given country, Portuguese falls from the 6th to the 7th place, according to the same source.

The first Portuguese text dates from the 17th of June, 1214 and concerns the will of the third King of Portugal, Don Afonso II. Before that time, people always wrote in Latin. Due to the discoveries in the late 14th and early 15th century and the colonial conquests, Portuguese is now spoken on four continents.

The Camões Institute of Cooperation and Language calculated that in eight of the nine Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP) – Angola, Brazil, Cabo Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, Sao Tomé and Príncipe, East Timor – Portuguese is the official language and spoken by more than 240 million people. There is no data available for Equatorial Guinea.

In addition to the nine CPLP countries, Portuguese is also the official language in Macau – one of China’s special administrative regions since 1999, the other being Hong Kong – but it is estimated that less than 1% of the population uses it as their mother language.

Brazil – a country with 213 million speakers – is by far the largest territory where Portuguese is spoken and within it the many variations that the Brazilian-Portuguese carries. A language in which there are at least three names for the staple food cassava: aipim, mandioca or macaxeira.

The introduction of the Portuguese language in Brazil was fast. In less than two centuries it became the official language of national understanding – after a decree of the Marquis de Pombal in 1758 – overlapping the approximately 1500 indigenous languages that were spoken when the colonizer arrived.

Since the second half of the 17th century in the islands of Curaçao, Aruba and Bonaire (Dutch Caribbean) Papiamento is spoken. A creole language containing a considerable lexical collection of Portuguese origin, mixed with Dutch and Venezuelan Spanish. It has official language status along with Dutch in the Netherlands Antilles.

Most linguists now believe that Papiamento emerged from the Portuguese-based Creole languages of the West African coast as it has similarities with Cape Verdean and Guinea-Bissau Creole.  

Enjoy the week (of the Portuguese language)                                             Approveite a semana





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Language

‘We can say anything, language has no limits’ – Georg Steiner.

Saudade is a unique word in Portuguese that has no direct translation in English. It means something like a melancholic or nostalgic desire for a person, place or event far away, either in space or time.
Esperto is another example. On the ball, brainy, smart, canny, with-it and intuitive, all help to approximate its meaning. In Brazil, the word can also mean someone who traps or fools others into trouble.

The Portuguese language exists more than 800 years and is spoken by over 260 million people (3,7% of the world population). It is – after Mandarin/Chinese, English, Spanish, Hindustani and Arabic  – the sixth most used language in the world.

Official vernacular in the nine CPLP (Portuguese Language Speaking Community) countries – Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Mozambique, Portugal, Sao Tome & Principe and East Timor, in use on virtually every continent and predicted to be spoken by over 380 million people in 2050.

Its expansion is closely linked to the history of the Portuguese Discoveries in the 15th century and still today echoes of Portuguese can be heard in the streets of Goa (India), Malacca (Malaysia) and Macau (China).
Although it was Portugal that expanded the language in the past, nowadays Portuguese-speaking countries like Brazil, Angola and Mozambique are mostly responsible for the growing interest in the Portuguese language.

Originating from Latin – from which it evolved into Galician-Portuguese – the language that would become Portuguese, began to be spoken in the Northwest of the Iberian Peninsula around the 6th century. It was expanded to the South with the Christian reconquest, at the same time influenced by Arabic from which many words derive, such as almofada (pillow), aldeia (village), alface (lettuce), alfândaga (customs) and açafrão (saffron).

The testament of King Afonso II – dated June 17, 1214 – is considered as one of the oldest written documents in Portuguese. It marks the beginning of the period of ancient Portuguese that would last until the publication in 1572 of the first book in modern Portuguese, The Lusiads, Portugal’s national epic by Luis Camões. 

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) declared in November last year the 5th of May as ‘World Portuguese Language Day’. Unfortunately, the opening celebration could only take place online as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

Stay healthy                          Fique saudável            (pic Público/Sapo)





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Tea

The Chinese leaf that conquered the world

There are roughly two ways to say tea in the world. One is like the English expression – thee in Dutch, tee in German or thé in French. The other is a variation of cha – chay in Russian, chai in Swahili or shay in Arabic. Both variations come from China. The words that sound like cha spread across the land, the tea saying spread over water.

The term cha – Chinese for tea – originates from central China and made its way through Asia – along the Silk Road over 2000 years ago – becoming chay in Hindi and Persian.
But the Chinese character for cha is pronounced as te in the Min Nan variety of Chinese, spoken in the coastal province of Fujian.
This te form spread to Europe via the Dutch East Indian Company, who became the primary traders of tea between Europe and China in the 17th century.

Yet the Dutch were not the first in Asia. That privilege belonged to the Portuguese, who didn’t trade through Fujian but Macao, where cha is used. That’s why of all Western European countries only Portugal uses the cha word for tea!

Although it’s fairly commonly known that tea originated in China, it is far less known that it was a particular Portuguese woman, who inspired its popularity in England. Let’s go back to 1662, when Catherine of Braganza – daughter of Portugal’s King John IV – married England’s King Charles II, and became the Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Travelling up north to join her husband, she is said to have taken along loose-leaf tea, that was popular among Portugal’s aristocracy.

When Catherine arrived in England, tea was being consumed there only as herbal medicine and very expensive. The reason for the cost was that England had no direct trade with China and the small quantities the Dutch were importing were so pricey, that only the wealthiest could afford it. Tea became associated with the elite women’s society around the royal court, of which Catherine was the famous centrepiece.

‘The best of Queens, and the best of herbs, we owe
To that bold nation, which the way did show
To the fair region where the sun doth rise,
Whose rich productions we so justly prize.’

( Birthday ode to Queen Catherine. Edmund Waller, 1663 )

Aproveite sua semana                   Enjoy your week          (pic 2 qz.com)

 

 

 

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