A description of Asturian - Descripción breve de asturianu

[Carlos]

COROMINAS, JOAN

DICCIONARIO CRÍTICO ETIMOLÓGICO CASTELLANO E HISPÁNICO

Corominas, J. / Pascual, J. A., Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico. Vol. I (1992) , (Gredos), ISBN: 84-249-1361-2, Precio de LEA: $195.00

Corominas, J. / Pascual, J. A., Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico. Vol. II (1997) , (Gredos), ISBN: 84-249-1363-9, Precio de LEA: $195.00

Corominas, J. / Pascual, J. A., Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico. Vol. III (1997) , (Gredos), ISBN: 84-249-1365-5, Precio de LEA: $195.00

Corominas, J. / Pascual, J. A., Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico. Vol. IV (1997) , (Gredos), ISBN: 84-249-0066-9, Precio de LEA: $195.00

Corominas, J. / Pascual, J. A., Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico. Vol. V (1997) , (Gredos), ISBN: 84-249-0879-1, Precio de LEA: $195.00

Corominas, J. / Pascual, J. A., Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico. Vol. VI (1991) , (Gredos), ISBN: 84-249-1456-2, Precio de LEA: $195.00


Para quien encuentre esto demasiado difícil de leer, mejor los cuentos de los hermanos Grimm:

[Bob]

The price of the various volumes of the dictionary would take a significant chunk out of my household budget.

I like your reference to the brothers Grimm. Most people remember them only for the fairy tales, but there is also Grimm's law in linguistics (which is actually partly responsible for the establishment of linguistics as a field of study). It describes regular sound changes in the Germanic family of languages. The fairy tales as handed down in the EEUU, by the way, have been heavily sanitized to make them more suitable for children.

I suspect that it would not be impossible to construct a similar linguistic rubric for the sound differences between asturianu and castellano (e.g., falar rather than hablar, probe rather than pobre, etc.). If someone has done this, I would enjoy exploring a link to the information.

[is]

Further up in the thread, the figure of '90%' was used to describe the derivation from vulgar Latin for Asturian ('corriente y moliente' is a rather gratuitous way to support any theory). It caught my eye.

I'd be curious to know what studies arrived at such felicitous quantification, however. Because at least Carlos uses sources to back up his contributions in this discussion, minus the quantifying. As was mentioned earlier, no one denied the fact that Asturian is a Romance language, just like Sardinian.

As for 'celtologians', which I tend to interpret as 'dim-witted' because of the implication that their ignorance is vast, was that some sort of boutade?

[is]

Por cierto, si BOROÑA/BORONA recuerda al gaélico BARA, más sorprendente es el parecido con el término ruso para 'pan': BOROSNO.

La pal.labra pa pan en rusu ia 'Khlieb', Carlos [pronunciase: jlieb]. En Rusia nun sintiera enxamas 'Borosno' pero igual tien que ver con 'Borodinskii khlieb' que ia un pan prietu con muita grana feitu na fasteira de Borodin, non l.lonxe de Moscu (celebre por ser au las tropas de Napoleon perdieran una batalla).

Yera esti pan, Borodinskii khlieb, que avezaba a mercar en Moscu. Ta muitu ricu con peixe ('herring' del Balticu) ya pues atrouxalo en casa del.los dias ensin que se pierda. El pan mas paeciu eiqui n'America trouxeronlo los xudios polacos ya rusos al entamu del sieglu XX ya chamase 'pumpernickel'.

Sicasi, vou ver cual ia l'orixe de la pal.labra 'borona' n'asturianu. Ya vou entrugar a un collaciu portugues como chaman a la borona nel norte de Portugal.

[is]

Just checked with my father, a linguistics and syntax professor at Middlebury, about the origin of the word 'borona', which had piqued my curiosity. He, like Carlos, quickly went to his Joan Corominas (diccionario etimologico; his version is from 1980) and this is only the beginning of what he read out of it, heavily paraphrased:

'Borona: mijo, maiz, pan de maiz. Palabra comun con el portugues y gallego, 'broa'. Antiguamente 'boroa', de origen incierto, seguramente pre-romano...en Asturias 'borona', 'boronu'...posiblemente del celtico 'bron'.'

Carlos, I'd be very interested if you could post the entire entry for that word as my father said it was very long. He did mention the link to a Slavic term: 'borosno', but I suspect Corominas uses that as an example of a Slavic root, not as a word in common usage in Russian. As I said, the word 'Khleb' is Russian for bread and it is, apparently, derived from Old Germanic 'Brot'.

[Bob]

In relation to multi-grain breads, I would point out that one that is quite popular and common in New England is anadama bread, which has both corn meal and wheat flour. The origin of it's name is an issue of dispute. One story has it that it was named "Anna, damn her" bread (which would be pronounced very much like anadama in some New England regional accents). If the story is true (which I doubt) a man cursed his wife Anna for having served the same bread day after day, made in part from the leftover corn meal mush he had been repeatedly served for dinner.

[Bob]

'Borona: mijo, maiz, pan de maiz. Palabra comun con el portugues y gallego, 'broa'. Antiguamente 'boroa', de origen incierto, seguramente pre-romano...en Asturias 'borona', 'boronu'...posiblemente del celtico 'bron'.'

A very interesting comment. And "bron" is also the name of an argot spoken by coppersmiths and tinkers in and around Miranda near Aviles, something that has been discussed elsewhere on this website. See, for example, http://mrbit.es/miranda/dbron.htm#Vocabulario

[is]

I'd heard of 'bron', the tinkers' argot, and remember being stumped by the origins of that particular word. I'll check out the link, Bob.

Here is a link to a brief bio on Joan Corominas, who taught at the U. of Chicago after the Spanish Civil War, another example of talent drain during the dark years of Franco's Spain.

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Corominas

[is]

Anadama bread rings a bell. I worked at the Black Dog restaurant in Martha's Vineyard (Vineyard Haven) when I was in college and I'll check their web site to see if they still sell that at the bakery.

Speaking with Anton Garcia from the county of Allande in January, he lent me a book by Celso Muñiz, part of a dissertation thesis for a Dutch university about the Valledor valley. In it, there is a description of how ryebread ('pan de zenten') was made until not too long ago. Here is an extract:

'Si, aiqui habia llareiras. Era un cuadro de cuatro maderas llebantao como ua cuarta del piso qu'abia. Tian ua garmayeira colgada pa ter por el pote de metal con tres pes. Era grande pa cozer pa os gochos.

Antes a xente cumia nabos. Y grazias qu'oubese nabos abondos. Nabos solos con pouca grasa. Cumian os nabos como aora patacas. Y faian pan de maiz, o de zenten al estilo del pais. Despos abia casas unde amasaban duas bezes, ua detras d'outra, pa que se puese duro el pan y non gastallo tan pronto. Eo fuin molinero. Cunuzin un d'ai de Carzedo que secaba el zenten nel forno. Usted fijese que zenten! Tando curao non fae falta metello nel forno. Despos, claro, como el mulin pineiraba, cernia a farina, despos qu'iba secao del forno era todo zisco. Ni un kilo de salbao en 50 o 60 kilos. Como podia ser aquel pan? El zenten iba todo triyao. Pero el zenten ten que ter liga pa molienda, nin demasiao umedo, ua cousa normal, porque se ta muy seco...ae bezes qu'ae qu'echa-lle augua enriba na moxega pa que se suabeza y faga a paraza meyor molienda.'

According to Pliny the Elder, in his Naturalis Historia, an encyclopedia written circa 77 AD, this kind of rye bread "is a very poor food adn only serves to avert starvation". He also describes how wheat is blended into the rye "to mitigate its bitter taste, and even then it is most unpleasant to the stomach".

Of course, this does not advance the search for the origin of the word 'borona', but ryebread is still eaten in rural areas of Asturias, especially by older people.

[Carlos]

Varias cosas.

Paul, no puedo poner aquí el epígrafe del Corominas correspondiente a la entrada BORONA/BOROÑA. La razón es muy sencilla: no poseo esos libros, que como verías antes tienen un precio muy caro. La forma más normal de acceder a ellos es en una biblioteca pública, o bien como hice yo hace muchos años, consultarlos en el Departamento de Indoeuropeística de la Universidad, cuando me daba por estas cosas para las que ya no tengo tiempo. Lo cual no quiere decir que no tenga suficiente buena memoria como para recordar algunos datos, como citas concretas y la fuente de la que provienen, como pudo corroborar tu padre, afortunadamente. Cuando tengo un recuerdo más impreciso, procuro buscar materiales de consulta para asegurarme. Y si no dispongo de esos materiales, o bien no hago la cita, o bien lo hago advirtiendo de que hablo de memoria y puedo estar confundido. No es que Joan Corominas sea siempre infalible (entre las pocas etimologías erróneas o poco fundadas que propuso en su día, podríamos citar la explicación del Monte Naranco, en las inmediaciones de Uviéu), pero su obra es considerada ingente, todavía de consulta imprescindible, y muchísimo más fiable que el propio Diccionario de la Academia Española.

Pero lo que sí que puedo es citar a otro experto que trabaja en un proyecto internacional coordinado por la Universidad de Leiden, el profesor Matasovic, considerado una autoridad en Indoeuropeística y Filología Céltica.

Matasovic es éste señor:

http://deenes.ffzg.hr/~rmatasov/englishCV.htm

Y esto es lo que dice respecto a posibles étimos o palabras relacionadas con el asturiano BORONA/BOROÑA y el gallego BOROA/BROA:

Proto-Celtic: *baragenƒ '(barley)bread'

Old Irish: bairgen [ƒ f]

Middle Welsh: bara [m]

Middle Breton: bara

Cornish: bara gl. panis, bara can 'white bread' (gl. quiere decir glosado, en latín en este caso)

Proto-Indo-European: *bhar-s- 'barley'

Page in Pokorny: 111

IE cognates: Lat. far 'grain, coarse meal', OE bere 'barley', Russ. bo´ro«no 'ryemeal'

Notes: The PCelt. reconstruction is based on OIr., but *baraginƒ appears equally possible; the British forms could be from underived *barago- (cp. Lat. farrag¡)

References: LEIA B-9, LP 31,GPC I: 256, EIEC 51, Campanile 1974: 12.

Eso de "Page in Pokorny" se refiere a este otro señor:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Pokorny

Para atribuir un origen céltico o protocéltico a nuestra BOROÑA la principal dificultad está en explicar el cambio del vocalismo entre la raíz reconstruida (con A tanto en protocéltico como en indoeuropeo) y su supuesto derivado astur-galaico (con O). No es que sea imposible tal cambio (como lo demuestra el ejemplo en ruso), dado que tanto en indoeuropeo como en protocéltico existía una alternancia entre esas dos vocales (eran fácilmente intercambiables). La cuestión está en que todos los derivados en las lenguas célticas conocidas conservan el vocalismo original con A. Por eso el problema sigue sin resolver.

Lo que sí estoy en condiciones de explicar es el parentesco con una serie de palabras en latín. El indoeuropeo poseía un fonema que se representa con la grafía BH, que se corresponde con nuestra B, pero exhalando aire (una B aspirada). En muchas lenguas indoeuropeas, incluido el céltico, esa BH dio una simple B (porque desapareció la aspiración). Pero el latín (y en general todo el grupo de las lenguas itálicas) se comporta de una forma peculiar: se debilita el componente labial y en cambio se refuerza la aspiración, lo que finalmente produce el sonido F (siempre hablando de posición inicial, la -BH- intervocálica indoeuropea da en latín -B-).

Eso explica todos los derivados latinos relacionados con la raíz indoeuropea original:

FAR/FARRIS (neutro): 'trigo ordinario, farro, escanda'
FÁRRAGO/FARRÁGINIS (fem.): 'mezcla de varios forrajes', 'mezcolanza, fárrago'
FARINA (fem.): 'harina'

Espero que esto sea de tu interés.

[is]

Thanks for the previous posting, Carlos, equally fascinating. My mother transcribed the whole entry on 'borona' out of the Joan Corominas etymological dictionary (my father's copy is actually from 1987). She added this note to her mail:

"The very last part of the article is a series of how the word has been used, but it is full of diacritical marks, maybe they are phonetic symbols, anyway I do not know how to access them and it would be very confusing for you to see them in my style. Some of the Russian words had little curlicues in the main text, too. Your Dad´s dictionary is a project that was directed by the famous Dámaso Alonso, if anyone needs to know."

Thanks, Mom! Here goes the full-text version from Corominas:

DICCIONARIO CRITICO ETIMOLOGICO CASTELLANO E HISPANICO (vol. 1)
by JOAN COROMINAS, Univ. of Chicago
['Con la colaboración de José A. Pascual Prof de Gramática histórica de la Lengua Española en la Universidad de Sevilla']

Editorial Gredos (Madrid) 1987; ISBN84-249-1361-2. volume 1, p. 629

"BORONA ,mijo, maiz, pan de maiz, palabra común con el port.y gall. Broa pan de maiz, port. Y gall. Antiguos boroa, de origen incierto, seguramente prerromano 1ª doc.Fueros de Vizcaya (S. XIV.?)

En portugués hay muchos ejs. De la Edad Media. Gall. Ant. Boroa, pan de mijo (criar-llo manda de pan, mais non de boroa), Ctgs.55.53; Cesc. 124.21). El salmantino Torres Villarroel, h. 1750, emplea l portuguesismo broa, aue la Acad. Define vagamente ·especie de galleta o bizcocho· El significado primitivo sería mijo, de donde se pasó a maíz al traerse éste de América(el DHisto. Traduce absurdamente maíz en el ej. Más antiguo). Hoy es palabra viva en el País Vasco (ahí y quizá en Navarra parece er palabra muy vivaz para el pan de maíz cocido al horno, a juzgar por las muchas veces que lo emplea Azkue para traducir palabras vascas p. Ej. S. V. Labigar, Labasartain. Labaro, arto-boska: pero no parece que haya pasado al vasco), Santander y Asturias (M.P. Dil. Leon. 19.2), así como en e castellano de Galicia (BRAE XIV, 107. Ast. Borona ·pan de maíz, borona panecillo de harina de maíz (V), boroña or bruna ®, Sajambre boroncho ·torta de brona cocida en el hornao (Fdez Gonzz., Oseja, 213), gall. Merid. Boroa (WSX, 122), trasm. Boroa (kRL V,. 225); salm. Moron ·trigo rojo muy parecido al rubión·, enfermedad de los cereales por efecto de la cual el grano se convierte en un polvillo negruzco. Se conserva en Méjico, Costa Rica, Colombia, Venezuela y Santo Domingo 8BRAE VII, 312;
Brito) con el significado de ·migaja·, explicable por la propensión del pan de borona a desmenuzarse (Comp. DESMORONAR).La etimilogía del REW, 1280, gót. Brauth ·pan·,se basa en el desconocimiento de la forma española y es imposible, seguía indicó Gamillsche.R.G.I, 382n.

La Acad. Quiere derivar del célt .bron o bara, pan. La primera de estas formas parece resultar de una confusión. La segunda existe realmente con el sentido de ·pan· en bretón, córnico y galés. La extensión geográfica de borona sería efectivamente favorable a una etimología céltica , pero la palabra mencionada, que se halla en relación con el irl. ant. Bargen, gaél. Bairghin pan, pastel, parece representar una forma primitiva baragen- (Walde-H.,s.v. far; V. Henry, Lexique Etim.. du Bret. Mod., s. v. bara), que difícilmente puede relacionarse con borona. A pesar de ello es verosímil que esta palabra se de origen indoeuropeo y quizá céltico, en vista de la existencia de un raíz indoeuropea como nombre de varios cereales: bher-(rs.dil.boro ucraíno bor ·especie de mijo· escan. Ant. Barr cereales, ags. Bere ·cebada·, gót. Barizeins de cebada, rs. bórosno harina de centeno, eslavón brasino alimento, y el citado derivado céltico barragen-= lat. Fárrago. Quizá podríamos pensar en una forma céltica relacionable con el rs. bórosno. Verdad es que la equivalencia exacta de esta forma eslava sería BORSINON en céltico si allí hubiese existido. Solo podríamos imaginar un célt. BORU-NA en conexión con rs. dial. Boro, serviocroato bar ·especie de mijo·, ucraíno bor ·mijo· que por lo demás pertenecen a la misma raíz indoeuropeo(Walde-P). No son tan raros los nombres galos en –ONA acentuados en la O y así sería legítimo admitir que BORUNA fuese voz V Rom.X. Cocco, RPF VIII,364-6 aw adhiere a la etimología sorotáptica y aporta precisiones."

[Bob]

Just to be sure we are all on the same page in our multilingual correspondence, and so that others can follow it. To me (castellano = asturianu= inglés):

trigo = trigu = wheat (of which there are many varieties, some with other names in English, for example spelt and emmer)

centeno = centenu = rye (orginally a weed that was good at growing among wheat plants, and that is now often used to make bread when mixed with wheat. In my opinion, the Polish rye breads are particularly tasty)

cebada = cebada = barley ( a grain crop that replaced wheat in the ancient near east because of its ability to grow well in increasingly salinified soil), not often used to make bread

Maiz = maiz = corn (in American English) or maize (in British English), the primary grain in boroña (usually mixed with wheat flour)

Wheat seems to be the preferred grain.

¿verdad?

As the old song goes:

Pastor que tas nel monte, pastor,
comiendo pan de centenu,
si te casares conmigo, pastor,
comieres del trigu buenu, y anda, y anda.

[Art]

I find it interesting that rye is seen as lesser, as illustrated by Bob's song. When making bread, rye doesn't rise as well as wheat, but mixed with wheat it's flavor is much more interesting (to my tongue, at least). I'd like to try making a loaf that's totally rye to see what happens.

Does anyone have an all rye bread recipe?

--------------------------------

Me interesa que centeno tiene la reputación de ser menor, como está demostrado por la canción de Bob. En hacer pan, el centeno no sube tanto que el trigo, pero mezclada con trigo su sabor es mucho más interesante ( a mi lengua, al menos). Me gustaría intentar hacer un barra que es completamente de centeno para ver como va.

¿Tiene alguien una receta para un pan todo centeno?

[is]

Has anyone seen this blog, titled 'The Polyglot Vegetarian: grazing through the world of words'?

http://polyglotveg.blogspot.com/

This is an entry where he speaks of Kamut, the 'great-grandfather' of grains, that could be from Khorasan Province in eastern Iran (north of Arg-e Bam and south of Mashad is a long stretch of desert today; hardly an ideal climate for wheat production). Anyway, on the right-hand side of the blog, you'll find tools to trace etyomologies (digital dictionaries, etc). Bob, he also breaks down the major divisions of wheat.

"My wife likes variety in her breakfast. So we have a box of Kamut Flakes on the kitchen table. The back of the box says, "Cereal of the Pharaohs", and the front,

KAMUT (kah-moot), the "Great Grandfather of Grains".
Derived from the ancient Egyptian word for "Wheat", this high-energy grain was discovered thousands of years ago.
Never mind coordination problems in the telling, there are stories of the origin of the food and its name here.

Kamut® is a trademark for cultivar QK-77 of Khorasan wheat, owned by the Quinn family and their company. It is also a Protected Plant Variety (8900108), which allows control of seed distribution under any name. As its website admits and the Wikipedia page explains, it does not descend from a few grains preserved for millennia in a sealed tomb, but from some relatively isolated Middle Eastern crops that were introduced to the North American plains around WWII.

The major divisions of wheat (Triticum spp.) are:

Einkorn (T. monococcum), a diploid species that was cultivated early on.
Emmer (T. dicoccon), a cultivated tetraploid species from Wild Emmer (T. dicoccoides), a wild hybrid of two other diploid species.
Durum (T. durum), another tetraploid species from Wild Emmer.
Spelt (T. spelta), a hexaploid species, hybridized under cultivation from Emmer or Durum and some wild diploid species.
Common wheat (T. aestivum), another hexaploid species.
Khorasan wheat is tetraploid like durum and has been variously classified as T. polonicum, T. turgidum, and now T. turanicum. (All these tetraploid species are sometimes considered subspecies of T. turgidum.) Here is a diagram of the genealogy. Looks like it's the Uncle of Grains (on the web, it was "Great-Great Grandfather"). It is also known as Oriental wheat; in Chinese, 杂生小麦 za2 sheng1 xiao3 mai4 'mixed breed wheat'; in Russian, пшеница туранская pshenitsa turanskaia 'Turanian wheat'.

Further color to the story is supplied by the article “Kamut: A New Old Grain” in Gastronomica. This article can be purchased online as a DRM-encumbered PDF for $12. But that is the cover price of the whole magazine. Fortunately, the MIT Press bookstore (at once one of the nerdiest and one of the hippest bookstores in Boston) has just started to stock Gastronomica, including some back issues. (The article incorrectly states that the protection certificate lasts for sixteen years, and so expired in 2006; it lasts for eighteen years until 2008.)"

[is]

A small digression from the etymology of ‘borona’…

Bob, you mention spelt and emmer in your breakdown of wheat derivatives. ‘Escanda’, or spelt (Triticum spelta), has a long tradition in rural Asturias because of the heavy rainfall and less than abundant sunlight (altitudes of 500-1,000m are ideal). Small villages in western Asturias often had communal fields of the hearty spelt to make ‘pan d’escanda’. A loaf of spelt in West Asturian is called a ‘bul.lu d’escanda’ (pronounced BU-tsu). That is also seems to be the pronunciation in the south-central county of L.lena/Lena, according to this web site:

website on L.lena/Lena

But it looks like in another south-central county, Quirós, loaves of spelt are also referred to as ‘pan de sucu’. In villages like Bermiego, where there is an impressive yew (a ‘teixu’ or Taxus baccata, a tree considered sacred by the original inhabitants of Asturias), they still obtain 50% of their wheat from ‘escanda’. See this web site for a description of spelt-growing in Quirós:

website on spelt growing in Quirós

Pepe el Ferreiro, the director of the superb ethnographic museum in Grandas de Salime (http://www.museodegrandas.com/), has always sown a field of ‘escanda’ on the museum grounds to harvest as a communal event. But as a winter cereal that is planted in November, I’m not sure what month it gets harvested. June? What I do know, is that the hull of the ‘escanda’ is difficult to pry open even during the ‘mayao/machao’ stage, when you use hazelnut sticks to separate the grains by thrashing (Pepe has pictures in the museum). Unlike regular wheat (Triticum aestivum), the hull does not open naturally.

According to the company that retails flour and other products in L.lena (Speltastur, in the village of ‘La Frecha’; see the link up at the top), the Asturian varieties of spelt are: Triticum spelta and Triticum dicoccum. The first variety is also known as ‘povia’ or ‘povida’, and is the one traditionally used to make bread. Lately I’ve seen this bread retailed as a healthy/organic alternative to loaves made of Triticum aestiva, or regular wheat. I was surprised when I bought escanda bread once and found it was fluffy, pale and sweet. I much prefer rye, like Art…

Here is a brief etymology on ‘spelter’ from Wikipedia:

“The name of spelt in German is Dinkel, and the hull which covers the seed is called Spelz. Hulled grains, which don't thresh freely like modern wheat, were identified by this quality and the term "spelt wheats" was often used in nineteenth century English to mean hulled wheats in general, not just spelt wheat. The Luxembourger surname Speltz is derived from this grain. In Italy both emmer wheat and spelt are known as farro, although emmer is more common in Italy. In France spelt is known as épeautre. In Romania it is known as alac.”