# Origin of "onde" in Spanish



## purasbabosadas

"Onde" is a word I've heard in Central American Spanish.I think I've heard it in other Spanish dialects but I can't remember at the moment.At first I thought it originated as an apheresis of "donde"(With the initial "d" being dropped),But later on I saw it was the standard word for "where" in Asturian and Portuguese(It was also used as "where" in Old Spanish),which leads me to believe it's an archaic form preserved in some areas.Is this true?


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## Riverplatense

I think it goes back to Latin ŬNDE ›from where‹, while _donde _seems to be based on DĒ ŬNDE, and in Italian it still has the same meaning.


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## merquiades

I have heard "_ande_" in Spain in very laid back speech.  _¿Pero ande vai amigos?_ 
I would venture it's laid back pronunciation also in Central America rather than a remnant of Old Spanish.  They probably wouldn't write it down


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## Sardokan1.0

merquiades said:


> I have heard "_ande_" in Spain in very laid back speech.  _¿Pero ande vai amigos?_
> I would venture it's laid back pronunciation also in Central America rather than a remnant of Old Spanish.  They probably wouldn't write it down



It looks like the contraction of "ad unde" (to where). A similar evolution happened in southern Sardinian language where they use "a undi" . While in northern Sardinian  it's "in ube, in uve, in ue" (from Latin "in ubi" -> in ube -> in uve -> in ue). Also in northern Sardinia it's used the simple preposition, but only in phrases with a movement situation.

example :

_Where are you going? - *A in ue* ses andende? (literally "to where are you going?")
Where are you? - *In ube/uve/ue* che ses?_


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## Circunflejo

purasbabosadas said:


> which leads me to believe it's an archaic form preserved in some areas.Is this true?



Yes.



merquiades said:


> I would venture it's laid back pronunciation also in Central America rather than a remnant of Old Spanish. They probably wouldn't write it down



Miguel Ángel Asturias, a well-known writter from Guatemala (who died in 1974), wrote it down in several of his books. You can also find some examples of written use on the CREA (Real Academia Española - CREA). The Diccionario de Americanismos quotes it as rural on some American countries (Diccionario de americanismos | Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española) and, with a desus. mark, it's also in the DRAE: http://dle.rae.es/?id=R40jZaS. Note: in theory, a desus. mark means that there aren't written records after 1900 but that's not true in this case, as you can see.


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## francisgranada

Riverplatense said:


> I think it goes back to Latin ŬNDE ›from where‹, while _donde _seems to be based on DĒ ŬNDE, and in Italian it still has the same meaning.


Yes, however today used rather in abstract sense. "Normally" _from where_ is _da dove_.

However, what I find interesting, is the fact that both the Spanish _donde _(< _de unde_) and the Italian _dove _(< _de ubi_) that have the meaning "where", from the etymological point of view they should mean rather "from where". Even more, the Spanish _donde _should literally mean "from from where" ...


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## OBrasilo

Italian also has (archaic) _ove_. It's possible that there was a distinction between _ove_ (where) vs. _dove_ (from where) that was lost, and that the same thing happened to an _onde_ vs. _donde_ distinction in Spanish. Meanwhile, Portuguese might still retain the distinction.


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## Riverplatense

francisgranada said:


> Yes, however today used rather in abstract sense. "Normally" _from where_ is _da dove_.



Yes, I only wanted to remark that the word in the given meaning still exists in Italian, even if the use is infrequent and archaic. 



francisgranada said:


> However, what I find interesting, is the fact that both the Spanish _donde _(< _de unde_) and the Italian _dove _(< _de ubi_) that have the meaning "where", from the etymological point of view they should mean rather "from where". Even more, the Spanish _donde _should literally mean "from from where" ...



That's interesting indeed. It's way easier to explain the use of intensifiers in temporal/local adverbs than these constructions. I think the only well-known patterns in this development are (1) the substitution of a complex synthetic word by an analytical construction and (2) the formal amplification of words containing a temporal/local/spatial information. Besides, it's interesting that also Italian dialectal forms use _unde_/_ubi _together with prepositions, cp. Roman _ndó_, Neapolitan _addó _etc., while Sicilian shows _unni _< UNDE (and _dunni _< DE UNDE ‹from where›).



OBrasilo said:


> Italian also has (archaic) _ove_. It's possible that there was a distinction between _ove_ (where) vs. _dove_ (from where) that was lost […]



Possible, but I haven't found any evidence for this, neither in dictionaries nor in texts. In the _Commedia_, _dove _appears 140 times, _ove _66 times, and the only substantial functional difference I could find is the one that still goes for the word (apart from _ove _being archaic): _ove _seems to be way more often used in relative clauses than in interrogative clauses.


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## francisgranada

Riverplatense said:


> ... It's way easier to explain the use of intensifiers in temporal/local adverbs than these constructions. I think the only well-known patterns in this development are (1) the substitution of a complex synthetic word by an analytical construction and (2) the formal amplification of words containing a temporal/local/spatial information.


Thanks for the answer. (I would appreciate some examples, as well ...)

Apparently, the preposition _de _(_de _unde, _de _ubi, ...)  cannot be automatically perceived as the equivalent of  the English "from" or "of". See for example Sp.,It. _dentro _(< de intro), _davanti _(< de ab ante), _delante _(< de in ante), etc ...  I.e. it seems that  this _de_ seems to substitute/represent some no more existing Latin grammatical case (genitive, ablative?), or something like this ...

See also e.g. the Italian construction "Ti prego *di* andare a casa". The English literal translation (*I ask you *from/of* to go home) doesn't make much sense. I understand that here the preposition _*di*_ is connected rather to the verb _pregare_,  however this fact doesn't automatically explain its function ...


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## Riverplatense

francisgranada said:


> Thanks for the answer. (I would appreciate some examples, as well ...)



You're welcome  As for examples, I think of (1) Latin _illuc _corresponding to _di là/da quella parte_, _quare _— _attraverso che cosa_, _hactenus _— _fino a qui_, _ne — affinché non_,_ quasi — come se_ or generally the analytical rendering of comparison (_pulchrior _— _più bello_) or case relation (_puellae _— _della ragazza_), as well as (2) _questo _< ӖCCUM ĬSTUM, _qui _< ӖCCUM HĪC, Ladin _incö _< HĬNC HŎDIE etc.



francisgranada said:


> Apparently, the preposition _de _(_de _unde, _de _ubi, ...) cannot be automatically perceived as the equivalent of the English "from" or "of". See for example Sp.,It. _dentro _(< de intro), _davanti _(< de ab ante), _delante _(< de in ante), etc ... I.e. it seems that this _de_ seems to substitute/represent some no more existing Latin grammatical case (genitive, ablative?), or something like this ...



It's certainly a complex question, but I think that in this spatio-temporal sphere the expressivity is an important factor, that could explain some kind of redundancy. Yet indeed it's a bit strange at first sight to find (alleged) vector prepositions in words not indicating movement.



francisgranada said:


> See also e.g. the Italian construction "Ti prego *di* andare a casa". The English literal translation (*I ask you *from/of* to go home) doesn't make much sense.



I've always been interpreting the English _to _in these verbal phrases as correspondent to Italian _di_, probably because the same occurs in my mother tongue (_Ich bitte dich, nachhause *zu *gehen_). I also think that in this case there's nothing of the meaning ‹from/of› left, just as in English _to_ or German _zu _there's no direction implied. The only possible relation would be a variant like _sono convinto *di* ciò che dice_ — _sono convinto *di* poter vincere_.

Edit: Last sentence deleted.


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## Pato5000

"Donde" is indeed the short form of "de onde", but this last one is archaic whereas donde is perfectly correct.
Ande is the laid back pronunciation of donde, but at the same time it is the present of subjunctive of the verb andar, to walk (yo ande). If you add the accent (tilde) to the e (andé) you have the past of the same verb.

Edit: don't pay attention to the last sentence, it is not right at all. Sorry for the mistake.


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## merquiades

Pato5000 said:


> "Donde" is indeed the short form of "de onde", but this last one is archaic whereas donde is perfectly correct.
> Ande is the laid back pronunciation of donde, but at the same time it is the present of subjunctive of the verb andar, to walk (yo ande). If you add the accent (tilde) to the e (andé) you have the past of the same verb.


Past of _andar _is_ anduve_, right?


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## Pato5000

I'm very sorry, you're absolutely right. I was writing this morning in the public transport and my station was near. This happens when you try to rush... Shame on me!


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## Penyafort

The past of andar is anduve, but it's true that andé is being used so much these days that I wouldn't be surprised to see it accepted soon. Anduve will probably become an obsolete form. Estuve, on the other hand, is very alive and kicking.

However, I don't agree with "ande" being a laid-back form of "donde". Rather an old variant, coming from AD UNDE, which has remained as a dialectal variant now condemned by the standard but used as a localism or in humorous speech.


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## purasbabosadas

Speaking of "ande/ad unde",I've also heard "aonde" by the same Central American as an alternative to "onde".For example:"¿Aonde vive ella?"This alternation between these two words also happens in Portuguese.


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## Dymn

Frankly I'd be surprised if all of these variants were directly descended from Latin and not just mere corruptions of _dónde / a dónde_. /d/ is probably the Spanish consonant with the highest tendency to be dropped in casual language.


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