# Use of "izquierda" not Latin "sinister" in Spanish



## willarkin

I have read a lot of quite conflicting explanations of when and exactly why the Spanish stopped using a word deriving from "sinister", the Latin word for the left, and instead decided to use a pre-Roman (Basque?) word, izquierda. Evidently it is because "sinister" had developed "evil" or "ill" connotations, but is there actually any evidence when this happened? Did Vulgar Latin speakers in what is now Spain ever use "sinister", or did the population refuse to take up the word because the superstitions already existed?

I appreciate there may be no evidence either way but it does interest me - especially whether the word "sinister" was dropped because Christians thought it meant the Devil, or if it happened in pre-Christian times

Thank you!!


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## Quiviscumque

Sorry, don't put the blame on Christians. Words for "left" are tabooed and tabooed again. The same "sinister" is of uncertain origin. In any case "doit etre un euphemisme recent, comme gr. aristeros et euonimos" (Ernout-Meillet).

Concerning "izquierdo", Corominas says:

_Probablemente procede de una lengua prerromana hispano-pirenaica, y es verosímil que el vocablo se extendiera desde una zona de lengua vasca en la época visigótica._


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## killerbee256

Portuguese uses the same word, but spelled _esquerda _Catalan as well spelled _esquerra_. I don't know but I doubt it's because the Latin word was taboo, I think it's just an Iberian eccentricity.


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## fdb

Quiviscumque said:


> Corominas says:
> 
> _Probablemente procede de una lengua prerromana hispano-pirenaica, y es verosímil que el vocablo se extendiera desde una zona de lengua vasca en la época visigótica._



When "probably" is used to mean "possibly, but I have no evidence to back it up": that is when linguistics becomes dangerous.


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## Quiviscumque

fdb said:


> When "probably" is used to mean "possibly, but I have no evidence to back it up": that is when linguistics becomes dangerous.



Less dangerous than financial engineering, anyway 
The only evidence is given by killerbee256: a word found in Basque, Portuguese, Castilian, Catalan, and nowhere else.
Corominas is usually careful and marks clearly his guesses with "probably" and "likely"; there are more assertive linguists, I daresay.


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## Quiviscumque

Quiviscumque said:


> a word found in Basque, Portuguese, Castilian, Catalan, and nowhere else.


...and in Gascon and Languedocien (that's what Corominas says), hence the reference to a "hispano-pirenaic" language.


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## killerbee256

Quiviscumque said:


> ...and in Gascon and Languedocien (that's what Corominas says), hence the reference to a "hispano-pirenaic" language.


It being used in Gascon and Languedocien doesn't surprise me as Occitan and Catalan are essentially the same language also dialects of Basque were spoken in Gascony in Roman times.


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## Cenzontle

Quiviscumque, thank you for defending Corominas, with...


> Corominas is usually careful and marks clearly his guesses with  "probably" and "likely"; there are more assertive linguists, I daresay.


We should be grateful for, not frightened by, the honesty of "probably" (compared with the assertiveness of those other linguists, 
who sometimes jump in with both feet even when they are unsure).
According to Mark Davies's _Corpus del Español_, the medieval _siniestro/siniestra _gives way to _izquierdo/izquierda _during the 16th century.
Here are the percentages of _siniestro/siniestra _vs. _izquierdo/izquierda_ for different periods:
13th through 15th century: 96/4 (_sin./izq._).
16th century: 49/51.
17th century: 33/67.
18th century: 23/77
Etc.


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## fdb

Cenzontle said:


> the honesty of "probably" (compared with the assertiveness of those other linguists,
> who sometimes jump in with both feet even when they are unsure).



My objection was that "probably" is an overstatement, not an understatement.


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## killerbee256

Cenzontle said:


> Quiviscumque, thank you for defending Corominas, with...
> 
> We should be grateful for, not frightened by, the honesty of "probably" (compared with the assertiveness of those other linguists,
> who sometimes jump in with both feet even when they are unsure).
> According to Mark Davies's _Corpus del Español_, the medieval _siniestro/siniestra _gives way to _izquierdo/izquierda _during the 16th century.
> Here are the percentages of _siniestro/siniestra _vs. _izquierdo/izquierda_ for different periods:
> 13th through 15th century: 96/4 (_sin./izq._).
> 16th century: 49/51.
> 17th century: 33/67.
> 18th century: 23/77
> Etc.


This is writing of the upper class, yes? Makes me wonder how much longer it was used in lower class speech, before it entered into formal usage.


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## CapnPrep

fdb said:


> My objection was that "probably" is an overstatement, not an understatement.


Speaking of overstatements, your post #4 was a nice example… 

Seriously, do you think that Corominas's hypothesis is improbable? Do you know of an alternative hypothesis that is more likely to be true than what Corominas suggests? Now would be a good time to present your evidence.


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## fdb

The issue is whether Basque _esker_ has a Basque etymology, or whether it is a borrowing from Ibero-Romance.


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## Cenzontle

> The issue is whether Basque _esker_ has a Basque etymology, or whether it is a borrowing from Ibero-Romance.


fdb, did you really mean "Ibero-Romance" (which would be a Latin-derived ancestor of Castilian, Portuguese, Galician and Catalan),
or did you intend to refer to the Iberian language, a language of unknown affiliation thought to have been spoken in the Iberian Peninsula before the coming of the Roman Empire?


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## fdb

I mean Ibero-Romance, of course.


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## Cenzontle

But fdb, I don't think you want to say that "esker" comes from Latin.  You don't want to say "Romance" here, for its source.


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## merquiades

Cenzontle said:


> Quiviscumque, thank you for defending Corominas, with...
> 
> We should be grateful for, not frightened by, the honesty of "probably" (compared with the assertiveness of those other linguists,
> who sometimes jump in with both feet even when they are unsure).
> According to Mark Davies's _Corpus del Español_, the medieval _siniestro/siniestra _gives way to _izquierdo/izquierda _during the 16th century.
> Here are the percentages of _siniestro/siniestra _vs. _izquierdo/izquierda_ for different periods:
> 13th through 15th century: 96/4 (_sin./izq._).
> 16th century: 49/51.
> 17th century: 33/67.
> 18th century: 23/77
> Etc.



Are these occurrences of _siniestro_ just with the meaning of _left_, or does the count include _siniestro_ with other meanings like _wicked, spooky, catastrophic_?


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## fdb

According to M. Löpelmann, _Etymologisches Wörterbuch der baskischen Sprache_ (1968), Basque _eskerr_ “left Hand“ is indeed the source of Spanish _esquerro, izquierdo_ and other such Romance forms, but he suggests that the Basque word itself is of Romance/Latin origin: the first half from *_bisk_ < _*bis-oculus_ “squinting” (“schielend”), and the suffix _–err_ = Basque _erdi_ “half” < *_merdi_ < _merīdiē_, so the basic meaning (Grundbedeutung) is “half squint-eyed” (“halb scheel”).


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## Cenzontle

> the first half from *_bisk_ < _*bis-oculus_ “squinting” (“schielend”), and the suffix _–err_ = Basque _erdi_ “half”


Thanks for clarifying that, fdb. It's quite a surprising scenario to me, but I'll try to remain open to it.  
I'm not qualified to discuss the processes in Basque phonology or the chronology,
but the semantics seems to call for a leap of faith, from "half-squint" to "lefthand"—I guess they overlap in "anomalous".

Meanwhile, to merquiades's question


> Are these occurrences of _siniestro_ just with the meaning of _left_, or does the count include _siniestro_ with other meanings like _wicked, spooky, catastrophic_?


The latter: the percentages refer to all instances of the forms, regardless of meaning.  
And, as merquiades implies, _siniestro_ does live on in Modern Spanish with those derived meanings.
Let's recognize also that the figures for _izquierda_, in the more modern centuries, are boosted by the derived meaning of a wing in politics.
By the way, we might as well finish the chronology from Mark Davies:
19th century: 25/75 (sin./izq.)
20th century: 8/92


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## Quiviscumque

Please notice that Löpelmann's work is held in not so high regard by Bascologists:

_In 1988, Tovar and Agud began the publication, in fascicles, of what was meant to be the first serious etymological dictionary of Basque (an earlier effort, Löpelmann 1968, is best passed over in silence).

_(http://www.blogseitb.us/basque_bois...2012/12/Etymological-Dictionary-of-Basque.pdf)


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## Penyafort

The Basque loanword is already attested in the first significant 13th-century literature in both Catalan (_esquerre_) and Spanish (_esquierdo/ezquierdo_). It is true that it alternated for a long time with _sinistre/sinestre/senestre _and _siniestro/seniestro _in Catalan and Spanish_, _respectively_._

To think Basque _ezker _comes from such a weird Latin combination of terms is daringly far-fetched, to say the least. I don't know what phonological rules of evolution apply there, honestly. At least Trask in his Basque etymology considers it an uncertain one, which means probably original. 

It wouldn't be the only word like this to spread from this Pyrenean Pre-Roman are into the whole of Iberia. The 'mite' comes to my mind:_ carrapato (Portuguese), garrapata (Spanish), caparra (Aragonese), paparra (Catalan. _

​


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## Circunflejo

Siniestra nowadays is rare and literary but it's still used.

In Leonese, it's esquierda. The exception here seems to be Aragonese where it's said cucha or zurda.


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## Penyafort

Circunflejo said:


> The exception here seems to be Aragonese where it's said cucha or zurda.



In Aragonese it exists too. _Cucho _and _zurdo _are spoken variants.

If you ask me, the word _izquierdo/ezquierdo_ even looks to me more Aragonese than Spanish, given the -RR- > -RD- dissimilation. Compare _barro / bardo,_ _marrano / mardano _or_ zurriaga / ixordiaca. (_I mean, a more expectable form in Castilian may have been_ *ezquierro_)

In  medieval Aragonese, you find it in works by Johan Ferrandez d'Heredia's team and in Aljamiado literature.

(Grant Cronica d'Espanya): 

_& fizo-se morder enel braço *esquierdo  *_​_'_and made his left arm be bitten'​
(Aragonese translation of the Secreta secretorum, in which it is clearly in contrast to _dreyto_):

_et iazi una ora sobre el costado dreyto et despues sobre el costado *ezquierdo*_​'and lie one hour on the right side and then on the left side'​
_porque el costado *ezquierdo *es frido et no ha mester scalfamiento_​'for the left side is cold and needs no heating'​​_segu(n)t que ya auemos dito ordena ala mano dereyta los honbres que an de cometer et a la mano *esquierda* los lançeros _​'according to what we have already said, arrange your charging men at the right wing and lancers at the left one'​


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## Cossue

Penyafort said:


> The Basque loanword is already attested in the first significant 13th-century literature in both Catalan (_esquerre_) and Spanish (_esquierdo/ezquierdo_).



Also in Galician, although as a nickname (_Esquerdo_, _Esquerdeiro_): Corpus Xelmírez - Resultados da consulta. As an adjective (_mão esquerda_, "left hand"), since the 14th century.


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## Penyafort

Cossue said:


> Also in Galician, although as a nickname (_Esquerdo_, _Esquerdeiro_): Corpus Xelmírez - Resultados da consulta. As an adjective (_mão esquerda_, "left hand"), since the 14th century.



Interesting. Is the word _esquerdeiro _in use in modern Galician, other than as surname?


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## Circunflejo

Penyafort said:


> Is the word _esquerdeiro _in use in modern Galician, other than as surname?


As far as I know, it's not a frequent word (in fact, it isn't on the RAG's dictionary) but there are a few ocurrencies of it on books.


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## Cossue

It has a very limited and restricted use by now:
As a surname: ESQUERDEIRO - Cartografía dos apelidos de Galicia
As an appellative (meaning simply "left-handed"): Galician and Portuguese word bank


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## Penyafort

Circunflejo said:


> As far as I know, it's not a frequent word (in fact, it isn't on the RAG's dictionary) but there are a few ocurrencies of it on books.





Cossue said:


> It has a very limited and restricted use by now:
> As a surname: ESQUERDEIRO - Cartografía dos apelidos de Galicia
> As an appellative (meaning simply "left-handed"): Galician and Portuguese word bank



Thanks to both! I had never heard the word before, hence my surprise. In Catalan the derivations _esquerrer _and _esquerrà _are common both as a surname and as the word for the left-handed.


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## Cossue

Penyafort said:


> I had never heard the word before, hence my surprise. In Catalan the derivations _esquerrer _and _esquerrà _are common both as a surname and as the word for the left-handed.


Nice! Didn't know!


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