# Spanish carabela



## relativamente

I would like to know whether Spanish carabela, that is the kind of ship used by Columbus to go to América, has the same etymlogy as Russian word for ship,  korabl


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## Nino83

The Spanish word derives from the Latin "cărăbus" and Greek "κάραβος" but I don't know the etymology of the Russian word.


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## Cossue

Nino83 said:


> The Spanish word derives from the Latin "cărăbus" and Greek "κάραβος"



Through Galician (the word is first documented circa 1440, though probably it was in use much sooner) and Portuguese _caravela_, a diminutive, which would correspond to Spanish **carabilla. In modern Galician _carabela_/_caravela _is a kind of basket: http://sli.uvigo.es/DdD/ddd_pescuda.php?pescuda=caravel*&tipo_busca=lema&acentos=n&comodins=s. 

Anyway Coromines in his DCECH says that related words were used by Genovese sailors in the Black Sea, so I don't known if Russians could have taken their word from Italian navigators, or directly from Greeks (crab > ship which resembles a crab).


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## Scholiast

Greetings



> In modern Galician _carabela_/_caravela _is a kind of basket:



Anyone for a cognate connexion with German _Korb_?

Σ


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## yezik

Scholiast said:


> Greetings
> 
> 
> 
> Anyone for a cognate connexion with German _Korb_?
> 
> Σ



короб - box,  корзина - basket...


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## Stoggler

yezik said:


> короб - box,  корзина - basket...



Do you have a source for that suggestion?  Is it based on research or just a wild stab in the dark?  I think Scholiast is after something with some authority behind it rather than just guesswork.


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## yezik

Sure it's a  coincidence. Any similarity with Slavic words - nothing but guesswork.


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## apmoy70

The word is attested in both Aristophanes and Aristotle as *«κάραβος» k**á**rabŏs* (masc.) describing a _crustacean_ (Aristophanes), or a _beetle_ (Aristotle); note that the -α- in the antepenultimate is long -ᾱ-.
Later the word came to describe the two-decker (ship), and its diminutive neut. *«καράβιον» kārábiŏn*, the small boat towed after the ship (the latter produced the generic colloquial name in MoGr for the ship, the neut. *«καράβι»* 
[kaˈɾavi]).
The Russians probably took the name from the Byzantine Greek *«καράβιον» karábion*, a cargo transport. Beekes writes: _"From κάραβος came Lat. cārabus 'crab', also 'small boat' (also Romance, e.g. MoFr. caravelle) and a Slavic word for 'ship', e.g. Ru. korabl"_.
My personal guess is that the name in Romance languages came via Genoa and/or Venice; merchants from these two states had afterall migrated to _Πέραν ἐν Συκαῖς/Péran en Sykaîs - The Fig Field on the Other Side_, the other side of the Golden Horn in Byzantine Constantinople, an area that eventually became the centre of Venetian and Genoese making bussiness with Byzantium.   
For Beekes the word is Pre-Greek. 
For Babiniotis the word is a loanword from a Mediterranean language.


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## Stoggler

yezik said:


> Sure it's a  coincidence. Any similarity with Slavic words - nothing but guesswork.



I don't think guesswork is of much use and doesn't add anything to genuine discussions about etymology and respective research/evidence.


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## kakapadaka

Portuguese and Russian etymologies as far as I could find out are divergent.
http://www.infopedia.pt/dicionarios/lingua-portuguesa/caravela
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/корабль 
(but quoting wiki is a sin)


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## rusita preciosa

kakapadaka said:


> Portuguese and Russian etymologies as far as I could find out are divergent.
> http://www.infopedia.pt/dicionarios/lingua-portuguesa/caravela
> http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/корабль
> (but quoting wiki is a sin)


A much more reliable source (Vasmer's Etymological Dictionary) says that *корабль* came from the Greek καράβιον, κάραβος (vessel).


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## kakapadaka

This would actually indicate a common origin


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## sotos

apmoy70 said:


> My personal guess is that the name in Romance languages came via Genoa and/or Venice; merchants from these two states had afterall migrated to _Πέραν ἐν Συκαῖς/Péran en Sykaîs - The Fig Field on the Other Side_, the other side of the Golden Horn in Byzantine Constantinople, an area that eventually became the centre of Venetian and Genoese making bussiness with Byzantium.


Or via the Greek immigrants to the West in late 15th c.  Sathas believes that this is the origin of words _carabinieri_ (=marines) etc.




apmoy70 said:


> For Beekes the word is Pre-Greek.



But it may not be a coincidendce that the other word for crab, _carcinos_, starts with car- and the second part of both words is related to motion.  The russian word for ship may not be a loan but a cognate. The common meaning of car-, kor- etc is related to the _trunk of tree_ (Gr. _kormos_). Compare _bark - barco_.


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## momai

Hi,
Just out of curiosity,does Arabic qaareb "ship" have anything to do with Spanish carabela?


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## fdb

momai said:


> Hi,
> Just out of curiosity,does Arabic qaareb "ship" have anything to do with Spanish carabela?



It too comes from Greek karabos.


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## Cossue

sotos said:


> Or via the Greek immigrants to the West in late 15th c.  Sathas believes that this is the origin of words _carabinieri_ (=marines) etc.



Nope. Isidore of Seville already knew the word _carabus _in the 6th/7th century: «parva scapha, ex vimine facta, quae, contecta crudo corio, genus navigii praebet» (in Coromines, DCECH s.v. _caravela_), and the diminutive _caravela _is already used in Portuguese in 1255, in Spanish c. 1270 -with probable reference to Galicia- and in Galician proper not later than 1440. French _caravelle_ was taken from Portuguese: http://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/caravelle.


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## Nino83

It seems that the diminuitive "caravela" derives from the Italian word "caravella" http://www.infopedia.pt/dicionarios/lingua-portuguesa/caravela


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## Cossue

Yep, but probably no. Coromines says there's a really old c. 5th century Italian _caravella_, but he doesn't even consider the possibility of a direct loan from Italian into Portuguese, probably because there's no continuity in the use of the word _caravella _in Italy up to the 13th century. So they are probably two independent identical formations. The Italian etymological dictionary here (http://www.etimo.it/?term=caravella&find=Cerca) derives Italian _caravèlla _from French from Spanish from Greek, which again indicates that there is no continuity in Italian. And because of Isidore of Seville we know that the (Greek loan)word _carabus _was already being used in Iberia in the 6th century.


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## Cossue

Or maybe yes? _Googling _("The Mariner's Mirror", Volumes 74-75, 1988, p. 239, in Google Books) I have just find that the word _carabus _was also used in Ravenna in the 11th century, and later in 1156 a _caravellus coopertus_ is mentioned in a deed by one Giovanni Scriba.


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## sotos

Reasonable. Parts of Italy were in the Byzantine empire till as late as 11th c. Parts of Spain were under Byz.Emp. only briefly in Justinianus era. By then, the empire bureucracy was already Greek, or mostly Greek.


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## aruniyan

Need not be related with carabella, but in Tamil, _*Vallam*_ = Boat and there are different types of Vallam,
Vallam should refer to its strength and inflexibility.


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## sotos

Some dictionaries say that also Fr. _gabar(r)e_ comes from the Gr. _karabos _by mutation of the B and R http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabare  The reversion of R and B happened also in medieval and modern Gr. for _crab_. In New Gr. it is "kavouras".
Ιnteresting the insisting parellelly  ships//crustaceans:  As "karabos" means crab, so "gabari" means a kind of prawn in Greek. Coincidence?


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## apmoy70

sotos said:


> Some dictionaries say that also Fr. _gabar(r)e_ comes from the Gr. _karabos _by mutation of the B and R http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabare  The reversion of R and B happened also in medieval and modern Gr. for _crab_. In New Gr. it is "kavouras".
> Ιnteresting the insisting parellelly  ships//crustaceans:  As "karabos" means crab, so "gabari" means a kind of prawn in Greek. Coincidence?


The two are unrelated I'm afraid, the MoGr *«γάμπαρη»* [ˈɣambaɾi] (fem.) is a re-loan < Late Lat. gambarus < Classical Lat. cammarus < Classical Gr. *«κάμμαρος» kámmarŏs* (masc.), dialectal *«κόμμαρος» kómmarŏs* (masc.) --> _kind of crab, shrimp_.
For Babiniotis its etymology is obscure _"possibly a loanword."_ (sic)
For Beekes _"the veriation α/ο points to a pre-Greek word (which may in turn be a loan from elsewhere)."_ (sic)
*«κάραβος»* ≠ *«κά/κόμμαρος»*


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