Soy venido a estas tierras: A Small Compendium of Archaisms.
really enjoy History. And Linguistics, wow, it has History. I, being a language and history geek, spend many hours of my life reading about the history of the languages I learn. Or, to be more precise, looking for old words. I love it. And in that process, I learn a lot. Today, for example, while searching for information to write this article, I finally understood the difference between inergative and intransitive verbs, because generally when I search for information, I tend to go off on tangents. Also, I came to the conclusion that the Italian language is the most consistent when using avere or essere as auxiliary verbs in compound tenses. And no, I don’t speak Italian, so if my conclusion is wrong for anyone who speaks Italian, please let me know. The point of all this is that, at least from my perspective, reviewing the history of a language helps us connect with others, at least with the closest ones. It puts us, or at least it puts me, in geek mode, and it's a form of motivation to keep progressing. That's why, in this article, we'll look at some archaisms of the Spanish language. I’ll leave you a song that I love and that has old words in English in case you want to read the article while listening to music. Warning: it can be addictive.
The RAE dictionary defines an archaism in linguistics as a linguistic element whose form, meaning, or both have become outdated in relation to a given time. In this article, we will look at words that were once used in Spanish, others that are still in use but with a different meaning, and an old way of forming compound tenses. Let’s go!
Agora: An old form of ahora (now). It comes from the Latin hac hora (at this hour). It was common in medieval texts and during the Siglo de Oro, a highly prolific period for Spanish art and literature, which is considered to have lasted approximately from the discovery of America (1492) to the death of Calderón de la Barca (1681), that is, more than a century.
Aína: It means soon or easily. It derives from the Latin agīna, which means activity.
Ansí/Ansina: Old variants of así (thus/so). Ansí comes from the Latin in sic and was very common between the 14th and 17th centuries. Ansina is an emphatic form.
Aqueste/Aquesta: Old forms of the demonstratives este/esta (this). They come from the Latin eccum istum and were widely used in medieval and Renaissance literature.
Asaz: It means quite or very. It comes from the Latin ad satis (up to enough). It was widely used in medieval literature and during the Siglo de Oro in Spain. This word is particularly interesting to me because, the French for quite – and that is one of the languages I am learning – is assez.
Ayuso: It means down or downwards. It comes from the Latin ad deorsum.
Habedes: An old form of habéis (you have). It is the second-person plural form of the present indicative of the verb haber.
Hogaño: It means this year or in the present time. It comes from the Latin hoc anno. It contrasts with “antaño”, a word still commonly used today, which means before or in past times.
Luengo: It means long or extensive. It comes from the Latin longus. It frequently appears in medieval texts.
Maguer: It means although or in spite of. It comes from the Greek makarie (happy), which passed into vulgar Latin.
Fermoso, Facer, Fablar: hermoso (beautiful), hacer (to do), hablar (to talk). Many words from Latin entered Romance Spanish with an initial f, which later evolved into the silent h we use today.
Suso: It means up or upwards. It comes from the Latin sursum.
Vegada: It means time or occasion. It comes from the Latin vicata, derived from vix, vicis (time, alternation).
Vos: A second-person pronoun that was used as a formal address. You can read much more about this here. Today, it is used in different parts of Latin America, including in my own language variant, Rioplatense, but with an informal meaning.
Yantar: A verb that means to eat. It comes from the Latin ientāre (to have lunch). It was also used as a noun to refer to the main meal of the day.
These archaisms, along with many others, can be found in ancient Spanish texts. Besides being evidence of the evolution of the language, they are still part of the Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy today.
Just like in modern German, Italian, and French, some intransitive verbs were conjugated with the verb ser (to be) instead of haber (to have) as an auxiliary verb when forming compound tenses. Thus, verbs like ir (to go), venir (to come), nacer (to be born), quedar (to stay), etc., had this compound tense formation, which survived in other languages but was lost in Spanish. That’s why the title of the article: soy venido a estas tierras is the archaic way of saying he venido a estas tierras (I have come to these lands). As a final curiosity, the verb nacer (to be born), which used to be conjugated with ser as an auxiliary verb, no longer is. That is, we say he nacido en Uruguay(I have been born in Uruguay), but the expression soy nacido en Uruguay is still in common use in current Spanish.
I hope you found this article interesting. If you read it while listening to the song, I also hope you liked it. Above all, I hope it motivates you to read more about the history and evolution of languages, something that I personally find fascinating. Thank you for reading!
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