Catalan etymology of paper? Probably not

Xavi Caballé mentions an oft-cited Catalan etymology of paper:

1249; del ll. papyrus, i aquest, del gr. pápyros ‘papir’, adaptat per via semiculta a una terminació catalana, d’on passà a les altres llengües europees

AFAIK the Enciclopèdia Catalana has never substantiated this. The Dictionnaire de l’Académie francaise says:

PAPIER n. m. XIIIe siècle. Issu, par l’intermédiaire du latin médiéval papirus, du grec papyros, « papyrus ».

The OED goes into more detail (my bold):

< Anglo-Norman papir, paper, papere, papire and Middle French, French papier paper, written document (13th cent. in Old French in a Picard source in an app. isolated attestation; subsequently from 14th cent.; also 15th cent. in Middle French as paupier), ult. < classical Latin papȳrus the papyrus or paper-reed of the Nile, also writing-material made of it (< Hellenistic Greek ...), probably via a northern Italian form, itself after post-classical Latin paperium (13th cent. in an Italian source), alteration of classical Latin papȳrus with remodelling of the ending after words in -erium, although transmission via Catalan paper (1240) is also possible.

If the EC’s version is to triumph amongst non-believers, some scholarship might come in handy. I wonder whether the originators of this meme haven’t confused the early European diffusion of paper, in which the Moorish mill at Játiva, Valencia may or may not have been important, with the later diffusion of northern Italian milling techniques presumably accompanied by the Latinate word.

It might be worth claiming to have invented the pizza. Everyone else has.

Trevor @ 8 July 2008 11:19 AM

Hate this blog? Reduce posts with our books4beer scheme

All commission on sales via this site of Papermaking or other books by Dard Hunter will be spent in a wifi-free pub. More books here.

Categories

Related posts

• Catalan historical revisionism
• Enterprising Romanian gypsy beggar
• Press excerpts for language learning
• Columbus probably Caucasian, possibly Catalan
• Opportunist orthography

Previous/next post

Comments

1. xavier caballe
   11:46 AM on 8 July 2008

   Real Academia Española:

   papel.

   (Del cat. paper, y este del lat. papȳrus).

2. Trevor
   11:53 AM on 8 July 2008

   I’m prepared to believe that, but I think the Catalan word probably came from Italy, and I don’t think that EC has a hope in hell of convincing anyone that the Catalan word formed the basis for use in “les altres llengües europees”.

3. Dani
   11:48 AM on 17 July 2008

   And if the Catalan word comes from the word they used in Xàtiva?

4. Trevor
   11:53 AM on 17 July 2008

   Then it would surely be related to ورقة/waraqa. I suspect that the factory was not run by someone called Jordi.

5. boynamedsue
   5:01 PM on 20 July 2008

   You just don’t get it Trevor.

   Catalonia’s southern national border was fixed (just north of Lorca) some time in the 5th century BC.

   Since that time, every individual who was born in Catalonia has been fully conscious of their catalanity, has recognised Catalan as their only “own language” (and been absolutely sure that it is not a form of Occitan), and has expressed their national identity through a range of symbols which remain unchanged to this day (San Jordi, The Virgin of Montserrat, roses and books, smurf hats, spring onions, manga and the TV series Polonia).

   To suggest that a person living in 12th century Xativa might have spoken a language unrelated to Catalan is almost as ridiculous as claiming Catalanists fought for Franco in the 5th Catalan War of Independence (1936-1939).

Feeds: RSS

Trackback link.

Tell me if the spam dragon gives you a hard time. Log in if you want to be really foul.