atañer

Forms

atañer (third-person only, third-person singular present atañe, third-person singular preterite atañó, past participle atañido)^[1] Old Spanish texts write the verb atañer or atanner, and the oldest record, of 1218, has atane.^[2][3] The old present subjunctive had a /g/, atanga, as Autoridades notes.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *attangere (“to touch, reach”), a form of attingō (“to touch, come in contact with”) rebuilt on the simple verb tangō (“to touch”).^[5][3][1] Corominas places it in the family of tañer, which continues the simple Latin verb.^[3][6] DICCA-XV calls it a learned borrowing of the classical verb instead, but the other sources treat it as a popular word.^[7][3][8]

The Latin verb is formed from ad- and the verb for “touch”.^[9][1] The rebuilt form lives on in Old Catalan atányer and Old Occitan atanher, where the sense “to concern” is commoner than in Castilian, and in French atteindre “to reach”.^[3][10][11] Other languages kept the classical form: Catalan atènyer “to reach, obtain”, Portuguese atingir “to reach, affect”, Italian attingere and Romanian atinge.^{[12][3][13][11]}

De Vaan derives the Latin verb from a nasal present Proto-Indo-European *th₂-n-g- (“to touch”).^[14] Wiktionary gives the root as *teh₂g-, with Germanic cognates such as Gothic 𐍄𐌴𐌺𐌰𐌽 (tekan, “to touch”).^[1][14]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the form atane in a Castilian charter of 1218.^[3][2] From the start the verb means “to concern, pertain to”: the legal works of Alfonso X say esto atañe al Rey mismo e al regno “this concerns the king himself and the kingdom”.^[15] The first record in a text that survives in its own manuscript is the Castigos of 1293: estos dos castigos atañen mucho a los Reyes “these two lessons concern kings very much”.^[16]

Semantic evolution

The Old Spanish verb tañer still meant “to touch” in general, and the sense “to concern” of the compound was common in the Middle Ages.^[3] Nebrija in 1492 renders Latin attineo with atañer & pertenecer.^[7] In 1611 Covarrubias called it an old word used in legal formulas and public deeds, and reported a different use from the country around Salamanca, where someone chasing a donkey would call atáñeme acá essa burra “stop that she-ass for me”.^[17] Autoridades in 1726 repeated both uses, calling the Salamanca one rustic.^[4] It is still recorded in Salamanca for stopping a runaway animal.^[18][19]

Cervantes uses it in the pair toca y atañe “touches and concerns”, which also appears in documents from the Americas from 1535.^[20][21][22] Cuervo notes that the verb is used only in the third person, and seldom outside the present indicative.^[21]

Timeline

• 1218 – first record, atane, in a Castilian charter.^[3][2]
• 1293 – the Castigos use atañen “they concern”.^[16]
• 1492 – Nebrija's Latin–Spanish dictionary renders Latin attineo with atañer.^[7]
• 1535 – first record in the Americas, in Nicaragua: lo que a él toca y atañe.^[22]
• 1591 – Percyvall translates it “to pertaine”.^[23]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records the Salamanca use “to stop an animal”.^[17]
• 1726 – Autoridades calls it an old word kept in legal formulas.^[4]
• 1843 – the Academy defines it as an impersonal verb, “to touch or belong”.^[24]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive, third person only) To concern or affect someone; to have to do with: Ese problema no nos atañe.^[5][19][1]
2. (intransitive, third person only) To be someone's responsibility; to fall to someone: La decisión atañe al consejo.^[5][19]
3. (regional, Salamanca) To stop or catch a runaway animal.^[19][18]

Word family

• atañedero

Related words

• tañer
• tangente
• contacto
• Latin attingō
• Portuguese atingir

Usage notes

Atañer is conjugated like tañer (atañó, atañeron), and only its third persons are used.^[19][21] The phrase por lo que atañe a means “as regards”.^[19]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. atañer
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 408
4. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 458
5. ^ a b c Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. atañer
6. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. tañer
7. ^ a b c Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv, p. s.v. atañer
8. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. atañer
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. attingō
10. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. atteindre
11. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
12. ^ Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 1, 473
13. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 403
14. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
15. ^ Alonso Pedraz, Martín (1986), Diccionario medieval español: desde las Glosas Emilianenses y Silenses (s. X) hasta el siglo XV, 2 vols., Salamanca: Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca, p. 432
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. atañer
17. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 236
18. ^ a b Lamano y Beneite, José de (1915), El dialecto vulgar salmantino, Salamanca: Tipografía Popular, p. 260
19. ^ a b c d e f Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. atañer
20. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1905–1906), La lengua de Cervantes: gramática y diccionario de la lengua castellana en El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, 2 vols., Madrid: Jaime Ratés, p. 137
21. ^ a b c Cuervo, Rufino José (1886–1893), Diccionario de construcción y régimen de la lengua castellana, vols. I–II (A–D), París: A. Roger y F. Chernoviz, p. 1, 729
22. ^ a b Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. atañer
23. ^ Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 73
24. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 76