barraca

Forms

barraca f (plural barracas)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Catalan barraca, a word first recorded in a Valencian document of 1249.^[2][3][1][4] Corominas considers it certain that Castilian took it from Catalan, where it is older and commoner.^[5]

The Catalan word's own origin is unknown.^[3][4] Corominas thinks it probably pre-Roman, and the FEW and others see in it a derivative of barra (“bar, rail”) with the Hispanic suffix -aca, since the oldest records name makeshift huts of flimsy material.^[5][3] Another possibility he weighs is a derivative of barro (“clay”), the material of the Valencian farmhouses of that name.^[5] Alcover and Moll give the same two explanations.^[6] Less likely for Corominas is a link with Mozarabic barga (“straw hut”) “straw hut”, and he does not entirely exclude Pentti Aalto's derivation from Akkadian parakku (“shrine of a god, palace”), which goes back to Sumerian bárag.^[5] In the DECat he also leaves open an early contribution of Valencian colloquial Arabic.^[4] Corriente and his co-authors derive it from a blend of the Andalusian Arabic word for “hut”, itself of Celtic origin, with an Arabic noun of instrument from a root meaning “to kneel (of beasts)”, that is, “shelter where the beasts rest”.^[7][8]

From Catalan the word passed to Occitan, recorded as Old Occitan baraca at Marseille in 1381, and then to French barraque, now spelt baraque.^[9][5] During the Thirty Years' War French carried it to the rest of Europe: English barrack, German Baracke and probably Italian baracca.^[5][3] Older dictionaries proposed an Arabic verb meaning “to be humble” (Autoridades, 1726) and Medieval Latin trabacca, from Latin trabs (“beam”) (the Academy, 1899).^[10][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's first records are in Juan Fernández de Heredia's translations of the late 14th century: of primitive people in his Eutropius, antes no biuien sino tan solament de billotas et habitauan en barracas “before, they lived on nothing but acorns and dwelt in huts”.^[12] His Gran crónica de España (1385) has barracas de ramas “huts of branches”.^[12] Corominas dates the word in Castilian only from 1569, in reference to soldiers' huts.^[5][3]

Semantic evolution

The oldest Catalan records name temporary, flammable shelters of soldiers and a hut of mats and blankets.^[5] The early Castilian examples refer to soldiers' huts, to the dwellings of gypsies in Cervantes's La gitanilla, and to the rustic houses of adobe and straw of the Valencian and Murcian huertas.^[5] Autoridades (1726) defines it as a hut covered with brushwood for country people or soldiers without tents.^[10] In 1884 the Academy added the Murcian farmhouse of adobe walls and a reed roof, and a field hospital of planks for times of epidemic or war.^[13] The 1899 edition named the houses of the Valencian and Murcian huertas.^[11]

In the River Plate, Chile and other parts of Latin America a barraca is a large depot where hides, wool, timber or grain are stored for trade, a sense Alemany recorded for Argentina and Chile in 1917.^[14][2][15] In Chile the purist Rodríguez objected that Castilian used it only for a hut, not for a timber yard.^[16] In Bolivia and Peru Bayo noted it for the riverside posts where rubber was collected.^[17] In Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama and Argentina it can mean the buildings of a barracks.^[18]

Timeline

• 1249 – Catalan barraca in a Valencian document, in its Latin form baracquas.^[4]
• 1377–1399 – Fernández de Heredia uses barracas in his translation of Eutropius.^[12]
• 1381 – the word is recorded in a Latin charter of Marseille.^[9]
• c. 1406 – González de Clavijo's Historia del gran Tamorlán has la barraca.^[12]
• 1494 – the translation of Boccaccio's De las mujeres ilustres: entra por las barracas de los pobres.^[19]
• 1569 – Corominas's first record in Castilian.^[5][3]
• 1590 – the first record from the Americas, in Mexico, spelt baraca.^[20]
• 1678 – English barracks “quarters” is recorded.^[5]
• 1726 – Autoridades defines the hut and proposes an Arabic etymology.^[10]
• 1917 – Alemany records the Argentine and Chilean sense “depot”.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A hut or roughly built shack of light materials: Los pastores dormían en una barraca de tablas.^[2][21]
2. (Valencia, Murcia) A farmhouse of the huertas, with adobe walls and a steep two-sided roof of reeds.^[2][21]
3. (Latin America) A warehouse or yard where hides, wool, timber, grain and other goods for trade are kept.^[2][18]
4. (Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Argentina) The buildings of a barracks, especially the dormitories.^[18]
5. barraca de feria: a temporary, removable booth for shows and amusements at a fair.^[2]

Word family

• barracón
• abarracar

Related words

• Catalan barraca
• French baraque
• English barrack

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f 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. barraca
3. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. barraca
4. ^ a b c d 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, 667
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 518
6. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. barraca
7. ^ Corriente, Federico; Pereira, Christophe; Vicente, Ángeles (2019), Dictionnaire des emprunts ibéro-romans: emprunts à l'arabe et aux langues du monde islamique (Encyclopédie linguistique d'Al-Andalus 3), Berlin: De Gruyter, p. s.v. barraca
8. ^ Corriente, Federico (1999), Diccionario de arabismos y voces afines en iberorromance, Madrid: Gredos, p. 257
9. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 563
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 128
12. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 139
14. ^ a b Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 228
15. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 190
16. ^ Rodríguez, Zorobabel (1875), Diccionario de chilenismos, Santiago de Chile: Imprenta de El Independiente
17. ^ Bayo, Ciro (1910), Vocabulario criollo-español sud-americano, Madrid: Hernando, p. 29
18. ^ a b c Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer
19. ^ 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. 497
20. ^ 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. baraca
21. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. barraca