canoa

Forms

canoa f (plural canoas)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Taíno *kanowa.^[1][2] Corominas takes it from the Arawakan speech of the Lucayas, the Bahamas.^[3][4] Bénaben also calls it an Arawakan word of the Bahamas.^[5]

Friederici, followed by Corominas, thinks that the Arawakan word was itself a loan from Carib, which has the form Carib kanawa, because it is unknown in the Arawakan languages of the mainland.^[3][6] Gómez de Silva also calls the word Carib in origin.^[7] Friederici notes that the forms with ⟨-aua⟩ and ⟨-ahua⟩ belong to the island and mainland Caribs, and the form canoa to the island Arawaks.^[6]

The Spanish word went into the other European languages: Italian canoa already in Anghiera and Pigafetta, French canoë beside the older canot, English canoe and German Kanu.^[3][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the first record to Columbus's diary of the first voyage, on 26 October 1492.^[3][4] In the diary the boats are described as almadías, “boats of a single log, which carry no sail”, with the gloss “these are the canoes”.^[8] Columbus's letter to Luis de Santángel of 1493 says that the islanders have muy muchas canoas a manera de fustes de remo, “very many canoes, like oared galleys”, some larger and some smaller.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The word kept its first sense, a narrow boat made from one hollowed trunk, which Nebrija rendered with the Latin monoxylum “a boat of one timber” about 1495.^[9][3] The Tesoro of Puerto Rican Spanish calls it the first word from an American language to enter the Spanish dictionaries.^[10] Friederici notes that it first named only dugouts and later also boats of bark.^[6]

In 1611 Covarrubias wrote that the Mexicans had their own name for these boats, meaning “houses of water”, but that the Spaniards called them all canoes because they had first met them in Santo Domingo.^[11] The Academy's dictionary of 1869 added a light boat carried by ships for the captain, and the sombrero de canoa, the shovel hat worn by clergymen.^[12]

In the Americas the word was applied to things shaped like a dugout: a trough for feeding animals, a channel or gutter that carries water, and in Chile the large pod of a palm's fruit.^[13][2][14] Friederici already records a large vessel for fermenting drinks or watering cattle.^[6] English took canoe from Spanish in the 1550s, at first for West Indian boats.^[15]

Timeline

• 1492 – Columbus's diary of the first voyage records the word on 26 October.^[3][4]
• 1493 – a letter from Santo Domingo spells it canáus.^[16]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija's Spanish–Latin dictionary includes it: canoa, nave de un madero.^[9][3]
• 1519 – Fernández de Enciso's Suma de geografía tells of four Indians taken in a canoe on a river.^[17]
• 1550s – English borrows it as canoe.^[15]
• 1611 – Covarrubias explains why the Spaniards gave all such boats this name.^[11]
• 1729 – the Diccionario de Autoridades calls it the name the Spaniards gave the boat in Santo Domingo.^[18]
• 1869 – the Academy's dictionary adds the ship's boat and the clergyman's sombrero de canoa.^[12]
• 1917 – Alemany records the American senses “water channel”, “gutter” and “feeding trough”.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A canoe: a very narrow rowing boat, usually made of one piece, without a keel and with bow and stern alike: Bajaron el río en una canoa.^[2][1]
2. A very light boat carried by some ships, usually for the captain's use.^[2]
3. The clergyman's shovel hat, sombrero de canoa.^[2][12]
4. (Latin America) A wooden or other channel for carrying water.^[2][14]
5. (Latin America) An oblong trough or box for feeding animals and other uses.^[2][14]
6. (Chile, Costa Rica) A roof gutter, usually of zinc.^[2]
7. (Chile) A plastic cover for fluorescent tubes.^[2]
8. (Chile) The large, broad pod of the small coconuts of the palm.^[2]

Word family

• canoero

Related words

• canotié
• English canoe

Usage notes

In Mexico a canoa trajinera, or simply trajinera, is a boat for passengers or cargo on the lakes of the Valley of Mexico.^[2][19]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. canoa
3. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 809
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. canoa
5. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. canoa
6. ^ a b c d Friederici, Georg (1947), Amerikanistisches Wörterbuch, Hamburg: Cram, de Gruyter
7. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 143
8. ^ 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. canoa
9. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 309
10. ^ Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. canoa
11. ^ 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. 414
12. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 144
13. ^ a b Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 320
14. ^ a b c Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. canoa
15. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
16. ^ 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. canáu
17. ^ Grupo IATEXT, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, AMERLEX: corpus of americanisms in early texts on the Americas (online database)
18. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 117
19. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. canoa