charlar

Forms

charlar (first-person singular present charlo, first-person singular preterite charlé, past participle charlado)^[1]

Etymology

It is probably borrowed from Italian ciarlare (“to chatter”), a word of expressive origin.^[2][3][4][1] Corominas bases the Italian origin on the late date of the Spanish word, which is missing from Nebrija and Alcalá and arrived together with the certain Italianism charlatán.^[2] Nocentini also treats the Spanish and Portuguese verb as a loan from Italian.^[5]

The verb is old in Italian: the DELI dates it before 1375, in Boccaccio, and Nocentini from 1335–1336.^[6][5] Corominas explains it as an alteration, under the influence of parlare (“to speak”), of a form Sardinian cierrare still found in Sardinia, the same imitative word as Occitan charrar and Catalan xerrar.^[2] Nocentini calls the whole group a Romance onomatopoeia imitating idle talk.^[5] Monlau proposed in 1856 that it was a form of garlar, from Latin garrulus (“chattering”), a view he gave only as an alternative.^[7] Portuguese charlar seems to be even later than the Spanish verb: Corominas knows only one example, of 1860, in the form chalrar.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas finds the verb first in Fernández de Oviedo in 1555, and the agent noun charlador already in Castillejo, who died in 1550.^[2][3] He knows no medieval examples.^[2] The first record from the Americas, of 1593 in Sinaloa, describes people who son muy habladores y charlan ... con risas y chanzas “are very talkative and chatter with laughter and jokes”.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The word is in the dictionary of Las Casas of 1570, in Oudin in 1607 and in Covarrubias.^[2] Autoridades defines it only in the pejorative sense of talking without substance or purpose, with a great many words, and quotes Góngora.^[9] Terreros glosses it as talking about things of little moment.^[10] The DLE now gives first the neutral sense “to converse, chat”, then the colloquial sense of talking too much, and a transitive sense “to blab, let out a secret”.^[4] In Bolivia and Argentina it can mean “to try to talk someone round”.^[11]

Timeline

• Before 1550 – Castillejo uses charlador and charlatán.^[2]
• 1555 – Fernández de Oviedo, the first record of the verb.^[2]
• 1570 – the verb is in the dictionary of Las Casas.^[2]
• c. 1580 – first record of the noun charla.^[3]
• 1593 – first record from the Americas, in Sinaloa.^[8]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades defines it as talking without substance.^[9]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To chat, to converse in a relaxed way: Charlamos un rato en el café.^[4][1]
2. (intransitive, colloquial) To chatter, to talk too much and to no purpose.^[4][1]
3. (transitive) To let out what should be kept quiet (parlar).^[4]
4. (transitive, Bolivia, Argentina) To try to talk someone round.^[11]

Word family

• charla
• charlador
• charlotear
• charloteo

Related words

• charlatán
• parlar
• cháchara
• Italian ciarlare

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 Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 339
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. charlar
4. ^ a b c d e 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. charlar
5. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
7. ^ Monlau, Pedro Felipe (1856), Diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana (ensayo), Madrid: Imprenta de la Sociedad Literaria y Tipográfica, p. 241
8. ^ 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. charlar
9. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 310
10. ^ Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 1, 412
11. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. charlar