comunal

Forms

comunal m or f (masculine and feminine plural comunales)^[1] Old Spanish also has cumunal in the Libro de buen amor and cominal in the Libro de Apolonio.^[2] The DEMel records the spellings communal and comunaule in early charters.^[3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin commūnālis (“common, of the community”), formed on commūnis (“common, shared”) with the suffix -ālis.^[4][5][1] The Academy and Wiktionary call it a learned word.^[4][1] Corominas notes that the Old Spanish form cominal of the ⟨Libro de Apolonio⟩ points to an Occitan source, compare Old Occitan cominal.^[5][6] In the 13th and 14th centuries this was almost the only adjective for “common”, while común was mainly a noun.^[5] Corominas takes this as a sign that the adjective use of the shorter word is itself of learned origin.^[5]

The same Latin word is Portuguese comunal, Catalan comunal, French communal and Romanian comunal.^[7][8][1] The Latin adjective is recorded in the land surveyors' writings, of common land.^[9] The Latin adjective for “common” goes back to co(m)moinis in Old Latin and to Proto-Italic *kommoinis, from com- and the root of munus (“duty, gift”); it is cognate with Proto-Germanic *gamainiz (“shared, common”).^[1][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Berceo is the first author to use it, in Del sacrificio de la misa: placer debe a todos, ca es bien comunal “it should please everyone, for it is a common good”.^[10][11][12] An agreement of 1238 between the abbot of Irache and the villagers of Luquín and Urbiola uses it for a share of mutton “neither the worst nor the best, but the middling one” (mas del comunal).^[11] The DEMel's earliest Spanish-text record is in the Becerro of Benevivere, c. 1220–1230.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In Old Spanish it meant “common, belonging to many” and “ordinary, of middling size or quality”; it often had the sense “mediocre, bad”, as in the Rimado de palacio.^[5][2][10] The Libro de Alexandre (1240–1250) and Alfonso X's prose use it freely.^[10][13] The word was still current in the Rimado de palacio and in Nebrija, who glossed it both as comun and as mediano.^[5][14][15] Autoridades (1729) marked both senses as old-fashioned, quoting the Partidas' pro comunal de todos “the common good of all”.^[16][17]

In modern use it applies to what belongs to a municipality or a community, as in bienes comunales “common lands”.^[18][4] In much of Latin America it now relates to the comuna, the municipality or administrative district.^[19]

Timeline

• 1123 – a charter of San Vicente de Oviedo has the Latinised form comunaule.^[3]
• c. 1220–1230 – the Becerro of Benevivere has communal.^[3]
• 1220–1250 – Berceo uses comunal.^[12][5]
• 1238 – an agreement of the abbey of Irache uses it for “middling”.^[11]
• 1256–1263 – the Siete Partidas use amigo comunal.^[10]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija glosses it as “common” and “middling”.^[14][15]
• 1729 – Autoridades marks it as old-fashioned.^[16]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology from Latin communalis.^[20]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Common: belonging to or shared by several people, especially the inhabitants of a place: los pastos comunales del pueblo.^[4][18][1]
2. Relating to the comuna, the municipality or administrative district.^[4][19]
3. (obsolete) middling, of medium size, neither large nor small.^[4][16]

Noun

1. The commons: the whole people of a town.^[4]

Word family

• descomunal

Related words

• común
• comuna
• comunidad
• Latin communis

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 126
3. ^ a b c d Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. comunal
4. ^ a b c d e f g 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. comunal
5. ^ 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. 2, 163
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 920
8. ^ 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)
9. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c d 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. 740
11. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. comunal
12. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. común
13. ^ Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. comunal
14. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes
15. ^ a b 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. comunal
16. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 464
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro
18. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos
19. ^ 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. comunal
20. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies)