escuchar

Forms

escuchar (first-person singular present escucho, first-person singular preterite escuché, past participle escuchado)^[1] Old Spanish had ascuchar (the Cantar de mio Cid, the Libro de Alexandre, the Gran conquista de Ultramar, Alonso de Palencia) beside escuchar (Berceo); Nebrija gives only escuchar, and ascuchar is still heard in Andalusia.^[2] Older forms with /jt/ are Old Castilian escuitar, Leonese ascuitar (Babia) and Old Castilian escochar.^[3] Aragonese had the present escueyta in a proverb of the 14th century.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish ascuchar, inherited from Vulgar Latin ascultō, a dissimilated form of Latin auscultō (“to listen attentively”).^[2][4][5][1] Corominas takes the dissimilated form as the common base of all the Romance words, and notes that the hypercorrect spelling ⟨opscultare⟩ in a Latin inscription presupposes it.^[2] Du Cange notes that it occurs everywhere in Medieval Latin texts.^[6]

The initial ⟨a⟩ of the old form became ⟨e⟩, probably under the influence of the prefix es-.^[7][8] The /tʃ/ developed from the Latin /lt/ through a stage /jt/, as in mucho;^[9] that stage is kept in escuitar and in ascuitar of Babia.^[3]

The same Latin verb is Portuguese escutar, Galician escoitar, Catalan escoltar, Occitan escoutar, French écouter, Italian ascoltare and Romanian asculta.^[2][10]

The Latin verb goes back to Proto-Italic *auskoltā; its first part is the old stem of auris (“ear”).^[1][7] The second part is disputed: Wiktionary derives it from Proto-Indo-European *ḱlew- (“to hear”) or, in other theories, from *ḱel- (“to incline”),^[1] and the OLD connects it with clueō (“to be called, be spoken of”).^[11] The learned doublet auscultar was taken from the same Latin verb around 1850.^[2][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is scuitare and scuita in the Glosas Silenses, of the second half of the 10th century.^[2] The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy) has the Old Spanish form in the sense “listen”: „A esto callaron e ascuchó toda la cort” “at this they fell silent and the whole court listened”.^[12][4] An old sense was “to keep watch, stand sentry”, which gave the noun escucha “night sentry”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In the prose of Alfonso X the verb means “to listen”, “to heed” and “to spy”: the Lapidario says that whoever carries a certain stone „sera ascuchado de todos los omnes” “will be heeded by all men”.^[13] Nebrija's escuchar de noche (Latin excubo) and Percyvall's “to watch in the night” keep the military sense.^[14][15][2] Covarrubias defines it as hearing with attention, notes that it often means “to obey”, and explains it from Latin auscultare as “tending the ears”.^[16]

Autoridades records the reflexive escucharse “to be pleased with one's own words, like a would-be orator” and the proverb Quien escucha, su mal oye “he who eavesdrops hears ill of himself”.^[17] The Academy's 1843 edition adds the reflexive sense “to speak or recite with affected pauses”, still in the DLE.^[18][5] Domínguez already noted in 1846 that the verb was often used for plain, unintended hearing.^[19] Corominas regrets that in Argentina escuchar was replacing oír, and finds it very common among educated speakers;^[2][20] Moliner labels the sense “hear” popular.^[2][20] In Latin America the reflexive also means “to sound”.^[1]

Timeline

• 950–1000 – the Glosas Silenses have scuitare and scuita.^[2]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has ascuchó “he listened”.^[12][4]
• 1228–1246 – Berceo's Del sacrificio de la misa has the form escuchar.^[12][4]
• 1250–1279 – the Lapidario of Alfonso X uses ascuchado “heeded”.^[13]
• 1513 – Nebrija's escuchar de noche renders Latin excubo “to keep watch”.^[14]
• 1571 – the first record from the Americas, in Mexico City.^[21]
• 1611 – Covarrubias links the verb with obeying.^[16]
• 1843 – the Academy adds the reflexive “to speak with affected pauses”.^[18]
• c. 1850 – the learned doublet auscultar appears (Campoamor, Llorente).^[2]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology “Del lat. auscultare”.^[22]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To listen to; to pay attention to what one hears: Escuchaba la lluvia desde la cama.^[5][1]
2. (transitive) To heed a warning, advice or suggestion.^[5][20]
3. (intransitive) To put one's ear to something in order to hear it.^[5]
4. (chiefly Latin America) To hear, perceive by ear.^[1][20][2]
5. (reflexive) To speak or recite with affected pauses, pleased with one's own words.^[5][20]
6. (Latin America, reflexive) To sound.^[1]

Word family

• escucha
• escuchador

Related words

• auscultar
• auscultación
• Latin auscultō
• Portuguese escutar

Usage notes

Escuchar is attentive listening and oír simple hearing; the use of escuchar for hearing, as in se escucharon tiros, has been noted since the 19th century and is common in the Americas.^[19][2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 713
3. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. auscultare
4. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. escuchar
5. ^ 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. escuchar
6. ^ du Cange, Charles du Fresne, et al. (1883–1887), Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, augmented ed. by Léopold Favre, Niort: L. Favre
7. ^ a b Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 275
8. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1908–1914), Tesoro de la lengua castellana: origen y vida del lenguaje, 12 vols., Madrid: Perlado, Páez y Compañía
9. ^ Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. 342
10. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 69
11. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ 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. escuchar
13. ^ a b 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. escuchar
14. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 349
15. ^ Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 136
16. ^ 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. 774
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 576
18. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 314
19. ^ a b Domínguez, Ramón Joaquín (1846–1847), Diccionario nacional o gran diccionario clásico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Establecimiento Léxico-Tipográfico de R. J. Domínguez, p. 735
20. ^ a b c d e Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. escuchar
21. ^ 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. escuchar
22. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 453