habla

Forms

habla f (plural hablas)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish fabla, inherited from Latin fābula (“talk, conversation; story”).^[2][3][4][1] Old Spanish wrote it with ⟨f⟩ from the Cantar de mio Cid on, and Corominas dates the spelling with ⟨h⟩ of the verb hablar from Nebrija.^[2][5] He notes that the noun now works as an ordinary verbal noun of the verb, but that in Old Spanish it still had meanings close to the Latin ones, such as “saying, proverb, advice” and “fable” in Juan Ruiz.^[2]

The same Latin word gave Galician fala, Portuguese fala and Asturian fala, with the /l/ of the western verb, as well as Catalan faula and Italian fiaba.^[6][7][8][9] The verb is typical of Castilian and Galician-Portuguese;^[1] French, Italian and Catalan preferred the descendants of *parabolare.^[2] The learned doublet of the noun is fábula, first recorded about 1440.^[2][1]

The Latin noun is formed on the root of fārī (“to speak”), with an instrument-noun suffix.^[10][11][1] De Vaan traces the verb to Proto-Italic *fā- (“to speak”) and Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₂- (“to speak”).^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy) uses fabla for a talk or conference: Aquí entraron en fabla los ifantes de Carrión “Here the heirs of Carrión went into conference”.^[12][5] The same poem also has it in the sense “speech, discourse”.^[5]

Semantic evolution

In medieval texts fabla meant a tale, saying or proverb, a conference, a speech, the faculty of speech and a conversation, including one between lovers.^[5] Berceo's Duelo de la Virgen has the faculty of speech taken away by grief: tuélleme la fabla el dolor.^[12] The diminutive fabliella meant “proverb” and later “short story”, and survives as hablilla “rumour”.^[2][3]

Nebrija glosses habla with Latin locutio and loquela.^[13] The Diccionario de Autoridades (1734) put first the sense “language, idiom”, quoting Quevedo's la habla que llamamos Castellana, then “speech, address” and “the words spoken”, and recorded estar en habla “to be under negotiation” and perder el habla “to lose the power of speech”.^[14] The Academy's 1884 edition gave the etymology from Latin fabula and moved the faculty of speech to the first place.^[15] Modern linguistics added the senses “speech as opposed to the language system” and “local variety of a language”.^[4][16]

The archaic form fabla is still used, disparagingly, for an invented speech that imitates Old Spanish or a dialect.^[2] In the Americas the word is recorded from 1493.^[17] Tagalog has abla, a borrowing of it.^[1]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses fabla for a conference and for speech.^[12][5]
• 1270–1284 – the Estoria de España of Alfonso X uses fablas for parleys between commanders.^[18]
• c. 1440 – the learned doublet fábula appears.^[2]
• 1493 – a letter on the Indies says no fabla could be had with the people of the towns.^[17]
• 1513 – Nebrija's Vocabulario has the spelling habla, glossed locutio.^[13]
• 1734 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines it first as “language, idiom”.^[14]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology from Latin fabula.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. The faculty of speech: Después del golpe tardó días en recobrar el habla.^[4][1]
2. The act of speaking.^[4][1]
3. A person's or group's particular way of speaking: el habla de los pescadores del puerto.^[4][16]
4. (linguistics) Speech as the concrete use of language, as opposed to the language as a system (lengua).^[4][16]
5. (linguistics) The individual act of using language, in speech or writing, by choosing among the signs the language offers.^[4]
6. (linguistics) The speech of a district, town or community, with features of its own within a wider language; a local dialect: el habla de esta comarca.^[4][16]
7. (obsolete) A speech or address.^[4]

Related words

• fabla
• hablar
• fábula
• Latin fābula
• Portuguese fala

Usage notes

Habla is feminine but takes el and un in the singular (el habla, un habla muy cuidada, las hablas), while older texts have la habla and una habla.^{[4][16][14][17]} Set phrases include perder el habla, quedarse sin habla “to be left speechless” and al habla “in contact”, which in Spain is also said when answering the telephone.^[4][16]

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 Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 296
3. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. hablar
4. ^ 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. habla
5. ^ a b c d e Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 247
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954)
7. ^ 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. 3, 916
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
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. fabla
13. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 360
14. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 106
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 552
16. ^ a b c d e f Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. habla
17. ^ a b c 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. fabla
18. ^ 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. habla