narrar

Forms

narrar (first-person singular present narro, first-person singular preterite narré, past participle narrado)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin narrō (“to tell, relate”), a learned word.^[2][3][1][4] The Latin verb, also written nārō, is related to gnārus (“knowing”).^[5][4] De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *gnārāje- (“to make knowing, tell”), from *gnāro- (“knowing”), and the PIE adjective Proto-Indo-European *ǵnh₃-ro- (“knowing”), from the root *ǵneh₃- (“to know”).^[6][1] Umbrian has the imperative naratu.^[6][5]

The same Latin verb is Italian narrare and French narrer, also borrowed; it survived in popular speech only in Sardinia, as Sardinian nàrrere (“to say”).^[7][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Enrique de Villena's glossed translation of the Aeneid (1427–1428, in a manuscript of 1442) uses the participle: por la manera suso narrada “in the manner told above”.^[9] Santillana's Infierno de los enamorados (c. 1430) asks the god for poetry porque narre sin falsía “so that I may tell without falsehood” what he saw.^[9] Corominas dates the first record to 1438.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In the 15th century the verb belonged to learned prose and verse;^[10][9] Juan de Mena wrote Virtudes y vicios narrar de potentes “to tell the virtues and vices of the powerful”, a line the Autoridades quotes.^[10][9] Nebrija's Latin–Spanish dictionary of 1492 glosses Latin narro with contar razones, but his Spanish–Latin vocabulary of about 1495 has no entry for the word.^[11] Percyvall in 1591 renders it “to tell, to recount”.^[12]

The Autoridades defined it as relating a fact in detail, and the Academy kept a definition close to that until 1884, when it became “to tell, relate what happened”.^[10][13] The modern definition adds fictional stories to real events.^[3] In the Dominican Republic it also means to commentate a sports event on radio or television.^[14]

Timeline

• 1427–1428 – Villena's translation of the Aeneid uses narrada (in a manuscript of 1442).^[9]
• c. 1430 – Santillana's Infierno de los enamorados has narre.^[9]
• 1438 – the date of first record in Corominas.^[2]
• c. 1440 – the noun narración is first recorded.^[2]
• 1492 – Nebrija's Latin–Spanish dictionary glosses Latin narro.^[11]
• 1577 – first record from the Americas, in Nueva Galicia.^[15]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology, from Latin narrare.^[13]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To narrate, tell (contar) or relate (referir) something that happened, or a made-up event or story: El libro narra la infancia de su autora.^[3][1]
2. (Dominican Republic) To commentate a sports event on radio or television.^[14]

Word family

• narración
• narrador
• narrativo

Related words

• ignorar
• Latin narrō

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. narrar
3. ^ a b c 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. narrar
4. ^ a b Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. narrar
5. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. narrō
6. ^ 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, p. s.v. gnārus
7. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 484
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5839
9. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. narrar
10. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4
11. ^ 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. narrar
12. ^ Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 177
13. ^ 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. 733
14. ^ a b Academia Dominicana de la Lengua; Instituto Guzmán Ariza de Lexicografía (2024), Diccionario del español dominicano, 2nd ed., online at https://ded.igalex.org, p. s.v. narrar
15. ^ 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. narrar