saya

Forms

saya f (plural sayas)^[1] The 10th-century charters write saia as well as saya;^[2][3] Old Spanish texts also have ssaya.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish saya, inherited from Vulgar Latin *sagia, a derivative of Latin sagum (“a kind of cloak; military coat”).^[2][4][5][1] Corominas leaves open whether the Vulgar Latin noun is a borrowing of Ancient Greek σάγια (ságia), plural of Late Greek σάγιον (ságion), from σάγος (ságos) of the same meaning, or a Latin adjective *sagea that first named the cloth of which the sagum was made.^[2][4] The same Latin noun later gave the learned sago.^[4]

The same word is Portuguese saia, Galician saia, Asturian saya, Catalan saia, Old Occitan saya and French saie.^{[6][7][8][9][1]} The Old Occitan word is recorded about 1180 and the Old French one about 1185.^[9] Meyer-Lübke took the Spanish, Portuguese and Old Milanese words for borrowings of the French one;^[10] Corominas shows with the charters and with Arabic sources of the 11th century that the word is very old in the Iberian Peninsula.^[2]

The Latin noun (older sagus) was a coarse woollen cloak worn by soldiers and barbarian peoples; the OLD marks it as Gaulish.^[11] De Vaan gives no etymology and notes that Walde and Hofmann consider it a loan from Gaulish.^[12] Wiktionary traces it to Gaulish *sagos and, further, to Proto-Indo-European *seg-;^[1] Gómez de Silva explains that root as “to touch, attach”, the cloak being fastened at the shoulder.^[13] The Greek noun is in Beekes's view a borrowing of the Latin word.^[14] Corominas notes that the Irish and British Celtic forms come from Latin and presuppose the same *sagia as the Romance languages.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word appears in Latin charters of León from 941, and in others of 953, 955 (spelt saia) and 994;^[2] DEMel has saia in a charter of San Vicente de Oviedo dated 929.^[3] In the Vida de Santa María Egipcíaca (c. 1215, known from a 14th-century copy) hermits sayas vistién a caronas “wore tunics next to the skin”.^[15] The garment was worn by men and women alike: Berceo's Saint Dominic shares his saya with a poor man, and the Fuero de Cáceres prices it among other clothes.^[15][2] In Alfonso X's prose it is an ankle-length tunic of a man.^[16]

Semantic evolution

Nebrija distinguishes saia de muger “woman's skirt” from saio de varón “man's tunic”, and the Autoridades confirms the split;^[2][4] Corominas considers it secondary, since medieval texts often speak of a man's saya and the masculine sayo is not recorded before about 1400.^[2][4] The Autoridades (1739) defines saya as the pleated outer garment women wear from the waist to the feet, and also the money the queen gave her maids when they married, instead of a dress.^[17] The Academy added the sense “ancient ankle-length tunic worn by men” in 1817.^[18]

In Spain today the word is popular and rural, used of a skirt or petticoat;^[5][19] in Leonese it is the long, wide black skirt still worn by older women.^[20] It is the ordinary word for “skirt” in Cuba and the Philippines.^[1][21] In Peru, Bolivia and northern Chile saya is a fast folk dance in which the women wear short, wide skirts, and in Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua a petticoat.^[22] The word was borrowed into Tagalog saya and Guarani sái.^[1]

Timeline

• 929 – DEMel's earliest record: saia in a charter of San Vicente de Oviedo.^[3]
• 941 – a Leonese charter, Corominas's first record.^[2][4]
• 994 – the spelling saya in the cartulary of Cardeña.^[3]
• c. 1215 – the Vida de Santa María Egipcíaca (in a 14th-century copy).^[15]
• c. 1400 – the masculine sayo is first recorded.^[4]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives saia de muger as Latin tunica muliebris.^[23][2]
• 1516 – first record from the Americas, in Puerto Rico.^[24]
• 1591 – Percyvall translates it “a womans coate”.^[25]
• 1739 – the Autoridades defines the woman's skirt and the queen's gift of money.^[17]
• 1817 – the Academy adds the ancient men's tunic.^[18]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology “Del lat. sága”.^[26]

Meanings

Noun

1. A skirt; in Spain a popular or rural word, the usual one in Cuba and the Philippines: Se puso la saya azul para la fiesta.^[5][1][21]
2. (historical) A long tunic reaching to the ankles, worn by men.^[5]
3. (historical) A gift of money that queens gave their maidservants when they married, in place of a dress.^[5]
4. (Peru, Bolivia, northern Chile) A fast folk dance in which the women wear short, wide skirts;^[22] (Bolivia) the music for it.^[22]
5. (Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua) A petticoat.^[22]

Word family

• sayal
• sayo
• sayalero

Related words

• sago
• Latin sagum
• Portuguese saia

Usage notes

A separate word of Sonora in Mexico, masculine, names an edible sweet root grown by the Papago;^[27] Santamaría takes it from the Mayo language.^[27]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 180
3. ^ a b c d e Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. saya
4. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. saya
5. ^ 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. saya
6. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon
7. ^ Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu
8. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll
9. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7515
11. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
13. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 634
14. ^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill
15. ^ 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. saya
16. ^ 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. saya
17. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 55
18. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 789
19. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. saya
20. ^ Le Men Loyer, Janick (2002–2012), Léxico del leonés actual, 4 vols., León: Centro de Estudios e Investigación San Isidoro; electronic version, Universidad de León, p. s.v. saya
21. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. saya
22. ^ a b c d Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. saya
23. ^ 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. saya
24. ^ 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. saya
25. ^ Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 210
26. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 961
27. ^ a b Santamaría, Francisco J. (1959), Diccionario de mejicanismos, México: Porrúa, p. 965