tonga

Forms

tonga f (plural tongas)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin tunica (“tunic; covering, membrane”), the inherited counterpart of the learned túnica.^[2][3][4][1] Corominas notes that in Judeo-Spanish it meant “tunic”, from the 1553 Ferrara Bible to the speech of Constantinople; the medieval Jews of Catalonia, France and Italy used the same word for a tunic, as Judeo-Catalan tonga (1366), Judeo-French tonje and Judeo-Italian tónica.^[2][5] A Medieval Latin tonica, half Romance in form, already names a garment in a Galician document of 1105.^[2][5]

The sense “layer” comes from that of a covering, as capa “cloak” also came to mean a layer.^[2] The same development is found in Catalan tonga, the long heap of straw left after winnowing at Gandesa, and in Asturian tonga, a heap of drifted snow.^[5][6] The REW also lists Italian tonaca “habit, tunic”.^[7]

The Latin word is probably of Semitic origin, like Ancient Greek χιτών (khitṓn); the OLD compares Biblical Hebrew כֻּתֹּנֶת (kuttṓneṯ).^[8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record in the CDH, a Castilian translation of the Kuzari (c. 1450), still has the sense “tunic”: Desnudé mi tonga i despojéme del deseo de las cosas divinales “I took off my tunic and stripped myself of the desire for divine things”.^[9] Hernando de Talavera (1477–1496) glosses the tunics of skins in Genesis as tongas ó sayas.^[9]

Semantic evolution

By the end of the 16th century the word meant a layer: Cristóbal de Rojas's treatise on fortification (1598) has the tongas of earth pressed down over each bundle of brushwood, and a text of the early 17th century speaks of tongas de nieve on the mountains.^[9] The Academy's dictionary listed it from 1817 as a synonym of tongada, which Terreros had recorded.^[10][2][3]

In Cuba and the Canary Islands it names a pile of things stacked in order: Pichardo (1875) describes piles of boards, firewood or barrels, and Canarian texts of 1841 speak of hemp laid in tongas for retting.^[11][12] In Aragon, Argentina and Colombia it means a task or stint of work.^[2][13] In Sanabria it is the hem of a skirt, and in rural Cantabria the moss of springs and bogs.^[2][14]

Timeline

• 1105 – a semi-Romance tonica names a garment in a Galician document.^[2]
• c. 1450 – the Castilian Kuzari uses tonga for a tunic.^[9]
• 1477–1496 – Hernando de Talavera glosses Latin tunicae as tongas ó sayas.^[9]
• 1553 – the Ferrara Bible, in Judeo-Spanish, has tonga “tunic”.^[2][3]
• 1598 – Cristóbal de Rojas uses the word for layers of earth.^[9]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary lists it as a synonym of tongada.^[10][3]
• 1841 – a Canarian text lays hemp in tongas.^[12]
• 1875 – Pichardo records the Cuban sense “stacked pile”.^[11]
• 1899 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology from Latin tunica.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. A layer of something laid over something else; a tongada.^[4][1]
2. (Aragon, Colombia) A task, a stint of work.^[4][1]
3. (Canary Islands, Cuba) A pile of things stacked in order: una tonga de cajas.^[4][16][1]
4. (Canary Islands, Cuba) A large quantity of something.^[16][17]

Word family

• entongar
• tongada

Related words

• túnica
• Latin tunica
• Catalan tonga

Usage notes

DAMER has a separate Ecuadorian tonga, a field worker's midday meal of rice with meat or fish wrapped in banana leaves, and Wikcionario derives a Peruvian tonga, a drink, from Quechua.^[17][18] Wiktionary also lists tonga for a member of the Tonga people of southern Africa and for a native of Tonga, a name taken from the Tongan language.^[1]

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 Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 695
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. túnica
4. ^ a b c d 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. tonga
5. ^ a b c 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. 8, 928
6. ^ Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. tonga
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
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
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 849
11. ^ a b Pichardo, Esteban (1875), Diccionario provincial casi-razonado de vozes y frases cubanas, 4th ed., La Habana: Imprenta El Trabajo, p. 352
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2021–), Tesoro de los diccionarios históricos de la lengua española (TDHLE): Diccionario histórico (1933–1936), its unpublished slips, Diccionario histórico (1960–1996), DHECan, DHECR, DHEVen, https://www.rae.es/tdhle, p. s.v. tonga
13. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 1592
14. ^ García-Lomas, G. Adriano (1922), Estudio del dialecto popular montañés: fonética, etimologías y glosario de voces, San Sebastián: Nueva Editorial, p. 337
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 967
16. ^ a b Academia Canaria de la Lengua (2010), Diccionario básico de canarismos, Santa Cruz de Tenerife; online at https://www.academiacanarialengua.org, p. s.v. tonga
17. ^ 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. tonga
18. ^ Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. tonga