barca

Forms

barca f (plural barcas)^[1] The 14th century also writes barcha and barqua.^[2] Feijó (1734) still discusses barqua beside barca.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin barca (“small boat”), written Old Galician-Portuguese barca in the oldest texts.^[2][4][5][1] The Latin word is first recorded in an inscription from the Algarve, which Corominas dates to about AD 200 and Machado and Lorenzo to 200 BC.^[6][5][7] Later it appears in Paulinus of Nola, who lived in Barcelona, and in Isidore of Seville.^[6][5][7] Because these records are all Hispanic, Kluge supposed an Iberian origin, and Cunha, Machado and the DCECH call the word possibly Hispanic.^[6][4][5] The usual view, which Houaiss and Wiktionary follow, derives it from Vulgar Latin *bārica, from Latin bāris (“Egyptian flat-bottomed boat”), a loan of Ancient Greek βᾶρις (bâris).^[2][1][6] Wiktionary traces the Greek word through Coptic ⲃⲁⲁⲣⲉ (baare) to Egyptian.^[1] Bluteau had already derived it from the Greek word through a Latin diminutive, following Salmasius.^[8] Vieira and Figueiredo, on the other hand, compared a Celtic word.^[9][10]

The same word is Galician barca, Spanish barca, Catalan barca, Occitan barca and Italian barca, and the old language of France had Old French barge.^[11] The modern French barque was taken from Occitan in the 13th century.^[6] From Romance the word spread to Germanic, Celtic, Arabic and Modern Greek.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

A Latin charter of 911 marks a boundary quousque ad barca, qui sedet sculta in petra “as far as the boat that is carved in the rock”.^[5][2] In Galician-Portuguese the word is common from the 13th century: the Cantigas de Santa Maria tell of mouros que correr viian con barcas armadas “Moors whom they saw running with armed boats”.^[7][4] A cantiga d'amigo has vej'eu as barcas pelo mar viir / en que se foi voss'amigo d'aqui “I see the boats coming over the sea in which your friend went away from here”.^[12]

Semantic evolution

Machado finds the word less used in the 16th century, when João de Barros explains Barcha as what a ship was called “at that time”.^[5] Folqman (1755) records the flat ferry on which coaches, carts and horses crossed rivers, and Morais (1813) defines the barca as a vessel larger than a barco, for cargo and transport, with the old barca taverneira that sold wine and the rustic Barca do Norte for the Great Bear.^[13][14] Vieira adds the three-masted ship and a poetic sense “cradle”.^[9] Aulete has barca de São Pedro for the Catholic Church and amizade de barca for a short-lived friendship.^[15]

Houaiss also gives the medieval Portuguese song on sea themes, a folk play of north-eastern Brazil (the fandango or chegança), and an informal São Paulo sense “prostitute”.^[2][16] In the dialects of Portugal barca is also a hollow between hills where rainwater collects.^[17]

Timeline

• 911 – a Latin charter has ad barca “as far as the boat”.^[5][2]
• 13th century – the Cantigas de Santa Maria have barcas armadas.^[7][4]
• 14th century – the spellings barcha and barqua.^[2]
• 1438 – the Vida de Santa Eufrosina (copied 1431–1446).^[18]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses it with Latin cymba and navicula.^[19]
• 1611 – Barbosa equates barca and barco and cites Isidore's barca.^[20]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau derives it from Greek baris.^[8]
• 1755 – Folqman records the river ferry.^[13]
• 1813 – Morais records barca taverneira and Barca do Norte.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A boat: a general name for many kinds of river and sea craft.^[2][1][21]
2. A broad, shallow boat that carries passengers and goods on rivers and bays; a ferry.^[2][15][22]
3. (nautical, historical) A three-masted sailing ship, a barque.^[2][1][22]
4. (nautical) A small one-masted sailing boat.^[2]
5. A boatmen's song; a medieval Portuguese song on sea themes.^[2][23]
6. (north-eastern Brazil) A folk play about a sailing ship; fandango, chegança.^[2][16]
7. (Brazil, São Paulo, informal) A prostitute.^[2][24]

Word family

• barcaça
• barco
• barqueiro
• embarcar
• desembarcar

Related words

• barcarola
• Latin barca

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. barca
3. ^ Feijó, João de Morais Madureira (1734), Orthographia, ou Arte de escrever, e pronunciar com acerto a lingua portugueza, Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. barca
4. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. barca
5. ^ a b c d e f g Machado, José Pedro (1987), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., 5 vols., Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, p. s.v. barca
6. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 507
7. ^ a b c d Instituto da Lingua Galega, Dicionario de dicionarios do galego medieval (DDGM), ed. Ernesto González Seoane, Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/ddgm, p. s.v. barca
8. ^ a b Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. barca
9. ^ a b Vieira, Frei Domingos (1871–1874), Grande Diccionario Portuguez ou Thesouro da lingua portugueza, 5 vols., Porto: Ernesto Chardron e Bartholomeu H. de Moraes, p. 1, 728
10. ^ Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. s.v. barca
11. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 952
12. ^ Universo Cantigas: Glosario da poesía medieval profana galego-portuguesa, A Coruña: Instituto da Lingua e Literatura (ILLA), Universidade da Coruña, https://www.universocantigas.gal, p. s.v. barca
13. ^ a b Folqman, Carlos (1755), Diccionario portuguez, e latino, Lisboa: Régia Officina Silviana (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. barca
14. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 1, 264
15. ^ a b Aulete, Francisco Júlio Caldas, Dicionário contemporâneo da língua portuguesa (1st ed. 1881), online as Aulete Digital, Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, https://aulete.com.br, p. s.v. barca
16. ^ a b Navarro, Fred (2004), Dicionário do Nordeste, São Paulo: Estação Liberdade, p. s.v. barca
17. ^ Instituto da Lingua Galega, Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués (TLPGP), Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/tesouro, p. s.v. barca
18. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. barca
19. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. barca
20. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. barca
21. ^ Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. barca
22. ^ a b Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, revised online edition (2023–) of the Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa Contemporânea (2001), https://dicionario.acad-ciencias.pt, p. s.v. barca
23. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 1271
24. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. barca