falar

Forms

falar (first-person singular present falo, first-person singular preterite falei, past participle falado)^[1] Bluteau (1712) heads the verb fallar, and Portuguese writing used that spelling with ⟨ll⟩ for a long time.^[2][3][1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin fābulor (“to talk, chat”), through the popular active form fābulō, and was already written Old Galician-Portuguese falar in the oldest texts.^[4][5][6][1] The Latin verb is formed from fābula (“talk, story”), itself from for (“to speak”).^[1][7] The learned fabular is a doublet of the same Latin verb.^[4][1]

The same Latin verb is Galician falar, Spanish hablar (earlier Old Spanish fablar), Asturian falar and Italian favolare (old).^[8][1][7] The Leonese form Old Leonese falar already appears in the Libro de Alexandre.^[7]

An intermediate form with /bl/ is assumed, and that cluster /bl/ between vowels normally became ⟨lh⟩ in Portuguese, as in ralhar and trilhar.^[9] The plain /l/ of falar is therefore irregular.^[9] Cornu, followed by Huber, explained it by the influence of calar (“to be silent”), which stands beside falar in many proverbs; others see an assimilation of /b/ to /l/, as in talleira from tabularia.^[4][6][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

A Latin charter of 943 already uses the Latin verb, Et rogaui homines boni ut fabulassent ad illo “and I asked good men to speak to him”.^[9] In the Galician-Portuguese cantigas the verb means “to speak, converse, say”, with falar con alguem “to talk with someone” and falar de/en alguem “to speak of someone”;^[10][11] Afonso X writes en sa prol nunca me vós faledes “never speak to me in his favour”.^[10][11] The cantigas also use the infinitive as a noun, “speech, way of talking”: De parecer e de falar / e de bõas manhas aver “in looks and in speech and in good manners”.^[12]

Semantic evolution

From “to speak, converse” the verb took on the senses of agreeing on something (foi o que se falou, “that was what was agreed”), speaking ill of someone, revealing a secret, and making a speech.^[4][13] Figueiredo (1899) records the popular sense “to court, go out with” (falar com), which Wikcionário still notes for Trás-os-Montes.^[14][15] In Brazil it also means simply “to say, tell”: ele falou que vinha.^[4][1]

The nominalised infinitive o falar came to mean a person's manner of speaking and, in linguistics, a regional or local variety of a language: o falar carioca.^[4][16][1] The verb passed into the Portuguese creole of Macau as falâ.^[1]

Timeline

• 943 – a Latin charter writes fabulassent.^[9]
• 1188–1230 – Houaiss's first date, taken from Machado.^[4]
• 13th century – the cantigas use falar as a verb and as a noun.^[5][10][12]
• c. 1350 – falar in the Trasladação de S. Nicolau (witness 1301–1400).^[17]
• 1569 – Cardoso translates falar by Latin loquor.^[18]
• 1611 – Barbosa lists Falar com alguem.^[19]
• 1712 – Bluteau refers falar to the spelling fallar.^[2]
• 1899 – Figueiredo records the popular sense “to court”.^[14]

Meanings

Verb

1. To speak, to express oneself in words: O bebé ainda não fala.^[4][20][1]
2. To talk, converse (com, with someone, de, sobre, about something): Falámos do jogo a tarde toda.^[4][1]
3. To speak (a language): Ela fala três línguas.^[4][1]
4. To make a speech, address an audience.^[4][21]
5. (figurative) To make oneself understood without words; to be expressive: Aquele olhar falava por ela..^[4][20]
6. (Brazil) To say, tell: Ele falou para mim que estava cansado.^[4][1]
7. To agree on, arrange.^[4][13]
8. To speak ill (de, of someone).^[4][1][13]
9. (informal) To tell the truth, confess: O preso acabou por falar.^[4]
10. (popular) To court, go out with (com, someone).^[4][13]
11. To prevail, carry more weight: falar mais alto.^[4][20]
12. Of a parrot or similar bird: to imitate human speech.^[4][16]

Noun

1. The act of speaking; speech.^[4][16]
2. A manner of speaking or pronouncing.^[4][16]
3. (linguistics) A regional or local variety of a language; dialect: o falar do Minho.^{[4][16][1][13]}

Word family

• fala
• falador
• falante
• falatório

Related words

• fabular
• fábula
• Latin fābulor
• Spanish hablar

Usage notes

Proverbs that set the verb against calar “to keep silent”, such as mais val calar que mal falar “better to keep quiet than to speak badly”, are the basis of Cornu's explanation of its /l/.^[9]

In Rio Grande do Sul falar pelos cotovelos “to talk through the elbows” is said of someone who never stops talking.^[22]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. falar
3. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. fabulari
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. falar
5. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. falar
6. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. falar
7. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 296
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3125
9. ^ a b c d e f Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 207
10. ^ a b c 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. falar
11. ^ a b 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. falar
12. ^ a b 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. falar2
13. ^ a b c d e Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 4154
14. ^ a b Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 596
15. ^ Wikcionário (Portuguese Wiktionary), pt.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. falar
16. ^ a b c d e 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. falar
17. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. falar
18. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. falar
19. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. falar
20. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. falar
21. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. falar
22. ^ Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. s.v. falar