ilha

Forms

ilha f (plural ilhas)^[1] Medieval spellings are ilha, ylla (1370) and, in the 15th century, islha.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

As Houaiss, Cunha and the DLP explain it, the word is borrowed from Old Catalan illa (“island”), from Latin; it is recorded from the 14th century, as Old Galician-Portuguese ilha and Old Galician-Portuguese ylla.^[4][3][5][1] The Catalan word is from Latin īnsula (“island”), whose /n/ was already lost in Vulgar Latin.^[1][6] Houaiss notes that the inherited doublet ínsua, Old Galician-Portuguese insoa, is closer to the Latin and recorded a century earlier, and that the inherited and the borrowed form differed slightly in meaning from the start; he attributes the fixing of the present form to Spanish and Catalan influence.^[4]

Nascentes took the word instead as a direct outcome of the Latin word, in which ⟨ns⟩ became ⟨s⟩ and the loss of the unstressed vowel produced a group ⟨sl⟩ that Portuguese resolved by palatalising the /l/.^[7] Meyer-Lübke placed the Portuguese word among the learned forms, and Corominas saw no reason to treat the Spanish and the Portuguese word as learned when the Catalan and Old French words are counted as popular.^[6][8]

The same Latin word is Spanish isla, French île, Italian isola and Galician insua.^[6][1][9] The Latin word has no secure etymology: the ancient explanation from in (“in”) and salum (“the open sea”), “land in the sea”, is phonetically possible but de Vaan doubts it, and a link with Ancient Greek νῆσος (nêsos, “island”) remains unclear.^[10][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record, in the Portuguese chronicle of 1344, speaks of aas ilhas que chamavom Balleares “the islands they called the Balearics”, where the Galician version of the chronicle has yslas.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Latin īnsula also meant a block of houses surrounded by streets, and later a rented house.^[4] Portuguese has a similar sense: Morais (1789) records ilha de casas, a block bounded by streets on all sides, and Silva Bastos (1912) a courtyard surrounded by poor dwellings, the working-class ilhas of northern Portugal.^[11][12][5]

The image of something isolated gave figurative senses (uma ilha de sossego) and, in Brazil, the traffic island in the middle of a road, the island of an aircraft carrier, and in Pará and Maranhão a clump of tall trees standing in open country.^[4][13] The ilha de edição, the editing suite of television, dates from the 1970s.^[4] The word passed into Kabuverdianu as ilha.^[1]

Timeline

• 1200s – the inherited doublet ínsua (insoa) is recorded.^[4][3]
• 1344 – ilhas in the chronicle of 1344.^[2]
• 1370 – the spelling ylla.^[2]
• 1400s – the spelling islha; first records of the diminutive ilhéu (hilheeo).^[2][3]
• 1542 – ilha in a private letter.^[14]
• 1569 – Cardoso renders it with Latin insula.^[15]
• 1789 – Morais records ilha de casas, a block of houses.^[11]
• 1813 – first records of ilhar and ilhado.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. (geography) An island: land smaller than a continent, surrounded by water on all sides.^[4][1]
2. Anything isolated from what surrounds it: uma ilha de verde no meio da cidade.^[4][5]
3. (Portugal, regional) A group of humble houses round a courtyard, working-class housing.^[5][12][1]
4. (Brazil) A raised strip in the middle of a street or at a crossing, a traffic island.^[4][16]
5. (Brazil, nautical) The superstructure of an aircraft carrier, with the command posts.^[4]
6. (Pará, Maranhão, Mato Grosso) A clump of tall trees standing out in open country.^[4][13]
7. (television) ilha de edição: an editing suite for video and sound.^[4][16]
8. (figurative, popular) A person who stands alone in defence of an idea.^[1]

Word family

• ilhéu
• ilhota
• ilhar
• ilhado
• ilheta

Related words

• ínsua
• ínsula
• insular
• isolar
• Latin īnsula
• Catalan illa
• Spanish isla

Usage notes

In Santa Catarina a Ilha is a nickname of Florianópolis, which lies mostly on the island of Santa Catarina.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e 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. ilha
3. ^ a b c d e Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. ilha
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. ilha
5. ^ a b c d 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. ilha
6. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 4475
7. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. ilha
8. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 468
9. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. insula
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1789), Diccionario da lingua portugueza composto pelo padre D. Rafael Bluteau, reformado, e accrescentado, 2 vols., Lisboa: Simão Thaddeo Ferreira, p. 1, 692
12. ^ a b Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. ilha
13. ^ a b Navarro, Fred (2004), Dicionário do Nordeste, São Paulo: Estação Liberdade, p. s.v. ilha
14. ^ CLUL (ed.) (2014), P.S. Post Scriptum: Arquivo Digital de Escrita Quotidiana em Portugal e Espanha na Época Moderna, Lisboa: Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, http://ps.clul.ul.pt, p. s.v. ilha
15. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. ilha
16. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. ilha