ler

Forms

ler (first-person singular present leio, first-person singular preterite li, past participle lido)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote the infinitive leer (also léér), with the forms liia, leendo and the participles leudo, liudo; the two vowels contracted in ler.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin legō (“to gather, choose; to read”), written Old Galician-Portuguese leer in the oldest texts.^[2][4][5][1] The Latin verb first meant “to gather, pick up, choose”;^[2] Houaiss notes that only the sense “to read”, at first mostly aloud, survived in the popular language.^[2] The medieval form was later contracted.^[2][2][3]

The same Latin verb is Galician ler, Spanish leer, Italian leggere and French lire;^[2][1][6] Corominas notes that it survives in all the Romance languages except Romanian.^[2][1][6]

Wikcionário compares the Latin verb with Ancient Greek λέγω (légō).^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Documents of 1258–1261 say that someone mandóó léér ante si “ordered [the letter] to be read before him” and that fezeron léér antel a carta “they had the charter read before him”: reading aloud in public.^[3][2] The Cantigas de Santa Maria have monks singing and reading in the choir, a man who sabia leer pouco “could read little”, and a student who liia “studied” at Salamanca.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The medieval verb meant “to read aloud”, “to read” and also “to study, to teach” at a school.^[3] The teaching sense lasted: Folqman (1755) translates ler Filosofia as “to teach philosophy”, and Morais (1789) defines it as “to expound to pupils”.^[8][9] Morais also records ler alguém “to read a person's mind”.^[9]

Modern senses extend reading to other signs: reading music, Braille, a person's face or the future, and in computing reading data.^[2][10][1] Informally ler can mean “to daydream, to talk nonsense”, and Silva Bastos records estar a ler “to be distracted”.^[11][12] The word passed into Macanese as lê.^[1]

Timeline

• 1258–1261 – mandóó léér ante si in a document.^[3]
• 13th century, second half – leer, liia in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[3]
• c. 1430 – leer in the Horto do Esposo (copied 1390–1437).^[13]
• c. 1510 – ler in the Vida de Santo Agostinho (witness 1480–1510).^[14]
• 1569 – Cardoso translates ler by Latin lego.^[15]
• 1712 – Bluteau defines reading as knowing and sounding written characters.^[16]
• 1789 – Morais records ler “to teach” and ler alguém.^[9]

Meanings

Verb

1. To read: to look at and understand written words: Ele lê o jornal todas as manhãs.^[2][1]
2. To read aloud; to recite.^[2][1]
3. To know how to read: A menina já sabe ler.^[17]
4. To interpret signs other than writing: to read music, a map, a face; to foresee.^[2][10]
5. (computing) To read data from a device.^[1][10]
6. (dated) To lecture, to teach a subject.^[10][9]

Word family

• ledor
• reler

Related words

• legenda
• legível
• leitor
• leitura
• lenda
• lição
• Latin lego
• Spanish leer

Usage notes

The cantigas d'amigo have a separate noun ler “sea, shore” (En Lixboa, sobre-lo ler), whose sense is still not quite clear.^[18][19] Wiktionary considers it probably Celtic.^[1] The acronym LER stands for lesão por esforço repetitivo, repetitive strain injury.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. ler
3. ^ a b c d e f g 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. leer
4. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. ler
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. ler
6. ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 619
7. ^ Wikcionário (Portuguese Wiktionary), pt.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. ler
8. ^ Folqman, Carlos (1755), Diccionario portuguez, e latino, Lisboa: Régia Officina Silviana (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. ler
9. ^ a b c d 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. 2, 16
10. ^ a b c d Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 5647
11. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. ler
12. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. ler
13. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. leer
14. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. ler
15. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. ler
16. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. ler
17. ^ Michaelis: Moderno Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, São Paulo: Melhoramentos (online as Michaelis Dicionário Brasileiro da Língua Portuguesa, https://michaelis.uol.com.br), p. s.v. ler
18. ^ 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. ler
19. ^ Lopes, Graça Videira; Ferreira, Manuel Pedro et al. (2011–), Cantigas Medievais Galego-Portuguesas [online database], Lisboa: Instituto de Estudos Medievais, FCSH/NOVA, https://cantigas.fcsh.unl.pt, p. s.v. ler