testemunho

Forms

testemunho m (plural testemunhos)^[1] The medieval texts write testemoyo, testemõyo, testimoyo, testimoio, testimonho, testemõyho and testemonho, among other spellings.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin testimōnium (“testimony, evidence”), written Old Galician-Portuguese testemoyo in the oldest texts.^[4][2][3] Nascentes calls it semi-learned.^[5]

The same Latin word is Galician testemuño, Spanish testimonio, Catalan testimoni and Italian testimonio.^[1] In French, French témoin came to mean the witness rather than the testimony.^[6][7]

The Latin noun is formed from testis (“witness”) and the suffix -mōnium.^[1][8] De Vaan derives the noun from Proto-Italic *tri-sto-, from Proto-Indo-European *trito-sth₂-o- (“third standing by”): the witness was the third party beside the two in a dispute.^[9]

The medieval forms with ⟨y⟩ developed like Old Galician-Portuguese juyo and Old Galician-Portuguese comoyon, and scholars have disagreed about them: Lüdtke saw an archaic stage, while Herculano de Carvalho explained the lack of a palatal /ɲ/ by the learned or semi-learned character of the word.^[3] Nascentes notes that the closing of the vowel to /u/ happened within Portuguese.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lorenzo's chronology has en testemoyo in a charter of 1257 and in testemõyo in one of 1265.^[11] A charter of 1269 closes et meu sinal hy pono en testemoyo de verdade “and I set my sign here in witness of the truth”.^[3] Nascentes quotes the formula seelada de meu seelo in testemoyno “sealed with my seal in witness” from a text of 1255.^[10] In these first records the word is the attestation that confirms a legal document.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In the 13th and 14th centuries the word also meant a witness, as in the Crónica Troiana: os dioses poño y por testemoyos “I call the gods as witnesses”.^[3] The Miragres de Santiago use dar testemoyo “to bear witness” for the evidence of Scripture and the saints.^[3] Houaiss dates the sense “sign, trace, indication” to the 14th century.^[4]

Bluteau (1712–1728) records dar testemunho “to give evidence” and levantar testemunhos, and Morais (1789) explains levantar or assacar testemunho as falsely accusing someone of a bad act.^[12][13] The popular sense “slander” is still recorded.^[14][15] Modern technical senses are the isolated hill left by erosion in geology, the surviving copy of a text in philology, and in Portugal the baton of a relay race.^[16][17][18]

Timeline

• 1255 – in testemoyno in a text quoted by Nascentes.^[10]
• 1257 – en testemoyo in a charter.^[11]
• 1269 – en testemoyo de verdade in a charter.^[3]
• 14th century – the forms testemunhos, testemuinho and testemuho, and the sense “sign, indication”.^[4]
• 1340 – en testemonho d'esto in a document.^[11]
• c. 1430 – the Horto do Esposo (copied 1390–1437) writes testemunho.^[19]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau records dar testemunho and levantar testemunhos.^[12]
• 1789 – Morais explains levantar testemunho as false accusation.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act of testifying or bearing witness.^[4][20]
2. (law) The statement of a witness (testemunha); testimony, deposition (depoimento).^[4][17]
3. proof, evidence: Aquela carta era testemunho da sua lealdade.^[4][17]
4. A sign, trace (vestígio) or indication of something.^[4][17]
5. (religion) A personal account of faith given before a congregation.^[1]
6. (geology) An isolated elevation left by the erosion of a larger mass.^[4][17]
7. (philology) Each of the copies or forms in which a text has come down.^[17][18]
8. (Portugal, sports) The baton passed between runners in a relay race.^[18][1]
9. (popular) slander, a false accusation.^[14][15]

Word family

• testemunhar
• testemunhal

Related words

• testemunha
• testemunhador
• testemunhalmente
• testemunhável
• Latin testis
• Galician testemuño
• Spanish testimonio

Usage notes

Falso testemunho is false testimony, and levantar or assacar testemunho is to accuse someone falsely.^[16][13] Passagem do testemunho is the handing over of the baton, also used figuratively for a handover.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. testemunho
3. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. testemoyo
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. testemunho
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. testemunho
6. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8685
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ a b c Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 493
11. ^ 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. testemoĩo
12. ^ 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. testemunho
13. ^ a b c 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, 456
14. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. testemunho
15. ^ a b 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. testemunho
16. ^ 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. testemunho
17. ^ a b c d e f Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. testemunho
18. ^ a b c 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. testemunho
19. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. testemunho
20. ^ 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. testemunho