Al voltant del mot explanar, 'passar d’una llengua a una altra'

Abstract

In the Middle Ages, the different Romance languages had a large vocabulary to express the idea of ‘transferring from one language into another’, before the verb ‘to translate’ appeared at the end of the 15th century and overshadowed all the other lexical choices. Apart from this terminology, Catalan also had the verb explanar. In this article, firstly, we analyse the meaning of this term in Latin and in most languages close to Catalan (Castilian, French, Provenzal, Galician-Portuguese and Italian) to obtain an indepth understanding of this term and its meaning. Secondly, we offer a list of references found with the meaning of ‘to translate’; and finally, we focus on its relationship with parlar pla in order to understand its possible semantic evolution and be able to propose a dialectal affiliation.