caminata

Latin

Alternative forms

• keminada (Kassel glosses)
• caminada, camenata

Etymology

Ellipsis of *[camera camīnāta], that is camera (“chamber”) and camīnus (“fireplace”) +‎ -āta (“provided with”).

First attested in 584 CE in sense 1 and the ninth century in sense 3, which developed in northern France to fill the semantic space vacated by camīnus ("fireplace", later "chimney"), the latter having been locally discarded after it became a homophone for cammīnus (“path, way”) due to ongoing consonant degemination.

The French descendant of camīnāta, namely cheminee, made its way into numerous other languages as chimney-making techniques spread from northern France.

Pronunciation

The etymological [i(ː)] would be expected to ‘weaken’ to [ɪ] due to its position (second syllable of a tetrasyllabic paroxytone). Some corroboration of the [ɪ]/[e] variant indicated by the spelling ⟨camenata⟩ comes in the form of Old French reflexes with ⟨e⟩ in the second syllable, such as chamenee. Nevertheless ⟨i⟩ is more common in Old French (cheminee, etc). The [i] in Italian cam(m)inata could equally derive from an older [i(ː)] or [ɪ]/[e] by regular sound-changes. Otherwise, all the Romance reflexes unambiguously reflect an original [i(ː)]. The overall triumph of this vowel can be attributed to continued influence from the root word camīnus (“fireplace”) where [i(ː)] was stressed and hence not subject to the aforementioned weakening. In French there may also have been a folk-etymology of cheminee as chemin (“path, way”) + -ée which legitimized forms like cheminee against opaque forms like chamenee.

Noun

camīnāta f (genitive camīnātae); first declension

1. (Late Latin) room with a chimney, living room, parlour
2. (Early Medieval Latin) bedroom
3. (Early Medieval Latin) chimney

Declension

First-declension noun.

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	camīnāta	camīnātae
Genitive	camīnātae	camīnātārum
Dative	camīnātae	camīnātīs
Accusative	camīnātam	camīnātās
Ablative	camīnātā	camīnātīs
Vocative	camīnāta	camīnātae

Descendants

• Italo-Romance:
  • Italian: camminata, caminata (archaic)
• North Italian:
  • Lombard: caminada
  • Romansch: chamineda, chaminada, chimineda
• Gallo-Romance:
  • Old French: cheminee (see there for further descendants)
  • Occitan: caminada, chaminada
  • → Proto-West Germanic: *kaminādā (see there for further descendants)

References

• “cheminée”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
• Joan Coromines, José A. Pascual (1984) “chimenea”, in Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico (in Spanish), volumes II (Ce–F), Madrid: Gredos, →ISBN, page 361
• Niermeyer, Jan Frederik (1976) “caminata”, in Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden, Boston: E. J. Brill, page 120
• Walther von Wartburg (1928–2002) “camīnus”, in Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, volume 2: C Q K, page 139

Spanish

Etymology

From caminar +‎ -ata.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kamiˈnata/ [ka.miˈna.t̪a]
• Rhymes: -ata
• Syllabification: ca‧mi‧na‧ta

Noun

caminata f (plural caminatas)

1. (long) walk, hike, trek

Related terms

• caminar
• paseata
• viajata

 

See also

• paseo (“short walk”)

Further reading

• “caminata”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014