Spanish "talle". Terms that refer to the waist, or the narrowest part of the human torso, with another, more erudite word.

R

Rainbowlight

Senior Member
Spanish
Hello everyone,

I would like to know if this phenomenon takes place in your language. "Cintura" is the common word to refer to what is known in English as the "waist". It is widely used in everyday speech.

However, there is another term - more cultured and erudite - that is mainly used in some literature and, above all, by professionals that work in the fashion industry. The word is "talle".

Is the waist referred to with another (or several) terms in your country? Does this phenomenon happen in your language too? I would love to read your answers.

Thanks for your time and help.
 
    • In French, it's the opposite:

    For waist, taille is the most common word.

    Sometimes ceinture is used with the same meaning as a "polite" alternative, especially in clothes shops, by sales(wo)men who want to be tactful with their potential customers:
    Cette jupe vous serre un peu à la ceinture, prenez donc la taille(*) au-dessus.
    (*) here taille has the different meaning of "size".
     
    Last edited:
    The whole thing is quite interesting. Masculine words like Italian taglio or Spanish tajo derive from the verb for 'cut', but the feminine ones (Italian taglia, Spanish talla) are probably early borrowings from the Gallo-Romance area, in which the <talea> (French taille) also developed the sense of "size" of a person, from a "well-cut" person 'une personne bien taillée'. Hence the most common sense in the Romance languages of the derived forms from <talea> is the size of a person, an animal or clothes. As a part of the body, it would rather mean the trunk or the whole figure. When a work in medieval Spanish talks about un caballero de buen talle refers to his build, not his waist. It's only by the 18th century that French seems to use taille for ceinture, replacing it apparently in common speech, and talle for cintura in Spanish would be one of those rather literary Gallicisms that would appear in the language decades later. Notice, however, how Spanish borrowed the sense in the masculine word, talle, not the feminine talla, as could have been expected since the word is feminine in French.
     
    In Greek it's just «μέση» [ˈme̞s̠i] (fem.) --> lit. middle, also waist, lower back < Classical feminine nominalised form «μέση» /ˈmesɛː/ --> the top note of the lower tetrachord in the octave originally the middle string of the seven-stringed (or of an earlier three-stringed) lyre, geometric mean (mean proportional), waist, waistband, lower back, of the Classical adjective «μέσος» /ˈmesos/.
     
    Yendred said:
    In French, it's the opposite:

    For waist, taille is the most common word.

    Sometimes ceinture is used with the same meaning as a "polite" alternative, especially in clothes shops, by sales(wo)men who want to be tactful with their potential customers:
    Cette jupe vous serre un peu à la ceinture, prenez donc la taille(*) au-dessus.
    (*) here taille has the different meaning of "size".
    Click to expand...
    Thank you very much for your help.

    Penyafort said:
    The whole thing is quite interesting. Masculine words like Italian taglio or Spanish tajo derive from the verb for 'cut', but the feminine ones (Italian taglia, Spanish talla) are probably early borrowings from the Gallo-Romance area, in which the <talea> (French taille) also developed the sense of "size" of a person, from a "well-cut" person 'une personne bien taillée'. Hence the most common sense in the Romance languages of the derived forms from <talea> is the size of a person, an animal or clothes. As a part of the body, it would rather mean the trunk or the whole figure. When a work in medieval Spanish talks about un caballero de buen talle refers to his build, not his waist. It's only by the 18th century that French seems to use taille for ceinture, replacing it apparently in common speech, and talle for cintura in Spanish would be one of those rather literary Gallicisms that would appear in the language decades later. Notice, however, how Spanish borrowed the sense in the masculine word, talle, not the feminine talla, as could have been expected since the word is feminine in French.
    Click to expand...
    Thank you so much. I have also heard that talla can also mean the height of a person in Spanish. I don't know if talle can also have that same sense.
     
    Cymraeg/Welsh

    canol     (n.m.) Lit. 'middle'
    gwasg* (n.f.m.) Lit. 'a pressing'
    gwast* (n.f.) From Middle English, 'wast(e)'
    (The 'posher' and literary word is meingorff (n.f.) Lit. 'slender body')

    * These words help to distinguish between Northern Welsh speakers who pronounce them as /gwa:sg/ and /gwa:st/, whereas Southerners have a short 'a', /gwasg/ and /gwast/, respectively.
     
    Welsh_Sion said:
    Cymraeg/Welsh

    canol     (n.m.) Lit. 'middle'
    gwasg* (n.f.m.) Lit. 'a pressing'
    gwast* (n.f.) From Middle English, 'wast(e)'
    (The 'posher' and literary word is meingorff (n.f.) Lit. 'slender body')

    * These words help to distinguish between Northern Welsh speakers who pronounce them as /gwa:sg/ and /gwa:st/, whereas Southerners have a short 'a', /gwasg/ and /gwast/, respectively.
    Click to expand...
    Thank you very much. I didn't mean to imply that the Spanish word "talle" was, as you put it, "posher". It certainly was more used in the past than now and, crucially, it is still the word used by many people that work in the fashion industry - think of a tailor, a dress-maker and so on.

    I really don't know if there is an equivalent word in English, seeing as "waist" or "waistline" seem to be omnipresent.

    Thanks again for your answer.
     
    I don't think it matters, @Rainbowlight - I think we are going by the idea that meingorff is definitely a more literary form and to use your expression is "more cultured and erudite" than the other words in my list. I wouldn't expect anyone in everyday speech to use it for 'waist' in Welsh.

    (Can you also see the Latin etymology for gorff (< radical form: corff) in our word for 'body'? This is a common occurrence in Welsh where [f] (older Welsh: corph) derives from Latin [p].)
     
    Welsh_Sion said:
    I don't think it matters, @Rainbowlight - I think we are going by the idea that meingorff is definitely a more literary form and to use your expression is "more cultured and erudite" than the other words in my list. I wouldn't expect anyone in everyday speech to use it for 'waist' in Welsh.

    (Can you also see the Latin etymology for gorff (< radical form: corff) in our word for 'body'? This is a common occurrence in Welsh where [f] (older Welsh: corph) derives from Latin [p].)
    Click to expand...
    Thanks for your answer!

    I was unaware of gorff's existence, as I am sadly unaware of Welsh language. Luckily, I am all the happier for it now that you have showed me this beautiful example. : )

    I am definitely able to see the similarity, although I would not rule out an earlier word in a G-R-F sequence.
     
    Not to sidetrack too much, but the Welsh word was corph (so spelt) to reflect its origins in Latin corpus. This is a common occurrence whereby Latin <(p)p> becomes [f] in Welsh. We now spell it corff with the same pronunciation: /korf/.

    You must not think of gorph (or indeed gorff) as being the dictionary entry word - this is why we call corff the radical form. It will change ('mutate') to gorff in certain cirumstances.
     
    Welsh_Sion said:
    Not to sidetrack too much, but the Welsh word was corph (so spelt) to reflect its origins in Latin corpus. This is a common occurrence whereby Latin <(p)p> becomes [f] in Welsh. We now spell it corff with the same pronunciation: /korf/.

    You must not think of gorph (or indeed gorff) as being the dictionary entry word - this is why we call corff the radical form. It will change ('mutate') to gorff in certain cirumstances.
    Click to expand...
    Thanks for the clarification.
     
    You must log in or register to reply here.
    Back
    Top