Spanish Perro vs Can

Felix Tilley

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May 19, 2012, 9:06:33 AM5/19/12

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I know Spanish Can is from Latin Canis. And Perro is from some Iberian
language. Yet Can is still used in the upper Duerro River valley. That
is in Spain, MR Daniels may not know that.

Felix Tilley in Tucson, Arizona

Athel Cornish-Bowden

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May 19, 2012, 8:45:55 PM5/19/12

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On 2012-05-19 13:06:33 +0000, Felix Tilley said:

> I know Spanish Can is from Latin Canis. And Perro is from some Iberian
> language. Yet Can is still used in the upper Duerro River valley. That
> is in Spain, MR Daniels may not know that.

Mr Daniels almost certainly knows that, but apparently Mr Tilley
doesn't know how to spell "Duero" (or "Douro" in its lower reaches). My
impression is that "can" is Catalan rather than Castilian, though maybe
it exists in dialectal usage. (OK, some might say that Catalan and
Castilian are both Spanish languages, but unqualified "Spanish" usually
means Castilian.)

--
athel

António Marques

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May 19, 2012, 10:05:24 PM5/19/12

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My impression is that _can_ is known in spanish, but exceedingly rare,
found mostly in fixed expressions. Catalan's perro is _gos_, but _ca_
may also be used -. though as in spanish, not in common discourse,
e.g. if you mention _cans_ in Barcelona you'll be corrected to
_gosos_. I have no idea of the etymology of _gos_. Nor of _perro_,
which means 'moving with difficulty or not at all' in portuguese.

Harlan Messinger

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May 19, 2012, 11:11:18 PM5/19/12

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The dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy lists "can":

http://buscon.rae.es/draeI/SrvltConsulta?TIPO_BUS=3&LEMA=can

"1. m. perro ...."

Ruud Harmsen

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May 20, 2012, 4:43:05 AM5/20/12

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Athel Cornish-Bowden <acor...@imm.cnrs.fr> schreef/wrote:

>My
>impression is that "can" is Catalan rather than Castilian, though maybe
>it exists in dialectal usage.

Can (here spelled cam) is also Galician:
http://www.estraviz.org/can
and in the official spelling:
http://www.realacademiagalega.org/dicionario#searchNoun.do?nounTitle=can

--
Ruud Harmsen

http://rudhar.com/new
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000255314964

Felix Tilley

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May 27, 2012, 1:13:33 PM5/27/12

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On Sun, 20 May 2012 10:43:05 +0200, Ruud Harmsen wrote:

> Athel Cornish-Bowden <acor...@imm.cnrs.fr> schreef/wrote:
>>My
>>impression is that "can" is Catalan rather than Castilian, though maybe
>>it exists in dialectal usage.

OK. I'll help. Although "Can" is not used in modern castillian...I've heard my 93 year old grandmother (who has lived all her life in the Upper Duero Valley) say often, "Eres un can." (You are a dog). She uses other castillian words that are no longer part of the language. So I suspect that the word Can was used in Galician and Leonese (Northwest Spain) and as National television has influenced the language, dialect words like Can have fallen by the wayside.

BTW, she was talking about me when saying, "Eres un can."

From: Felix Tilley <feti...@earthlink.net>
To: John Vinas <yani...@yahoo.com>; Steven Fernkopf <fern...@hotmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, May 20, 2012 5:55 AM
Subject: Can and Perro

Now they drag in the Celts. God damn it. Help me out.

Felix

Subject: Re: Spanish Perro vs Can
From: Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.com>
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Date: Sun, 20 May 2012 10:43:05 +0200