A little Levantine

[muckefuck]

Part of the rambling multihour conversation in the car on the way down to STL was a debate about the origins of the term "Levant" in the sense of "the eastern littoral of the Mediterranean". bunj was arguing that it was anachronistic to use it for the Era of the Crusades since it isn't attested with this meaning in English before 1497; the only term he found in his original sources, he told us, was trémière (from Latin trans mare "across [the] sea"). e. and on, on the other hand, pointed out that cognates of Levant had been in use in Romance languages for centuries before then with the general meaning of "east", but we couldn't provide a date for when it acquired its specific geographic identification.

I've since had time to do a little more sleuthing and have uncovered some interesting facts:

• In French, levant first occurs with the meaning of "east" in the Chanson de Roland, but it's the 15th century before it comes to mean "the Levantine countries".
• Similarly, llevant in the sense of "east" is found in the Catalan works of Raymond Llull, but the first attestation of a specific geographical application is a chronicle from 1455.
• In Italian, however, Levante begins to be used in this sense from "around the 13th-14th centuries", according to the Vocabolario Treccani.
• A survey of our various dictionaries of Mediaeval Latin shows that both transmare and levans seem to be sparsely attested, but there is a citation in the Niermeyer of "Genova, XIII [cent.]" for the latter with the meaning we're interested in.

So it does seem to be an expression that comes into use only at the end of the Crusader period after all.

Comments

[foodpoisoningsf.livejournal.com]

OK. When did use end? WW1?

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

It hasn't; "Levant" still has that meaning. For instance, Googling the BBC site found references to the cookbook Flavours of the Levant : home cooking from Lebanon, Syria and Turkey (London, 2000).

But I think your hunch may be right: Use probably declined with the dismemberment of the "Sick Man of Europe" and the resulting emergence of several independent states in what had once been the Levantine possession of the Ottoman Empire. Growing up, "Middle East" was the term I most often heard for that area, even though it's considerably broader (embracing, as it does, everything from Sinai to Mashhad), occasionally "the Holy Land" for Palestine and possibly a few neighbouring areas.

[foodpoisoningsf.livejournal.com]

Levant may still have meaning in Britain and France. From Wikipedia.

[princeofcairo.livejournal.com]

The generic term for the Levant in the Crusader period, from my own spotty reading, is Outremer.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Ah, perhaps this is what bunj was saying and I just misheard him. The OED traces Outremer in the sense of "the Crusader states" back to the 13th century; the Latin form ultra mare is attested even earlier, but it's unclear if this is with the same geographical reference or not.

[bunj.livejournal.com]

It was, in fact, what bunj was saying. I got it from Villehardouin and Joinville: both French, both writing at the time.

[ursine1.livejournal.com]

And of course it also refers to a region in the Mediterranean coast covering País de Valencia and Región de Murcia.

Carlos

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

A usage that is deprecated by catalanistes. Or, to quote Alcover i Moll:

LLEVANT m.....2. b. abusivament i per influència castellana, hi ha qui anomena Llevant el Païs Valencià, cosa inadmissible si no ens situem com a observadors des de la meseta castellana.

[ursine1.livejournal.com]

Jo em refería a la paraula "Levant" en castellà, i no al terme català "llevant". Moltes guies turístiques utilitzen la paraula "Levant" per a nombrar aquesta zona geogràfica de la costa sud-est de la península.

Cal dir que en moltes d'aquestes guies es traduèix el nou original al idioma de la guia, fent molt dificil saber si el nom és l'original o el traduït. Problablement el terme que jo esmento és el "Levante" en l'idioma castellà però traduït a l'anglès que és "Levant".

Tanmateix també trobem un altre accepció de la paraula "llevant" de l'Institut d'Estudis Catalans :

http://dcvb.iecat.net/default.asp
Costa de Llevant: comarca litoral catalana situada a l'est-nord-est de la ciutat de Barcelona.

I al viure al Masnou, crec que jo visc en el "Llevant" també.

Carles

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

¡Que maco és el teu català! ¿El segueixes aprenent?

Llevant és també el nom d'una comarca comprenent l'est de l'Illa de Mallorca.