Bandeira
PontevedraGalicia
From the Germanic banda ('strip, group distinctive, ensign'), through Old French bandiere and medieval Catalan bandera: 'ensign, standard'. The toponym probably commemorates a medieval jurisdictional episode —seigneurial concession, coat of arms or privilege— now lost.
The common noun bandera (Galician bandeira) has a long European journey: from the Germanic banda, 'strip, badge of belonging', the same root as Castilian banda (group, sash) and bando (public proclamation, opposing faction). The Germanic peoples used coloured strips of cloth as badges of belonging to a lineage or army; when those strips came to hang from poles, they became ensigns recognisable from afar. The word entered Late Latin as bandum (attested by Procopius in the 6th century describing the Visigoths), passed into Provençal and Catalan as bandera, and from there into Castilian and Galician. The Galician Bandeira as a toponym stands out in its group: naming a village after an ensign is rare in peninsular onomastics. The traditional explanation refers to a medieval jurisdictional episode whose detail has been lost, possibly the granting of a coat of arms or seigneurial privilege to the first settlement. Today Bandeira is the last significant stop on the Sanabrés before the confluence with the Camino Portugués at Ponte Ulla.
Evolution of the name
- banda → bandera Germanic → Romance 8th — 12th century
- Bandeira medieval Galician-Portuguese from the 13th century
Glossary
- Attested
- A form or word documented in writing in historical sources; opposed to "reconstructed" (forms proposed by comparative inference but not actually documented).
- Onomastics
- The linguistic discipline that studies proper names — of persons, places and institutions. "Onomastic readings" are competing etymological hypotheses about a name.
Sources
- Corominas, J. & Pascual, J.A. — Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico
- Cabeza Quiles, F. — Os nomes da terra
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Vía de la Plata