trabe – wooden beam – viga
Posted: Sun Jan 18, 2009 3:15 pm
trabe: pronounced TRAH-beh. Sustantivu (noun) designating the large wooden beam that supports the Asturian horru (granary). The trabe is one of four horizontal beams resting on the circular tornarratos at the top of each stilt. From Latin trabs or trabis: cross-beam.
Usually carved of a single chestnut tree, it is structurally the sturdiest element in the construction. The word is used both in masculine and feminine forms: el trabe or la trabe.
A second meaning of trabe is a snowdrift or mound of snow driven by the wind. By extension, the word implies an obstacle, hindrance, stumbling block or snag.
Usage examples:
Fainos una semeya frente al trabe d'esti horru. [Take a picture of us in front of the wooden beam of this granary.]
Esti trabe seique tien 400 anos. [This beam is perhaps 400-years-old.]
Nun sei si veis pasar el puertu, hai muitas trabes na carretera. [I don’t know if you’ll make it over the mountain pass, there are several obstacles along the way.]
Arriba nel monte habia un trabe en mediu’l camín. [Up on the bluff there was a snowdrift in middle of the road.]
L’aire feixo muitos trabes. [The wind created many snowdrifts.]
Watch this YouTube clip with Xose Anton Ambas, the ethnomusicologist, and Amalia Rebollar, in the Asturian fishing port of Tazones (County Villaviciosa). The backdrop to their conversation is a local horru. Amalia is sitting on the circular-shaped sandstone tornarratos, while Ambas leans against the trabe. Between them is the dovetailed piece of another trabe that sticks out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNglHH5OSkg
And here is a picture of a friend standing on top of a trabe that blocked the road to La Marta, County Ayande or Allande, in 2006:
Usually carved of a single chestnut tree, it is structurally the sturdiest element in the construction. The word is used both in masculine and feminine forms: el trabe or la trabe.
A second meaning of trabe is a snowdrift or mound of snow driven by the wind. By extension, the word implies an obstacle, hindrance, stumbling block or snag.
Usage examples:
Fainos una semeya frente al trabe d'esti horru. [Take a picture of us in front of the wooden beam of this granary.]
Esti trabe seique tien 400 anos. [This beam is perhaps 400-years-old.]
Nun sei si veis pasar el puertu, hai muitas trabes na carretera. [I don’t know if you’ll make it over the mountain pass, there are several obstacles along the way.]
Arriba nel monte habia un trabe en mediu’l camín. [Up on the bluff there was a snowdrift in middle of the road.]
L’aire feixo muitos trabes. [The wind created many snowdrifts.]
Watch this YouTube clip with Xose Anton Ambas, the ethnomusicologist, and Amalia Rebollar, in the Asturian fishing port of Tazones (County Villaviciosa). The backdrop to their conversation is a local horru. Amalia is sitting on the circular-shaped sandstone tornarratos, while Ambas leans against the trabe. Between them is the dovetailed piece of another trabe that sticks out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNglHH5OSkg
And here is a picture of a friend standing on top of a trabe that blocked the road to La Marta, County Ayande or Allande, in 2006: