The Problem of Andean Vocabulary

Abstract

For the student of Spanish American literature, the problem of Andean vocabulary bulks large. My recent study of fourteen novels and two collections of short stories of the Andean region has pointed up the difficulties that foreigners, -and, no doubt, natives-encounter in reading literature from this region. The works investigated were by Peruvian, Ecuadorean, and Bolivian writers and all dealt with some aspect of the life of the Andean Indian. All told, in the sixteen volumes read, there were some five hundred items not included either in the latest (1947) Spanish Academy Dictionary or in the second edition of Malaret (1) or in Santamaria (2). I am of course aware that for some time to come there will be no dictionary that will contain all the vast number of words of Spanish America. Both Santamaria (3) and Malaret (4) have made clear the fact that their dictionaries are incomplete and will have to be revised to include other terms as they qualify for entry. A dictionary of the two or three Indian languages most frequently used with their Spanish equivalent has been suggested as a partial solution to the problem since it cannot be expected that Malaret or Santamaria should be interested in making dictionaries primarily of Indian words. It was since our own list was compiled in 1946 that the 1946 edition of Malaret's dictionary appeared; it includes thirty-four of our words. It is not inconceivable that many more will be added to future editions. In the meantime, the problem of reading the fiction of the Andean region with understanding remains, and it is to this point that the present brief study is directed. It is clear that some of the words we shall offer may not be Americanisms by rigid definition of the term. The reader will, we hope, bear with our inability occasionally to determine just what an Americanism is. The items of our list of five hundred may be categorized as 1) coined words 2) customs items, 3) animals, 4) articles of clothing, 5) work and workers, 6) buildings and furniture, 7) rare diminutives or augmentatives, 8) familiar words with unusual application, 9) amusements and diversions, 10) variant spellings, 11) geographical names, 12) Indian expressions, 13) superstitions, 14) trees, shrubs and plants, 15) foods and drinks. The number of words under these categories varies widely, with coined words and animal words numbering some sixty items each. The originality of the authors would account for the coining of many interesting forms, and the nature of the novels, which deal with people living in villages or remote country areas keenly aware of their natural sur-