The Role of Richard Hakluyt’s The Principall Nauigations (1589) in the Introduction and Dissemination of Spanish Loanwords in the English Language

Abstract

Richard Hakluyt’s Principall Nauigations (1589) was a landmark in the history of English travel literature which compiled and glorified the naval deeds and expeditions undertaken by the English throughout the world. This article focuses on the third volume of Hakluyt’s compilation devoted to America which gathers first-hand accounts describing the way of life and the natural environment of the new territories conquered and populated by the Spaniards. The incorporation in these texts of almost 100 borrowings from Spanish to designate elements related to sea voyages and experiences in the Spanish colonies has raised the following research questions: What kind of terms were most likely to be introduced? And, given that these Spanish terms were unfamiliar to English readers, did the authors resort to any kind of strategy to explain the meaning of the new words? This article will address these questions by setting the following objectives. (i) to compile an inventory of the Spanish terms that have been incorporated into the English texts; (ii) to classify these terms according to the lexical fields they refer to; (iii) to analyse how the meaning of these new words is explained to English readers.