De La Lengua Castellana Research Articles

The Mexican Son

The word son is a venerable one in the history of Mexican song and dance. The use of the term dates at least from the sixteenth century — in the Spanish-speaking world as a whole, although ample evidence of its currency is not to be found until the second half of the seventeenth. Gaspar Sanz, in his work commonly called Guitarra española, first published in Zaragosa in 1674, uses the term interchangeably with danza and sonada, the latter term also being found in Sebastian de Covarrubias Horozco's Tesoro de la lengua castellana (1611) in absence of the term son.

The Dating of Neologisms in Corominas' Etymological Dictionaries

Since the appearance of Joan Corominas' Diccionario critico etimol6gico de la lengua castellana (Madrid and Bern, 1955-1957) a number of reviews have appeared in which dates earlier than those given by Corominas are given for certain words.' Emphasis was placed on the earlier periods in the history of the Spanish language and various medieval and Golden Age writers were found to have used a given word prior to the date mentioned by Corominas. The purpose of the present paper is to demonstrate that a number of nineteenth and twentieth-century words (called here neologisms for want of a more suitable term) were in fact found in print earlier than the date given for them by the eminent Spanish linguist. Reference will be made both to the Diccionario critico and to the Breve Diccionario etimol6gico de la lengua castellana (Madrid, 1961) since the latter often represents a more recent view on the part of the author.2

Christian and Un-Christian Etymologies

As far as form is concerned, the gap between Lat. abyssus, “abyss,” and its nasalized Romance congeners of the type abism-is difficult to explain. The two prevalent interpretations are somewhat artificial and unsatisfactory. They are presented by Wartburg, who postulates analogy to the suffix -ismus (Französisches etymologisches Wörterbuch [FEW], I, 11), and by Corominas, who posits a basis *abyssissimus reduced to *abissimus (Diccionario crítico etimológico de la lengua castellana, I, 9).

AMA[Hdot]O,DEŠAMA[Hdot]O,MA[Hdot]O,AMA[Hdot]AR…: A FAMILY OF WORDS COMMON TO THE SPANISH SPEECH OF THE JEWS AND OF THE MORISCOS

The word ama[hdot]ar “to cure” is well attested in Judeo-Spanish: Mrs. Crews found it in use in Skoplje, and suggested that it might be connected with Arabic ma[hdot][hdot]a “ être usé (habit), être effacé (écriture)”. It also occurs in several other published Judeo-Spanish texts, full references to which will be found in Corominas' Diccionario crítico etimológico de la lengua castellana s.v. Majo. The purpose which Corominas had in dealing at considerable length with this word, together with Judeo-Spanish maho (or better ma[hdot]o) “suave, manso”, was to examine the possibility that they may provide a more satisfactory explanation of the enigmatic Castilian word majo “ tipo popular español achulado, que afecta elegancia y valentía” than does the other etymon proposed: Castilian majar “fastidiar”. “La identidad de estos vocablos sefardíes y el castellano majo está lejos de ser evidente, pero cabría pasar de ‘suave’, ‘muelle’ a ‘ elegante’ y luego ‘chulo’.”The present note has nothing to add to the discussion; its object is merely to draw attention to the fact that besides its use by the Jews, this family of words also occurs fairly frequently in Morisco texts, and to see whether these Morisco attestations throw any light on the etymology of ama[hdot]o itself.

The Arabic Element in Modern Spanish

(Author's Summary.-This article presents the results of a fairly complete study of the Spanish words derived from the Arabic, made by a teacher and two of her students.) TO THE question of a Social Science teacher concerning the amount of Arabic in the present Spanish language this paper is due. Excellent correlation and a fine project, I felt, for some of my Spanish students. Two of them worked some ten hours each on the Diccionario de la lengua castellana por la Real Academia-fourteenth edition-listing the Arabic derivatives and drawing some conclusions. I prepared the report and submit our findings. Of an estimated seventy thousand words, about one thousand are of Arabic or of probable Arabic origin. This figure is only approximate, since some of these words are obsolete. This is in turn offset by the fact that the derivation is not indicated for all of a group of related words. Only one may have been listed. Though we do not necessarily find one Arabic word in every seventy of our current Spanish vocabulary, yet it is fascinating to see how many phases of everyday life still do carry the Arab stamp, and how much of Moorish life in Spain can be studied in the Spanish language. Let us look at our homes. If a castle, alcdzar, or a shack, choza, it is Arabic. One well-known building material, adobe, is an Arabic word. Mazari is a kind of brick. There are a number of architectural terms-a girder, jacena; lintel, tabica; a crosspiece used in scaffolding, almojaya. To plaster is jaharrar. Adufa is a half-door. Ataire is the moulding in the panels and frames of doors. The excavation for a foundation is alizace. A projection in a building is arimez, and an arched window, ajimez. A square bolt for a door is alamud-but let us raise the knocker, aldaba, and enter. We pass into the vestibule, zaguin, then go up to the flat roof, azotea, for a view. We may inspect the attic, zaquizami. In the living room we admire the carpet, alfombra or zofra or alcatifa, and rest on the couch, divdn. We play chess, ajedrez, in the library. One of the pieces is the bishop, alfil. We comment on the bric-a-brac of ivory, marfil. When we dine, what a feast of Arabic words we may choose fromartichoke, alcachofa; carrots, zanahorias; egg-plant, berenjena; parsnip,

The Collective Singular in Spanish

The part of grammar which, with the exception of French and to a certain degree of Italian, has been almost entirely neglected in the study of the Neo-Latin idioms, is, we need not hesitate to say, syntax; for the more or less extensive treatises which we find devoted to it in the available grammars, intended mostly to serve practical purposes, cannot meet the expectations of the scholar nor yet always those of the practical learner. A scientific statement of the syntactical forms of the Spanish language, for instance, has as yet not been attempted, unless the Diccionario de construccion y régimen de la lengua castellana, por D. Rufius José. Cuervo, the first number of which, recently published at Paris, we have not been able as yet to obtoin, prove to be such an one. The numerous practical grammars intended to teach modern Spanish almost uniformly base their rules of syntax on the language of Cervantes, thus confusing two widely different epochs and presenting constructions and terms which are now obsolete. Even Paul Foerster's excellent “Spanische Sprachlehre” is not always reliable in stating the age or the extent of use of a construction. Thus, to give only one instance, in treating the uses of the preposition de with the infinitive, § 486, 27, he represents the construction: ‘hacerse de rogar’ as unusual, and leaves one to infer that it occurs only in Don Quijote, whereas it is the usual construction, found again ‘Galatea,‘ 1. vi : La mal camarera tan comedida como hermosa, sin hacerse de rogar, cantó de esta suerte; used two centuries and a half before Cervantes by Don Juan Manuel in the Conde Lucanor, cx. xvii: En lo que tu pro pudieres fallar, Nunca te fagas mucho de rogar; again by Luna in the Lazarillo de Tormes, p. ii, c. 11: Hícelo, sin hacerme de rogar; and so on, up to the present time, where we find it, for instance, in the ‘Escenas Matritenses’ by Mesonero Romanos: La vieja se hacia de rogar; in Fernan Caballero: El no se hizo de rogar (Familia de Alvareda, p. 21, Brockhaus ed.). Considering this neglected state of Spanish syntax and the vast material waiting for a systematic arrangement, we need not be surprised that many of its peculiarities should have been insufficiently treated, while others have been entirely overlooked even by the master of Romance Philology, Friedrich Diez, and those following in his wake. One of the constructions not mentioned in Diez' Comparative Romance Grammar, nor in any of the special grammars of the several Neo-Latin idioms, though in Spanish at least it is frequent enough to thrust inself upon one's notice, is the use of the singular of concrete nouns for the plural in a collective sense, commonly termed the collective singular. It is the purpose of this paper to call attention to the existence of this construction in the Romance languages, and particularly in Spanish. As neither the time nor the material at hand permitted us to extend our researches over the whole of Spanish literature, ancient and modern, we had to content ourselves for the present with the study of the most important works of the former, inclusive of the time of Cervantes, using for the modern language some of the better novelists. We regret especially not having been able to adduce late and mediæval Latin for our present presentation of the subject, but hope to do so in the near future.