Contribution to the lexical history of Philippines Spanish: some data from 18th. century.

Abstract

Despite of its obvious interest, the history of the Spanish language in the Philippines Islands is still an unattended matter. That’s why it is necessary to carry out more studies in order to draw an accurate profile of this specific linguistic variety in the past. This study attempts to make a contribution to the general knowledge of the Philippines Spanish lexicon through the analysis of some elements that appear in an 18th century corpus. In order to achieve this goal, three specific issues will be studied: a) indigenisms borrowed from the indigenous languages of the archipelago; b) words undergoing a semantic adaptation in order to fit in its new geographical environment; c) lexical items from New Spain which are transferred to the Philippines due to the historical bonds between these two regions.