Main lexical features of the Oaxacan Variety of Spanish in the 19th/20th century (Mexico)
Main lexical features of the Oaxacan Variety of Spanish in the 19th/20th century (Mexico)

Summary/Abstract: This work offers a description of the main lexical characteristics found in the Mexican Spanish variety by focusing on the language use of official exclusively male text producers in multiethnic and multilingual Oaxaca de Juárez from 1890 to 1911. Relevant works of Spanish linguistic historiography still postulate the beginning of an “español modern” from the 18th/19th century onwards. But the present qualitative study shows, based on a corpus, that diverse lexical variation was still realized in official documents in the 19th/20th century, as rubio and claro to characterize exclusively foreign sex-workers or as a limited lexeme repertoire to describe nose(shape), whereas a broad repertoire to characterize skin color is conspicuous. Furthermore, the data helps us to consider a variety that is still conspicuously absent in Spanish language history.

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