the top 10 books on spanishlinguist.us's bookshelf
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Top 10 bookson Spanishlinguist’s bookshelf
These ten books, listed alphabetically by author, cover linguistic topics from the history of the Spanish
language, to etymology, grammar, spelling, dialectal variation, and the psychology of language.
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www.spanishlinguist.us
Spanish Word Histories and Mysteries is actually a
book about ENGLISH, from the editors of the American
Heritage Dictionaries. However, its well-informed and
lucidly written etymological entries on 200 words from
abalone to zocalo (no accent, since we’re talking about
English!), offer a deep dive into the sources of the
Spanish lexicon, from Latin to the indigenous languages
of the Americas.
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www.spanishlinguist.us
I wish I could afford a copy of Joan Corominas’s six-volume
etymological dictionary (almost $1000 on Amazon), but I can usually
find the information I’m looking for in his shorter, and more affordable,
Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana. Each word is
listed under its root, so that, for example, hipótesis is under tesis and
constante under estar; these cross-references are clear, though they do
entail a lot of page flipping. Entries include not just the etymology of
each word (if known) but its date of first use.
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www.spanishlinguist.us
Guy Deutscher is both a serious scholar and a brilliant writer.
The Unfolding of Language, one of my all-time favorite linguistics
books, explains how grammatical elements are created and lost.
Deutscher’s examples come from several languages, including
Spanish.
I’ve also included Deutscher’s Through the Language Mirror,
about linguistic relativity. Spanish comes up in Deutscher’s
discussion of the psychological consequences of grammatical
gender, and the rest of the book is hugely interesting as well.
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www.spanishlinguist.us
John Lipski’s Varieties of Spanish in the United States is of
interest for two reasons. The first is Lipski’s expert treatment of
its titular topic. He provides linguistic and historical treatments
of varieties from the traditional Spanish of New Mexico and
Lousiana to the speech of today’s immigrants.
The second reason is Lipski’s useful capsule descriptions of
the different dialects covered in the book: Mexican, Cuban,
Puerto Rican, Dominican, Salvadoran, Nicaraguan, Guatemalan,
and Honduran Spanish.
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www.spanishlinguist.us
Ralph Penny’s A History of the Spanish Language is my “history
of Spanish” bible. It is dense with information, so that you’ll find
yourself consulting it for specific topics, rather than reading it
cover-to-cover in a single pass. It explains, in detail, core historical
topics from vocabulary to verbs, and is truly authoritative.
I’ve also include here Penny’s Variation and Change in Spanish,
which covers geographical and social variation in Spain and in Latin
America. It also includes some higher-level chapters on how and
why language varies and changes, and a chapter on Ladino.
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www.spanishlinguist.us
As its title implies, David Pharies’s A Brief History of
the Spanish Language covers the same territory as
Penny’s A History of the Spanish Language, but more
succinctly. It is also more readable -- more of an
introductory text than a reference.
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www.spanishlinguist.us
Chris Pountain’s Exploring the Spanish Language is a
valuable introductory textbook in Hispanic linguistics.
Besides core topics on phonology, morphology, and
syntax, it covers sociolinguistics (dialectal and social
variation), and Spanish-based languages such as Ladino
and creoles. My favorite chapter, on “the genius of
Spanish”, discusses the expressive power of Spanish
phenomena such as reflexive verbs, ser and estar, and
the subjunctive.
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www.spanishlinguist.us
The Real Academia Española’s Nueva gramática de la
lengua española is an exhaustive treatment of almost
every grammar topic you can think of, from gender to
negation. The subtitle Manual means that the book is a
“reference manual”, not that it includes exercises.
Its companion volume, the RAE’s Ortografía, covers
Spanish spelling and punctuation, again in exhaustive
detail. There are sixty-five pages devoted just to accent
marks!
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www.spanishlinguist.us
I was delighted to discover Miranda Stewart’s The
Spanish Language Today, a comprehensive and useful
summary of current developments in Spanish
pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar. Unusual topics
include language standards beyond the Real Academia,
and contact phenomena including Papiamento and
Fronterizo.
www.spanishlinguist.us
www.spanishlinguist.us
Some historical questions about Spanish can’t be answered just
by looking at Latin -- you have to go farther back, to Indo-
European. That’s where Michael Weiss’s Outline of the Historical
and Comparative Grammar of Latin comes in. It is clear but
intensely scholarly, meant as a reference work more than a
straight-through read. The book proceeds from sounds to nouns
and pronouns to verbs, with some treatment of syntax. Make sure
to buy it directly from Beech Stave Press instead of paying a rip-off
price on Amazon.