Approaching lexical loss in Canarian Spanish undergraduates: A preliminary assessment

Abstract

Canarian Spanish is one of the most widely studied varieties of Spanish. Apart from significant distinguishing phonetic and grammatical features, this variety is notable for a number of characteristics at the lexical level. In their 2009 two-volume Diccionario ejemplificado de canarismos (henceforth DEC), Corrales and Corbella collected a total of 19,000 entries and 25,000 meanings and expressions, with examples taken from about 1,300 written records. All these Canarianisms represent the history, natural resources and popular knowledge in the Canarian dialect, thus showing the richness and variety of its vocabulary. Our aim here is to check whether part of this lexical repertoire is being lost, as previously warned of by Medina (1997). We provide data obtained in a survey completed by 100 young university students of Canarian origin at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria on their knowledge and use of a small corpus of Canarianisms taken from the DEC.

Keywords

• Sociolinguistics
• lexical loss
• active and passive vocabulary
• Canarian Spanish