Lusismos o arcaísmos castellanos sobre la lengua de los dramas castellanos de Gil Vicente

Abstract

Gil Vicente (1465-1536), Portuguese poet, composer and playwright is a significant figure of both Portuguese and Spanish literary history, as, in accordance with the traditions of his era, he wrote in both languages. What is more, Gil Vicente often used different languages in the same play. Many researchers, linguists, philologists and literary theorists call our attention to the fact that the language of the plays written by the author in Spanish is permeated with his Portuguese mother tongue. However, the definitive separation of phonetic, grammatical and lexical elements which can be interpreted as the result of this interference, and the determination of the ratio of these elements is made difficult by the fact that a significant part of these coincides with archaic or dialectal Spanish forms. In the paper, the author examines the vocabulary of the plays written by Gil Vicente in Spanish, and arrives at the conclusion that—in case the author actually made a conscious use of the languages known by him as a sign of refinement—it is possible that the elements which are hard to classify have to be considered forms used with conscious intention to reach an archaic or dialectic effect instead of simple Portuguese forms.