Journal of Undergraduate Research
Keywords
condemned words, Portuguese loanwords, Infermidades, eighteenth century
College
Humanities
Department
Spanish and Portuguese
Abstract
In 1760 a book was published in Lisbon, Portugal entitled Infermidades da lingua, e arte que a ensina a emmudecer para melhorar (Sicknesses of the tongue, and the art that teaches it to be silent for improvement), in which the use of certain words and phrases in the Portuguese language was strongly denounced. In the title of the work in question and throughout the text, the author describes his vast inventory of words and other expressions as “sicknesses” to the Portuguese language that need to be removed. The author’s prescriptive linguistic view is quite interesting and has been in demand of in-depth research. My research entailed evaluating a large sample of the thousands of condemned words and investigating whether and how they appeared in various dictionaries from the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries.
Recommended Citation
Eggleston, Aaron and Lund, Dr. Christopher
(2013)
"The Fate of Condemned 18th Century Portuguese Loanwords,"
Journal of Undergraduate Research: Vol. 2013:
Iss.
1, Article 974.
Available at:
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/jur/vol2013/iss1/974