This CD-ROM
edition of the Léxico hispanoamericano brings together the five volumes
of Peter Boyd-Bowman’s extensive lexicon of the
Spanish language used in the Americas, initially published as a
microfiche series by the Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies between 1982 and
1994. Demand for the Léxico, widely praised as a unique reference work
in the field of Hispanic linguistics, quickly led to the unavailability of the
microfiche edition. The CD-ROM version therefore gives scholars a new opportunity to acquire the Léxico, in a format which offers not only a complete revision of the work together with the incorporation of new citations, but also the advantages of custom-designed software, making use and manipulation of the data fast, efficient, and reliable.
It contains over 80,000 headwords drawn from 387 sources, spanning the years 1493-1993.
Each headword in the Léxico is followed by a number of citations illustrating its grammatical properties, semantic content, co-occurrence with other linguistic forms, and other aspects of its use. The citations are accompanied by their documented date and location, and information on the sources from which they are taken. Those sources include all types of material, from literary texts to private correspondence, and from legal documents to freight lists.
The software which has been developed specifically for this edition enables the
user to search by headword and word in context, by location, by date or date
range, by source, and to combine searches in such as way as to optimize access
to the citation database. Many of the citations reveal the earliest documentation of forms in American Spanish, but the Léxico also provides information on the appearance and use of loanwords, the spread of cultural concepts and technical terminology, the survival of forms considered obsolete or regional in Peninsular Spanish, and so on.
The Léxico hispanoamericano is a major contribution to our knowledge of the Spanish used in the Americas from the end of the 15th century to the end of the 20th.