Language Varieties, Lexicon Origins, and Medieval Poetry

Varieties of Language

• Geographic: Varieties that a language presents depending on where it is used.
  • Causes: Degree of Romanization, other influences (pre-Roman languages, Germanic languages, Arabic, Italian, Indian languages, French, English).
• Diastratic: Varieties that coexist in one place, related to the sociocultural level of the people who use it.
  • Causes: Habitat, age, sex, occupation, socio-cultural level.
  • Types:
    • Learned: Careful language at all levels.
    • Media: Language that meets the linguistic requirements of communication but is cultivated.
    • Colloquial: Conversational language used by speakers in a relaxed environment without much concern for linguistic correctness (characteristics: cooperation, subjectivity, linguistic economy, spontaneity).
    • Vulgar: Used by speakers whose social and cultural level is low and who do not worry about it. Use of slang at all levels.
• Diafásicas: Depend on situations that occur in the act of communication, regardless of geographical or socio-cultural variety of the speaker. Forms of talking that the speaker adapts. Other influencing factors are the subject, channel, receiver, transmitter, and relationship.
• Standard or Norm: Because there are all kinds of varieties, there is a variety that serves to understand. Different criteria have been established to understand this variety: geographical, social, academic.

Origin of the Lexicon

• A) Words inherited from the mother tongue (Latin):
  • A.1) Patrimonial: Words that have been in the language since the beginning and have evolved according to phonetic laws to reach their current form.
  • A.2) Cultured: Words from the mother language that had crept in but in an era in which the laws were not strong, retaining their original shape.
• B) Subtracted words in other languages:
  • B.1) At various times: Times when a language contacts others.
  • Causes: Historical, geographical, social, linguistic.
  • Loans: Pre-Roman, Germanisms.
    • Causes of Germanic: Historical, social.
    • Arabisms: Causes of the Arabs: historical, social.
    • Gallicisms: Linguistic.
    • Causes of Gallicism in the Middle Ages: Geographical and social.
    • Causes of Gallicism in the 18th century: Historic sociocultural.
    • Americanisms: Causes of Americanism: historical, sociocultural, linguistic.

Medieval Poetry

Common Features

• Pick up the feelings on topics: (love, pain, joy, complaints).
• Formal features: (short, short lines, repetition, parallelism, oral transmission, anonymous, emotional tone)

Arrangements

• Mozarabic Jarchas (12th century): Theme of love or sentimental songs of the Mozarabs; the characters are a young lover, confidante.
• Galician Portuguese Lyric (13th century): More elaborate songs of friends, ballads of love, mocking songs.
• Castilian Lyric: Themes of love, pain, nature, other feelings. Types: friend or lyrics woman in love, man love songs, work songs, songs of celebration, song, sailing, mountain songs, plants or crying, villan.