Arabismos en el español: Un análisis léxico de arabismos referidos a humanos

Abstract

The Spanish language is, as many know, one of the languages derived from Latin. What distinguishes Spanish from the other languages derived from Latin is the influence of Arabic through the Arabic conquest of the Iberian Peninsula. Several scholars have studied the Arabic words that have been incorporated into the Spanish vocabulary through extensive contact between the speakers of the two languages. Previous studies have focused on many different semantic fields. My thesis, on the other hand, deals with a subgroup of Spanish words of Arabic origin, which are used today to characterize people, with the purpose of better understanding their development over time, and whether or not they were pejorative words upon being incorporate into the Spanish lexis, or if they have acquired negative semantic content over time. The results of this work in lexical semantics shows that the historical context will often have influence in the semantical sphere of the language. Through this study, I have found that the relationship between Spain and the Arabic-speaking world has impacted the Spanish words selected for the thesis, the results of which has been that words that have started out as semantically positive or neutral have experienced semantic change towards becoming pejorative words.