Argotic lexicon in the Vocabulario de mexicanismos by Joaquín García Icazbalceta

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to study how the lexicon of lower layers of Mexican society in the Porfirian period (second half of the 19th century) is treated in the Vocabulary of Mexicanisms by Joaquín García Icazbalceta, unfortunately unfinished. The structure of the argotic lexicon (patrimonial lexicon, loans, lexicogenetic processes and semantic changes) will be studied in detail and attention will be paid to sources used by the author to document the voices in question. The dictionary is taken here as a source that can be used for the study of the history of Mexican slang at the end of the 19th century, taking into consideration that a dictionary is primarily a lexicological corpus that, within the limits that naturally has, testifies the social reality of its times. The history of the speech of the underworld of Mexican society is one of the gaps in the literature on the diachrony of Mexican Spanish and the present paper seeks to help fill in this gap.

https://doi.org/10.17398/2660-7301.42.23