LETRAS

Letras 108: legacy, resistance and vanguard

2026-06-15T12:12:24+00:00

The hidden glossaries in lexicographical perspective

2026-05-29T15:16:53+00:00

Aesthetics and power amid tensions and negotiations in James Rodríguez Calle’s analysis of the Literature of the Colombian Regeneration

2026-06-15T11:37:41+00:00

Vallejo Infante, H., Poloni, R. J., Pereira da Silveira, L., y Peterson Notis, J. (Orgs.). (2025). O Natal nos Une: edição Mariíta Ramírez, patrimônio vivo de Guayana - Coletânea interdisciplinar multilíngue de perspectivas plurais (Vol. 2). Casaletras, 146 págs.

2026-06-15T11:37:38+00:00

Winter, J. Wangari y los árboles de la paz. Una historia verdadera (2009). Caracas: Banco del Libro, Ediciones Ekaré, 36 págs.

2026-06-15T11:37:39+00:00

Hidden dictionaries: A brief theory

2026-06-15T11:37:56+00:00

This essay offers a theoretical reflection on hidden dictionaries, defined as implicit lexical repertoires present in literary, historical, or scientific works that have not been formally compiled as dictionaries. These hidden dictionaries, considered small lexicographic domains, display unique descriptive practices and organizational structures, showing how lexicography encompasses more than just traditional dictionaries. We sustain that such domains provide crucial insights into the connections among language, thought, and reality, and aid in reconstructing the field’s history. For instance, the glossary in Mario Briceño Iragorry’s work illustrates how these records document vocabulary and reveal the cultural imaginaries embedded in texts. Finally, we suggest integrating these repertoires into the historiographical study of Hispanic lexicography.

The lexicographical work of Agustín Pascual Iturriaga: His hidden basque-spanish glossary in Fábulas y otras composiciones en verso vascongado (1842)

2026-06-15T11:37:54+00:00

This study aims to analyze the hidden glossary in Fábulas y otras composiciones en verso vascongado (1842) by the teacher and priest from Gipuzkoa, Agustín Pascual Iturriaga, taking into account its significance within 19th-century bilingual lexicography in Basque and Spanish. Following an explanation of the characteristics of this type of lexicon and the contextualization of the work within the history of Basque-Romance lexicography, the author’s biography and main ideas regarding languages and their teaching are briefly described, and the macrostructure and microstructure of the Basque-Spanish glossary are analyzed. The results show that, despite its limited scope and its inclusion in a literary work, the glossary employs lemmatization and entry presentation strategies similar to those of other contemporary repertoires and serves as further evidence of the interaction between the two languages in the Basque region. In short, this study reaffirms the relevance of minor glossaries as documentary sources for the history of linguistics and for Basque-Romance lexicography.

What would become of his linguistic output without ‘non-canonical’ sources? An analysis of three of Fletes Bolaños’s hidden glossaries

2026-06-15T11:37:52+00:00

This paper analyzes three of the hidden glossaries (“Nicaraguanismos,” “Diccionario de Nicaraguanismos,” and “Fraseología comparada de Chile y Nicaragua”) that are part of Anselmo Fletes Bolaños’ linguistic output and were published during the first three decades of the 20th century. After describing the author’s life and his relationship with folklore and nationalism, the concept of the hidden glossary is examined and applied to the three texts under study. The main objective is to highlight the value that these ‘non-canonical’ texts hold for the lexicographical and historiographical study of American Spanish, as they are the only texts available to us for understanding the Nicaraguan’s linguistic work.

A hidden contribution to the history of lexicography in Ecuador: The glossary of Juyungo (1943)

2026-06-15T11:37:35+00:00

Given the current lack of a history of Ecuadorian lexicography, this study aims to contribute to our understanding of this field by examining the hidden glossary accompanying the novel Juyungo (1943) by the Esmeraldas-based novelist Adalberto Ortiz. Thus, after contextualizing the work within the framework of the country’s literature, this study first describes the basic characteristics of the macrostructure and microstructure of the aforementioned lexical repertoire, and then analyzes the terms it compiles from a lexicological perspective, thereby demonstrating its significant importance for understanding the lexical history of Ecuadorian Spanish.

A brief vocabulary of the Peruvian Amazon: The glossary from Aserradero by Manuel Tamayo Vargas (1939)

2026-06-15T11:37:33+00:00

This article analyzes the glossary included at the end of Manuel Tamayo Vargas’s short story Aserradero (1939) as an early description of the vocabulary of Peruvian Amazonian Spanish from the San Ramón region (Chanchamayo). The study takes into account recent contributions to lexicography on literary glossaries in South America, as well as their application to the study of the history of the language and its contact with other linguistic varieties. The analysis of the entries provides evidence of the uniqueness of the regional lexicon and demonstrates that Amazonian Spanish has been influenced not by a single Quechua variety but by several. Some lexical forms are evident that are absent from the Amazonian vocabulary of the lowland jungle or differ from that of the northern Peruvian highland jungle, showing influence from Quechua I, along with some terms of uncertain origin and several derivatives from Castilian Spanish that have acquired specific meanings. The accounts of the French traveler Theodore Ber (1820–1900) confirm the vitality of part of that lexicon at the end of the 19th century.

The “Vocabulary” (volume XIII) of Impressions of a journey to America: A unique hidden glossary

2026-06-15T11:37:31+00:00

In Impressions of a Journey to America, José María Gutiérrez de Alba documented, across thirteen volumes, the material and cultural history of nineteenth-century Colombia. This article focuses on the hidden glossary that constitutes the final volume (XIII) of his work, titled Vocabulario explicativo, an unpublished text of special interest both for its innovative lexicographical conception and for the unique perspective of a foreign observer who offers an ethnographic reading of the customs and traditions of the Colombian nation. Through qualitative research with a descriptive approach, the lexicographical structure of the Vocabulario is characterized and analyzed at its three levels: hyperstructure, macrostructure, and microstructure. The study’s main finding reveals that this lexical repertoire, while not meeting all the prototypical characteristics of hidden glossaries, represents a significant contribution to the history of Colombian lexicography and constitutes an invaluable testimony to the country’s historical, linguistic, and cultural heritage in the 19th century. Furthermore, the analysis highlights the tension between description and normativity that runs through the work: while the author meticulously records words and expressions characteristic of Colombian Spanish, his peninsular perspective occasionally introduces evaluative judgments that oscillate between ethnographic curiosity and linguistic correctness, reflecting the linguistic debates characteristic of the era regarding the legitimacy of the American varieties of Spanish.

Hidden glossaries in paraguayan literature: The case of La Babosa

2026-06-15T11:37:29+00:00

Literature and lexicography intersect in literary glossaries. These are brief texts, usually discreetly embedded within works, which have contributed to their limited visibility. This work is carried out by the authors or editors themselves, with the aim of providing semantic clarifications on specific lexical units. This article focuses on the analysis of La Babosa, a work written by Gabriel Casaccia (1907–1980), a seminal novel of modern Paraguayan fiction. Published in the second half of the 20th century, the work includes 91 footnotes, in the form of glosses, on the same page where the defined term appears. Using a qualitative, descriptive methodology with a metalexicographic approach, the aim is to identify the function of the glosses, the types of words selected, their semantic fields, the definitions provided, and the strategies employed. Among the main findings, it is noteworthy that most of the glosses correspond to equivalents and translations of Guaraní expressions, although Paraguayanisms, phonetic vulgarisms, indigenous terms, and even proper names are also recorded. The resulting glossary is characterized by its hybrid nature: bilingual (Guaraní-Spanish) and monolingual. The definitions are presented in the form of full or partial equivalents, metalinguistic explanations, and paraphrases. It is concluded that this is an author-compiled glossary with dialectal features, whose primary function is informative, highlighting the situation of linguistic contact in the country.

Lexicography in El Salvador: Hidden Glossaries in Salvadoran Literature

2026-06-15T11:37:50+00:00

This article examines glossaries found in works of Salvadoran literature. The main objectives were: 1. to identify as many glossaries as possible included in Salvadoran literary works, preferably in their first edition. 2. To describe the main typological and lexical characteristics of the identified glossaries. The documentary method was used for data collection; data analysis was descriptive. This combination allowed for the compilation, organization, and characterization of the glossaries. The results present a compilation of eighteen literary works with incorporated glossaries. They also describe two key aspects for the study of glossaries: their typological classification and lexical characteristics. This article seeks to contribute to lexicographical studies in El Salvador, to recover part of the regional and distinctive lexicon of Salvadoran speech, especially what has fallen into disuse, and to highlight the literary work of Salvadoran writers.

Literary or hidden glossaries in colombian narratives of violence: A macro- and microstructural analysis

2026-06-15T11:37:47+00:00

This article analyzes, from a metalexicographical perspective, the literary glossaries or hidden glossaries found in six Colombian novels about violence published in the second half of the 20th century: Esteban Gamborena by Arturo Echeverri Mejía ([1951], 1996); El Día del Odio by J. A. Osorio Lizarazo (1952), Los Cuervos Tienen Hambre by Carlos Esguerra (1954), Un Campesino Sin Regreso by Euclides Jaramillo Arango (1959), Zarpazo by Evelio Buitrago Salazar (1967), and Diario de un Guerrillero by Arturo Alape ([1968], 1973), focusing on their macrostructure and microstructure. The glossaries found at the end of the works or in footnotes are analyzed in order to identify the criteria for lexical selection, the types of lexicographic information, and the discursive functions they fulfill within the narrative. The results show that the definitions are, for the most part, brief and functional, and that the lexicon recorded consists mainly of regionalisms, ruralisms, colloquialisms, vulgarisms, and indigenisms. These glossaries are of great importance for Colombian dialectology and lexicography, as they document linguistic usages associated with contexts of violence, marginalization, and sociopolitical conflict.

Idioms in Eduardo Liendo’s novel Si Yo Fuera Pedro Infante: Creation of a glossary of verbal phrases based on a phraseological study

2026-06-15T11:37:45+00:00

The article titled Idioms in Eduardo Liendo’s Novel “Si Yo Fuera Pedro Infante”: Creation of a Glossary of Verbal Locutions seeks to advance Venezuelan lexicography and dialectal studies by compiling a repertoire of verbal locutions (VL) documented within the selected literary corpus. This study identifies and analyzes 95 phraseological units using a multi-theoretical framework: the phraseological approach of Corpas Pastor (1996), the lexical-semantic field theories of Coseriu (1977) and Otaola Olano (2004), and the cognitive metaphor theories of Lakoff and Johnson (1980) and Cuenca and Hilferty (1999). Through this analysis, the units are categorized into ten syntactic patterns, 36 lexical-semantic fields, and seven rhetorical devices. These classifications, following the microstructural guidelines proposed by Pérez (2005), facilitated the systematic creation of a specialized glossary. Ultimately, the research demonstrates that literary works serve as fertile linguistic corpora for capturing the authentic voices and expressions of a specific speech community—in this case, Venezuela—validating the perspectives of scholars such as Ciro (2021) and Pérez (2007).

“Have you ever randomly flipped through a dictionary?” The hidden glossary in Teresa de la Parra’s Las memorias de Mamá Blanca (1929)

2026-06-15T11:37:42+00:00

This article analyzes the hidden glossary (Haensch, 1982; Ahumada Lara, 2000) in the novel Las Memorias de Mamá Blanca (1929) by Venezuelan writer Teresa de la Parra and sets forth four objectives: (1) to describe, from a metalexicographical perspective, the “List of the main Venezuelanisms and Americanisms found in Las Memorias de Mamá Blanca”; (2) to identify the features of the glossary’s macrostructure; (3) to describe the internal structure of the lexicographic entries; and (4) to clarify Teresa de la Parra’s metalexicographic ideas. Theoretically, it draws on Haensch (1982), Ahumada Lara (2000), and Pérez (1997a, 1997b, 1997c, 1997d, 2005, 2007). Methodologically, it is qualitative and documentary in nature (Sandín, 2003). As a method for collecting and processing information, it employs metalexicography (Haensch, 1982; Hernández, 1989; Pérez, 1997a) in the two phases of lexicographical criticism: (a) identification of materials; (b) criteria and stages for analysis. The results show that the author of the glossary set out to collect units that form part of the broad lexical profile of Venezuelan Spanish, especially those associated with sugarcane processing, and used a wide variety of explanations to describe them, including approximate semantics, positive inclusive substantives, and participial substantives.