Linguistic interference in Libros de los expósitos of the Royal Hospice of Oviedo (Uviéu): a sample from the 18th and 19th centuries

Abstract

The Oviedo (Uviéu) Hospice, founded in 1752 to provide refuge for children who were abandoned in Asturian territory, produced a large volume of documentation throughout its 200 years of activity. Among this, the Libros de los Expósitos (‘Foundling Records’), in which the Charity recorded the most important data concerning the life of each foundling, take pride of place. These registers are of considerable linguistic interest, because, in spite of being written in Castilian, they show considerable interference from Asturian. The aim of this paper is to analyse the various different kinds of interference from the traditional language of Asturias, characterized by diglossic contact with the more prestigious language (Castilian) at the phonetic, morphosyntactic and lexical levels. This reveals traits such as palatalization of [l-], expression of the semantic notion of continuity in nouns through «neuter» concordances and the widespread use of simple verb forms as opposed to compound verb forms.