The documents collected for the <em>History of the spanish language</em> by Ramón Menéndez Pidal

Abstract

The documents collected for the History of the Spanish language by Ramón Menéndez Pidal make it possible to know directly his method of work as well as the ideas and the sources on which his great research projects were built. The materials studied here assure that Pidal began to plan the structure, contents and periodization of the History only once Orígenes del español was published in 1926. It was also probably at that time that Don Ramón profoundly reorganized the distribution of his linguistic materials to fit the structure of the History he planned to write, a task that probably culminated around 1930-1932. Careful examination of the documents makes it possible to reconstruct several successive periodizations and allows us to see the doubts posed by the inclusion and ordering of the lexical cards, which were extracted by María Goyri from the corresponding boxes and alphabetized within the so-called Vocabulary from 1939 onwards. The file cards were structured closely following the design of the History. They are divided into ages, subdivided in three epochs. Some of these are further divided into two or three periods and each shows the same dual scheme: a first part devoted to the relationship of language with society and a second one entitled evolution dealing with general linguistic changes.