A Brief Guide to Reading Older Spanish Texts

A Brief Guide to Reading Older Spanish Texts

Reading medieval and Golden Age Spanish is not at all difficult if you keep a few simple rules in mind.

The first key to reading and understanding older texts used to read them outloud. Most of the time when you read them outloud, following the rules of modern Spanish pronunciation, you will understand these texts without much difficulty.

The second key is to learn to make mentally, as you read, a few simple spelling changes that will, in most cases transform a seemingly unfamiliar word into a word you use every day. See the section under "Correspondencias y Ortografía" below.

There will always be a few words that remain unfamiliar, or words and that are quite familiar but seem to have a different meaning in the older texts. Again, there are relatively few of these in Spanish, but for these cases a glossary will usually clarify things.

In terms of syntax, Old Spanish sentence structure tends to be simpler than that of modern Spanish. The main difficulty is that many sentences may be joined together by the conjunction "Et" or "e".

The only thing that may he throw you for a while at first is that forms such as "escuchara" which use the -ara endings of the verb, which are imperfect subjunctive in modern Spanish, are pluperfect _indicative_ in Old Spanish. So that the verb "escuchara" which appears in the texts by Alfonso El Sabio means "had heard, had listened to".

Also note that there is a second form of the imperfect (and, thus, the condicional) in -ie- (instead of ía). So "dixiemos" means "decíamos" and "podrien" = "podrían". "morrie" = "moriría"

In this selection, there are also a few irregular forms of the future tense which may be difficult to recognize. These are covered in the glossary.
Also note that the "final -e" is sometimes lost in forms like "fiz" = "hice" or "diz"= "dice"

We began with the story of Adam and Eve because it is a story which should be familiar to most students already. Let what you know about this familiar creation story to help you in reading this text.

Enjoy!

You may also:

hear how Old Spanish may have sounded
examine Old Spanish epic versification
consult a more extensive glossary of Old Spanish words found in the works of the 13th-century poet Gonzalo de Berceo.

Correspondencias y Ortografía (antiguo = moderno):

"cl-" = ll-


"-at" = -ad


-it, "-at" = -id, -ad


"-np-"  = -mp-


"f-" puede representar h-  (en todo caso, como en el español moderno, la "h" es muda)

A veces hay que poner una hache al principio de una palabra para reconocer la forma moderna: "ora" = "hora"


"l"    puede representar   l o ll


"r"    puede representar   r o rr


"yll"  puede representar   l o ll


"b"    puede representar   v


"v"    puede representar   b


"g"    puede representar   j (jota)


y    puede representar    i 


"ç"             =         z


"z"   puede representar   c


nn, "yn"         =        ñ


"x", yx          =         j (jota)


"ss"   puede representar   s


"e"   puede representar   ie


ie   puede representar   i


"o"   puede representar   u


"quan-" = cuan-

Ojo!

buscar me an = me buscarán


"dizir me ias" = "me dizirías" = me dirías



Glosario



a fiyuza que = con confianza en que

acahescen = acaescen

adelantado = jefe

aducir = llevar

agora = ahora

al = otro, otra cosa

amuchiguar = multiplicar

assaz = suficiente, suficientemente

auer = tener

auernan = futuro de "avenir"

Ca = porque

castigo = lección, instrucción

	"catar" = mirar

cobdiciar = desear

crouiera = había creído

cuemo = como

de cabo a = hacia

departir = explicar (también: departiolo = lo dividió)

desi = ahora, en aquel momento, desde aquel momento

desque = después que

encabo = al final

enchiessen = from "henchir"

ende = de allí, de ello

Enpos = después de

essora = en aquella hora

fincar = quedar(se)

-gela = se la

gestas = poemas épicos

guisa = manera

hora de tercia = 9 AM

hora de sexta = mediodía

hora dela nona = 3 PM

lazerio, lazrar = sufrimiento, sufrir

maguer, maguer que = aunque, a pesar de que

mas = pero

mesquindat = miseria

meter = poner

nin = ni

o = donde

omne = hombre

onde = donde, de donde

otrossi = también

oue, ouieron = hube, hubieron [= tuve, tuvieron]

por ende = por esto

pora = para

postremero = último

sennalado = famoso, excepcional

si non = excepto

si quier = aunque

so = bajo

solaz = placer

soterrado = enterrado

suso = abajo

tener = can mean "creer, opinar"

uicio, uicioso = placer, placentero

uisquiessen = viviesen

y = allí

yuso = arriba