The Role of Richard Hakluyt’s The Principall Nauigations (1589) in the Introduction and Dissemination of Spanish Loanwords in the English Language

Abstract

Richard Hakluyt’s Principall Nauigations (1589) was a landmark in the history of English travel literature which compiled and glorified the naval deeds and expeditions undertaken by the English throughout the world. This article focuses on the third volume of Hakluyt’s compilation devoted to America which gathers first-hand accounts describing the way of life and the natural environment of the new territories conquered and populated by the Spaniards. The incorporation in these texts of almost 100 borrowings from Spanish to designate elements related to sea voyages and experiences in the Spanish colonies has raised the following research questions: What kind of terms were most likely to be introduced? And, given that these Spanish terms were unfamiliar to English readers, did the authors resort to any kind of strategy to explain the meaning of the new words? This article will address these questions by setting the following objectives. (i) to compile an inventory of the Spanish terms that have been incorporated into the English texts; (ii) to classify these terms according to the lexical fields they refer to; (iii) to analyse how the meaning of these new words is explained to English readers.

Introduction

The discovery of America led to the rise of travel literature in Europe, as these types of narratives not only left a record of the main powers’ overseas expeditions, but responded to the interest of readers eager to know what the world beyond its borders was like. England would embark on this undertaking during the reign of Elizabeth I, laying the foundations of the future British Empire in the face of growing religious, political and commercial rivalry with Spain under Philip II.

Thus, English readers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries saw all kinds of texts on explorations flourish, whether written in their own language or through translations of important texts like the Historia de la conquista de Mexico (1552) by Francisco López de Gómara, translated in 1578 by Thomas Nichols as The Pleasant Historie of the Conquest of the Weast India; and the Décadas del Nuevo Mundo (1516–1530) by Peter Martyr d’Anghiera, translated in part by Richard Eden in 1555 (Bouza, 2007: 57, 70). During this period, travel literature re-emerged in England “as a conscious literary genre”¹ (Cabello Pizarro & Stewart Stokes, 1999: 184), although, at first, translations of texts by foreign explorers far surpassed the narratives of their compatriots (Arbelo-Galván and Rodríguez-Álvarez, 2002–2003: 44).

These documents were particularly useful for those interested in new travel routes and in the commercial potential of the raw materials available in exotic lands, to the point that the merchant companies themselves went so far as to commission translations in order to draw on the knowledge of foreign navigators (Arbelo-Galván and Rodríguez-Álvarez, 2002–2003: 44), while also taking part in the financing of expeditions. Translations were, in fact, crucial to England’s process of expansion (Valdeón, 2019: 202) because, through them, the immensity of the world “and the dream of mastery over it” was placed before readers (Sherman, 2004: 207).

The link between travel and commerce was particularly reinforced by the commercial potential offered by the New World, in such a way that the literature on the Americas in the English publishing market fulfilled a dual purpose: firstly, it satisfied the public’s curiosity about unknown and exotic realities; and, secondly, it promoted new exploration and colonization campaigns in order to emulate the success of the Spaniards and better position England on the European scene. Along these lines, Walter Raleigh’s The Discoverie of the Large, Rich, and Bewtiful Empyre of Guiana (1596) is a good example of how, in addition to describing his travels in American lands, the author includes “material that would spur his compatriots to venture into the exploration and colonization of new territories” (Arbelo-Galván and Rodríguez-Álvarez, 2002–2003: 46).

The English transatlantic expeditions provided material and arguments to document their own voyages. Following in the footsteps of their foreign counterparts, English navigators “[were] instructed to keep careful records of their movements, to direct the travelers who would follow in their footsteps and fill in the gaps of geographical knowledge” (Sherman, 2002: 17). According to Cole (1972: 63), during this period “[t]he most extensive collection and editing of travel books was done in England,“ an activity in which Richard Hakluyt was the major figure.

Richard Hakluyt (c. 1552–1616) was a clergyman and geographer, already recognized in his time, who advised and collaborated with sailors and merchant companies (Parks, 1961; Mancall, 2007; Payne, 2012). It was his editorial work in the field of travel literature, however, for which he went down in history; for his reviewing, translating and financing of translations; and for his promotion of publications on expeditions. Especially notable were the travel compilations he produced (Parks, 1961: 186; Rogers, 1974: 37). So important was he that in 1846 the Hakluyt Society was founded in his honour, honouring his legacy by focusing on “the publication of scholarly editions of primary records of voyages and travels” (The Hakluyt Society).

A passionate defender of his homeland, Hakluyt supported territorial expansion beyond its borders. Precisely for the purpose of promoting the exploration and colonization of Virginia, he wrote The Discourse of Western Planting, a text he submitted to the Queen in 1584 (Parks, 1961: 87). Hakluyt soon detected two problems that were hampering England’s conquest of overseas territories: “the first was caused by the ignorance of our seamen as regards the scientific branch of their profession. The second was the absence of records, and the way in which important voyages and travels were allowed to fall into oblivion” (Markham, 1896: 6). To remedy this, he himself would give lessons on the use of navigation tools, while proposing the compilation of all the accounts and testimonies about his nation’s travels and discoveries (Markham, 1896: 6–9).

To achieve this last goal, Hakluyt turned to the original sources (or, failing this, the oldest ones available), recording the journeys of his countrymen over the course of history, at the same time conducting interviews with contemporary sailors, becoming one of the pioneers when it came to publishing accounts of the journeys completed to date by the English. He was also very much involved in the translation of travel books into English, taking this type of literature to the general public and helping to make it one of the most popular genres of the time (Sherman, 2004: 205). On his modus operandi, Parks (1961: 113) notes:

Did a significant new work appear abroad, he had it. He brought it to the attention of those whom it might concern, like Raleigh, and translated it or had it translated with a view to final printing. Occasionally the translation, or notes from it, went from the recipient to the archives, were it stayed. Usually it was published, sometimes separately, sometimes with the other documents which Hakluyt was soon to collect for printing in the Voyages. In such fashion Hakluyt made himself a mouthpiece of knowledge, to be held first to the official then to public, ear.

In terms of travel, Hakluyt’s opinion was, therefore, highly respected, even though he has often been described as an armchair traveller. Regarding this allegation, although he made several attempts to embark for the New World (Borge, 2003: 3–4), the furthest he ever got from his native country was France, where he spent five years with Ambassador Sir Edward Stafford. This experience abroad would reinforce his view that England did not enjoy the international respect other traveling powers did (MacCrossan, 2009: 101), while also proving very fruitful for future publications. According to Parks (1961: 87), “Hakluyt’s mission to France kept him as close to colonial Enterprise as if he had gone to America instead,“ since in this country he had access to new documents from Spanish, French and Portuguese travellers.

Thus, a mastery of foreign languages in order to access the information contained in the work from other countries was a requirement that Hakluyt met and where he excelled, achieving success on the professional path that he had chosen:

[…] he [Hakluyt] was to follow his cousin’s model by attending to applied geography. Applied geography, meaning mainly economic geography, was still to be studied empirically; and the most useful key to the study was linguistic. Hence Hakluyt learned, as his story naïvely recites, all the essential European tongues, for in the narratives and reports of explorers lay buried the facts he was to assemble. (Parks, 1961: 62)

It is hardly surprising, then, that, as Rogers explained (1974: 37) “he was superbly equipped because of his ability to read both printed and manuscript works in Greek, Latin, Spanish, ‘Portugall’, and French,“ even introducing some of his own translations into his compilations. This author argues that, although Hakluyt did not travel to the places described in his works, “he was thoroughly acquainted with the vocabulary of those who did” (1974: 44). Following this idea, Osselton (1974: 25–26) emphasizes the use of foreign words and Hakluyt’s ability to recognize “the possibilities for renewal and extension of the vocabulary of his time,“ as we can find “passages where Hakluyt’s use of learned words antedates the first recorded instance in the O.E.D.,“ a statement corroborated by the results of our study.

The materials collected by Hakluyt would be published mainly in his most relevant works: Diuers Voyages touching the Discouerie of America (1582), The Principall Nauigations, Voiages and Discoueries of the English Nation (1589) and The Principal Nauigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoueries of the English Nation (1599–1600). While the publication of Diuers Voyages would mark the end of his training as an apprentice (Parks, 1961: 68), The Principall Nauigations launched him to fame, as this work would achieve great renown, constituting a key work of travel literature today. Moreover, the information contained in this compilation represents a contribution beyond this genre, as it is of interest to people with different profiles:

For historians, these documents would illuminate, and still do, a significant turning point in the history of England. For geographers, they would document the new English experience of the world. For the man on the street, uninterested in Russian trade routes and the export of woollen goods, they would constitute an entertaining account of adventurers and their adventures. For all three, the Voyages would be a monument to national glory. (Parks, 1961: 129–130)

To the words of this author, we could add that, as in our case, The Principall Nauigations is, for linguists, a very valuable object of study as evidence of the lexical contributions of other languages to English during the dawn of the British Empire. Therefore, we are dealing here with a fundamental work to investigate the processes of lexical borrowing in a period in the history of English known for the enormous lexical expansion of the language: the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries.

The abundance of foreign terms in Hakluyt’s publications is the starting point of this study, it being impossible to ignore the interest aroused both by the introduction of words from other languages and the way their meaning is explained to readers:

He [Hakluyt] was particularly fond on retaining an original technical term and supplying a rough equivalent at first occurrence (‘mays’ – ‘maiz, or corne’, or again ‘ho alcayde mor’ – ‘the chiefe alcalde or justice’). And, like all translators, he retained the original when he could think of no equivalent term: ‘cacique’. It is just such a foreign word which the O.E.D., with copious references, admits into the English language as English. (Rogers, 1974: 46)

In particular, our study focuses on the incorporation of Hispanicisms into the texts on the Americas included in The Principall Nauigations (1589, TPN hereinafter), understanding a Hispanicism as a term or locution proceeding from Continental Spanish, that is, the Spanish (or Spanish varieties) used in the Spanish mainland. This includes all the words that conform the lexical repertoire used by a sixteenth-century Spanish speaker, no matter their ultimate etymological origin. Thus words such as alcalde or arroba (Spanish loanwords of Arabic origin), bacalao (a Spanish loanword of Basque origin), barrica (a Spanish loanword of Gasconian origin) or fragata (a Spanish loanword of Italian origin), are considered Spanish words, as they are part of the sixteenth-century Spanish lexicon transferred to America by Spanish navigators and used by Spanish chroniclers. All these words and locutions will be indifferently referred to as Hispanicisms, Spanish words or Spanish terms throughout this study. Consequently, those Amerindian words and phrases that penetrated the English language through Spanish once the Spaniards discovered the American territories have not been considered in this study. It is also important to clarify that the use of place names was not taken into consideration either.

As indicated by Serjeantson (1961: 195), Algeo (1996: 19) and Durkin (2014: 365), the introduction of Spanish loanwords surged as of 1550 as a result of the influential Spanish Golden Age, as well as “the wider European impact of Spanish discoveries and conquests in the New World” (Durkin, 2014: 365), a statement confirmed by data provided by Muñoz-Basols and Salazar (2016: 85). Indeed, Serjeantson notes that many of these loanwords “appear for the first time in the tales of voyagers collected and published by Hakluyt” (1961: 196). However, until now there had been no study of the impact of Hakluyt’s compilation on the introduction and dissemination of Hispanicisms in the English language. This study, thus, aims to address the use of Hispanicisms in the narratives collected by Hakluyt, adopting the following objectives:

• 1. To identify and inventory the Spanish terms present in the corpus.

• 2. To classify the vocabulary of the inventory based on the lexical fields to which they belong.

• 3. To analyse how these Hispanicisms were integrated into the texts of the corpus and how their meaning was explained to English readers.

Corpus and Methodology

The Principall Nauigations (1589)

The corpus of texts analysed in this work is found in the first edition of TPN, published in 1589 in London. This book, which would become Richard Hakluyt’s magnum opus, is, in essence, a compilation of all the writings produced by English travellers up to that time. To create it the author not only turned to the accounts of the navigators, but also included all those documents that were necessary for the preparation of the crossings, such as maps, letters, instructions from the admiralty, patents and commissions from ambassadors, etc. (Parks, 1961: 126; Borge, 2003: 6). Hakluyt asserted the importance of using the primary sources of writings (Cabello Pizarro & Stewart Stokes, 1999: 185) and was recognized for faithfully replicating the texts he published (MacCrossan, 2009: 105), despite some criticisms that questioned his objectivity due to his work’s ideological bias (Borge, 2003: 7; Rodríguez Cachón & Valverde, 2019: 908; Schleck, 2012: 129).

Consequently, we have first-hand narratives that describe, vividly and in detail, the geography, nature and people English navigators encountered on their travels, which is an advantage when analysing the writers’ vocabulary. These accounts are more realistic and convincing because they feature and are enhanced by the use of words from the languages of local inhabitants. At this point, it is important to emphasize the difference between these writers, who were mainly merchants, pirates or sailors that landed in these territories fortuitously (López de Mariscal, 2003: 3), and Hakluyt, whose role was not to write, but to collect, edit and publish (Fuller, 2008: 4). Hence, many of the reports on the expeditions were commissioned by Hakluyt himself, and even recorded by him, via dictation, by those who had been on the voyages (Parks, 1961: 127).

As for its origins, TPN was inspired by Navigationi et Viaggi, the well-known work by the Venetian geographer Giovanni Battista Ramusio (Borge, 2003: 5). Though both authors shared the intention of sharing with the world the experiences of those who had undertaken expeditions to foreign lands, Hakluyt pursued nationalist and imperialist objectives as well (Small, 2012: 45). This approach was an innovation with respect to previous travel literature (MacCrossan, 2009: 101). Thus, TPN sought, firstly, to spotlight the presence of the English beyond their borders throughout history; and, secondly, to promote new expeditions and the colonization of overseas territories in order to establish England as a worthy rival of the main European naval powers (Borge, 2003: 5; Hadfield, 2007: 130).

It is no coincidence, then, that this work was published a year after the defeat of what we know today as the Invincible Armada (Parks, 1961: 131), as Spain represented the main threat during the era. Its pages not only appeal to their readers’ nationalist sentiments, but at times they also serve as anti-Spanish propaganda (Rodríguez García, 1998: 194; Rodríguez Cachón & Valverde, 2019: 908), serving to paint a picture of the main colonizers of the new continent, as well as those whom they colonized, that would impact how the natives were treated by future English colonists (Cave, 1985: 4).

As for its structure, this large compilation, containing some 700,000 words (Borge, 2003: 5), is divided into three volumes, each dedicated to a different geographical area of the world. Our corpus of study corresponds to the third: the one on the New World. The classification of texts established by Quinn (1974: 366–377) is also adopted, which indicates that this volume contains 33 travel stories and 44 texts of different kinds, such as letters, patents, itineraries, etc.

Since one of the aims of this study is to analyse the early reception of Hispanicisms through the first travel books on the Americas originally written in English, it focuses on the first edition of TPN. However, it is important to note that, between 1598 and 1600, volumes of a much more extensive second edition, The Principal Nauigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoueries of the English Nation, were published, in which translations of foreign texts stand out. The inclusion of these new writings was due to the fact that Hakluyt never stopped collecting travel texts. Such was his commitment that he continued to collect materials for a never-completed third edition (Parks, 1961: 214–215) right up until his death. Hakluyt’s efforts would not be fruitless, however, as those texts would be retrieved and published posthumously by the Reverend Samuel Purchas in his Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchas his Pilgrimes (1625), a revised and enlarged edition of the first version published in 1613, Purchas his Pilgrimage, which incorporated material facilitated by different English explorers who appreciated the magnitude of Purchas’s work. Although initially designed as a comparative history of religions (Taylor, 1930: 536), Purchas, a Protestant Divine, added geographical and historical information drawn from a vast array of classical and contemporary authorities. The clearer organisation of the work, unlike Hakluyt’s messy collection (Pennington, 1966: 9), facilitated its reading from cover to cover. The first edition of Purchas’s work gained him immediate popularity and, above all, the favour of explorers and merchants who provided him with new material for subsequent editions. Among them was Hakluyt who, impressed by his Pilgrimage, gave him access to his archives (Taylor, 1930: 538). Purchas even mentions in the introduction to his Pilgrimes that Hakluyt promised him the legacy of his collection, but “Purchas ended up having to purchase Hakluyt’s literary remains” after some legal difficulties (Helfers, 1997: 164). Purchas’s enthusiastic praise for Hakluyt is publicly declared and, as Parks (1961: 223) states, “[t]his book is Hakluyt’s literary legacy. […] it continued Hakluyt’s career in the catch title of Hakluytus Posthumus”.

Methodology

This work’s methodology is based on its stated objectives, which we revisit below:

• a) To identify, collect and inventory the Spanish terms present in the corpus.

For different reasons, the identification of Spanish words and phrases in these texts was not always an easy task.

Sometimes we find spellings that hamper easy identification of the word, probably because the authors, whose trades were related to commerce, navigation and exploration, were more familiar with spoken than written Spanish. Thus, for example, the word botijo is recorded as buttizio (1589: Mmm. 6.r), buttisio (1589: 794) or botisios (1589: 810), the word estancia is recorded as stantias (1589: 570), fanega as hannege (1589: 588, 593), and mosquito as musketa (1589: 568).

In other cases, the difficulty stems from the fact that Spanish words appear with spellings more typical of other Romance languages, such as French, Italian, or even Portuguese, languages with which the English were more familiar. Thus, although it is evident that the authors intended to write the Spanish term señor, the difficulty of reproducing the letter <ñ>, non-existent in the English alphabet, leads them to adopt the Italian-inspired spellings signior (1589: 524) or segnior (1589: Mmm. 7. V). Its replacement by sennor in the second edition of TPN, and the fact that it is followed by Spanish surnames or first names, leaves little doubt as to the intention to record the Spanish word. Similarly, the nominal Spanish phrase piloto mayor, which they use to refer to the position granted to Sebastian Cabot in Spain, appears in the Italian form piloto maggiore (1589: 512), a spelling that is corrected in the second edition of TPN, which uses Piloto Mayor in the same passage. Something similar happens when the Spanish currency real is mentioned (usually with the locution real de plata), although it takes Frenchified forms like roiall (1589: 551), roials (1589: 588) and royals (1589: Mmm. 7. v). The expression manteca de puerco is reproduced with a spelling that resembles the Portuguese: montego de porco (1589: 810).

In this phase of the work the information collected in the online version of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED, hereinafter) was fundamental to (i) identify the Spanish words, as it contains a wide variety of spellings of Spanish words in English texts; (ii) confirm Spanish as the donor language (or one of the possible donor languages); and (iii) establish the date of the term’s first recording in a published English work. It is important to clarify that the OED, in some cases, indicates Spanish as the only donor language, and in others cites it as one of the possible ones. For the purposes of our work we have considered Hispanicisms all the words that have Spanish as their donor language, or their possible one.

• b) To classify the vocabulary of the inventory according to the lexical fields to which they belong.

Once the Hispanicisms used in the texts of the corpus were identified, we proceeded to classify them according to their lexical fields. In this, we followed the taxonomical classification established by the Historical Thesaurus in the OED, which is based on three major lexical fields: “the external world”, “the mind” and “society.” Each entry in the Historical Thesaurus offers a series of interconnected lexical fields, beginning with a general category that is divided into specific subcategories. The level of specificity is sometimes so great that offering a classification of an extensive corpus of words reaching those levels of detail was impractical and unworkable. Therefore, when carrying out the classification, we chose to ignore the three large lexical areas constituting the first level of classification, and to use only three categories. Level 2 is the starting point in order to avoid the ambiguity that might result from the generality of the first category, and is complemented by the third and fourth subcategory. For example, the term anchoa is classified into two categories: within the category “animals” it is in the subcategory “fish,“ and within the “food and drink” category it is in the “animals for food” subcategory.

Based on this classification, the terms in the corpus² have been organized into the following general lexical fields (Table 1), indicating the subcategories:

Table 1 Lexical categories of the corpus according to the classification in the Historical Thesaurus

This classification allowed us to ascertain which lexical fields are the most frequent.

• c) To analyse how these Hispanicisms are integrated into the texts of the corpus and how their meaning is explained to English readers.

In order to assess the level of integration of these words and locutions into the English texts of the corpus, and, by extension, into the English language, the excerpts where they are found were extracted from the corpus and the treatment given to these terms transferred through Spanish by the different authors was analysed. Examining the way in which these Spanish terms are integrated into English texts (either in isolation, or accompanied by explanatory glosses, translations, etc.) may be indicative of a widespread use of these terms by readers; or, on the contrary, of a presumption of unfamiliarity on the part of authors, who considered it necessary to make use of different mechanisms to explain the meaning of these terms. This type of analysis permitted us to identify common patterns in the different passages, allowing us to clarify the strategies used by the authors to transmit the meaning of the Hispanicisms to readers who did know Spanish.

Analysis of Hispanicisms in TPN (1589)

The identification and counting of the Hispanicisms appearing in the different texts of the corpus under study yielded a total of 90 terms that entered English through Spanish. Taking the OED as a reference, we should note that, of the 90 words analysed, 65 are considered to have passed through Spanish, while the remaining 25 words have Spanish as one of the possible donor languages, such that we can distinguish the following groups of words, in alphabetical order:

• a) Terms /phrases that entered English through Spanish³: alcalde, anchoa, arroba, atabal, aviso, bacalao, balsa, barrica, bonito, botijo, cabrita, calabaza, calentura, canario (bird), canario (wine), cantera, cañafístula, capítulo, carga, cargazón, castellano, cochinilla, corcho, cordobán, don, empalizada/palizada, encamisada, encomendero, estancia, fanega, fragata, garbanzo, índigo, ingenio, lagarto, manteca de puerco, marqués, mexicano (noun), mexicano (adjective), ministrador, mosquito, obraje, palmito, patata⁴, peso, piloto mayor, piña, plátano, presidente, quinto, ranchería, real, rosca, salina, sambenito, sasafrás, sayal, señor, tabaco, tomín, tronada, vara, venta, vizcaíno, zarzaparrilla.

• b) Words / phrases that have Spanish as one of the possible donor languages: alcatraz, añil, armada, auto de fe, brasil, bravata, capelán/capelín, china, coco, corpo santo, fiscal, flamenco, galeón, higo, manilla, melaza, mestizo, negro, padre, pargo, pico, pintado, proveedor, serón, volcán.

We will examine these loanwords jointly in the following analysis, which seeks to answer the following questions: (i) How often are these Spanish loanwords used in the corpus?; (ii) into which lexical areas do these Hispanicisms fall?; and (iii) taking into account the work’s publication date, and the dates when these terms were recorded in the OED, what role did the authors of the corpus play as agents of the dissemination and introduction of Spanish terms in English at the end of the sixteenth century?

Frequency of Use and Dissemination of Hispanicisms in the Texts of the Corpus

Verification of the frequency of use of the different Hispanicisms may shed light on their relevance and possible roots in the English language. A word that is used once in the whole corpus, and whose presence is, therefore, almost anecdotal, will not have the same importance as a word that appears often, which may indicate that the element designated acquired some relevance, or aroused interest in English authors. Likewise, the same importance cannot be assigned to a word that appears in just a single text (regardless of how many times) as a word found in several texts by different authors.

Hence, when measuring the frequency with which the terms appear, a distinction was made: first, the count is global, accounting for the Hispanicisms that appear most often in the corpus; and, second, the calculation was done taking into account the number of different works in which each term appears. The latter information will allow us to confirm which terms were used by a greater number of authors, which we consider more useful to determine the dissemination of a term among authors aware of the reality in the Americas and, therefore, the possibility of their rooting in the English language.

In order to define which Hispanicisms appear most frequently in the texts of the corpus, a minimum number of 10 occurrences was established. Applying this criterion, the words most repeated in the corpus are the following: negro (123 times), don (29), galeón (25), peso (22), real (18), cochinilla (16), bonito (11), palmito (11), capítulo (10) and tronada (10).

Except for don and capítulo, the rest of these terms are related to the maritime context and commercial intent that characterize the work. Therefore, it is not surprising that the word negro dominates the list in a context in which the trafficking of African slaves would provide the main labour force to the new colonies founded on the other side of the Atlantic. Likewise, elements from the flora and the fauna, like palmito and bonito, were relevant, for being a means of subsistence for travellers, and for their exoticism and potential to become marketable raw materials, as was the case with cochinilla. Along the same lines, the currency terms real and peso highlight the economic purposes of these expeditions, while the word galeón refers to an important means of transport at the time, of both goods and people. Tronada, meanwhile, denotes a meteorological phenomenon to which these sailors were routinely exposed. Finally, the frequent use of don gives us an idea of the multicultural environment to which English travellers who visited the Spanish colonies were exposed. The case of the word capítulo is noteworthy, as it appears in a single text as a heading of the different parts that comprise it, perhaps seeking to imitate the organization of some other Spanish work.

As for the words that appear the most across the different texts, the following are those terms that are recorded in at least five of the texts in the corpus. According to this criterion, the words found most frequently throughout the texts are: negro (16 texts), don (10), cochinilla (8), patata (6), real (6), peso (5), tabaco (5) and vizcaíno (5).

Although the results are similar to those of the previous classification, some exceptions should be noted. This time galeón, bonito, palmito, capítulo and tronada do not appear, but new trade goods do, like patata and tabaco. In addition, the presence of vizcaíno again evidences the multicultural and naval context in which the writings were created, since the Basques of that time were recognized both for their seamanship and their vessels (Caro Baroja, 1971: 195; Serna Vallejo, 2010).

In short, both the terms appearing most frequently in the corpus, and those found in a greater number of the different works comprising the corpus, reveal an interest in the Americas’ new natural elements, new relationships with the Spaniards, and the new goods that could profit English trading companies. In the following section we will give a more detailed account of the lexical areas to which the Hispanicisms identified in the corpus correspond.

Classification by Lexical Field

The classification of Hispanicisms by lexical areas also provides information on those objects, products, institutions and other elements of the new Spanish reality in the Americas that were designated by English navigators using Spanish terms. Thus, in this section we present those lexical areas grouping the Hispanicisms in the corpus, taking as a reference the classification established by the OED’s Historical Thesaurus, as indicated in Sect. 2.2. The grouping is presented in Table 2⁵.

Table 2 Classification of the terms in the corpus by lexical field

The data extracted from this classification show that the greatest number of Hispanicisms are found in the fields “animals,” “food and drink,” “plants,” “people,” and “travel”. If we look at the subcategories included in these fields, the most common are the following:

• “Animals”: 5 terms in the “fish” subcategory” (anchoa, bacalao, bonito, capelán, pargo).

• “Food and drink”: 3 terms in the “fruits and vegetables” subcategory (calabaza, higo, patata).

• “Plants”: 10 terms in the “cultivated or valued plants” subcategory (brasil, cañafístula, china, coco, garbanzo, piña, plátano, sasafrás, tabaco, zarzaparrilla).

• “People”: 2 terms in each of the subcategories (“ethnicities”, “native or inhabitant of America”, “native or inhabitant of Europe”) (castellano, mestizo, mexicano – as both an adjective and noun –, negro, vizcaíno).

• “Travel”: 5 terms in the subcategory “vessel, ship or boat” (armada, balsa, cantera, fragata, galeón).

In general, this classification accords with the conclusions reached in the previous section after the identification of the most frequent and widespread terms in the corpus. Thus, the predominance of these lexical fields, in particular, reflects the English explorers’ interest in making known the flora and fauna of the New World, which gave them food, and wealth, through trade.

It is, precisely, the issue of trade that infuses and forms the backbone of the other lexical groupings, not as numerous as the previous ones, but equally revealing; we are referring to the terms classified within the category of “relative properties: measurement” (arroba, carga, fanega and vara) and the category of “trade and finance” (which includes the terms peso, quinto, real and tomín). These terms are framed in texts that shed light on the commercial relationships between Spaniards and Englishmen. For example, in the excerpt in (1), the narrator stresses the advantageous price of the goods traded in Mexico City, doing so using the Spanish terms tomín (tomines in the text) and real (written as roials):

• (1) As as for victuals in the said Citie, […] all are very good cheape: to say, the whole quarter of an Oxe, as much as a slaue can carry, away from the Butchers, for 5. Tomynes, that is, 5. Roials of plate, which is iust 2. Shillings and 6. Pence, and a fat Sheepe at the Butchers, for 3. Roials, which is 18. Pence, and no more. (Hakluyt, 1589: 587)⁶

The relationship with the maritime world, the main means by which they moved between the American territories, is also suggested by the terms in the “travel” field. Finally, descriptions of the new social and ethnic reality in the Spanish colonies in the texts of the corpus feature Hispanicisms such as mestizo, negro and mexicano, all of them grouped under the category “people.“

The Authors of the Corpus as Agents Involved in the Introduction and Dissemination of Hispanicisms

In order to clarify the role that the authors of the corpus played in the introduction and dissemination of lexical novelties from Spanish into the English language, the first record that the OED establishes for published works has been taken as a reference for each Hispanicism in the corpus. This will allow us to take the dates and sources that the dictionary indicates for each entry, and compare them with the data obtained in the corpus.

Except for five terms that are not included in the OED (capítulo, marqués, obraje, quinto and sayal), the rest of the Spanish terms feature an entry in this dictionary, so the analysis was limited to 85 terms, of which 47 have a registration date prior to the publication of TPN (1589); 11 were included in the same year and 27 were dated subsequent to Hakluyt’s work.

Considering that most of the words that the OED dates back to before 1589 belong to the sixteenth century, we can state that the authors of the corpus made use of terms that were relatively recent to the English language and, therefore, contributed to spreading them and popularizing them among the English readers. Thus, of the 47 terms, 42 are included in a range equal to or less than 50 years prior to 1589, while 11 of them are dated in the same decade: alcalde and añil (1581); anchoa, cochinilla, melaza and palmito (1582); padre (1584); cañafístula and fragata (1585); armada (1586) and arroba (1588).

Regarding the terms first recorded in the same year that the TPN was published, 1589, the OED indicates the third volume of TPN (that studied in this work) as the first source in which five of them are recorded: flamenco, higo, Mexican (adjective), rosca and tomín. However, these are not the only mentions of Hakluyt’s compilation that we analysed, since the OED also considered Hakluyt to be the first source of five more words (bravado, cargazón, manilla, pargo and tronada), although it is true that in this case they were not included in the third volume, but rather in one of the previous ones. As for the last Hispanicism, palizada/empalizada: although it was introduced in 1589, the OED does not mention TPN among its references.

Finally, in 27 cases the OED records the first instances of Spanish words subsequent to 1589; we are dealing then, with cases of antedatings, although 7 of them (aviso, calabaza, calentura, cordobán, lagarto, mestizo y ranchería) date from the sixteenth century, which means that their sources are just some 10 years away from Hakluyt’s publication. As for the rest of the antedatings, the OED dates the inclusion of 13 from the seventeenth century (atabal, barrica, botijo, cabrita, capelán/capelín, carga, ingenio, manteca de puerco, pintado, salina, señor, venta and vizcaíno), 5 from the eighteenth century (balsa, cantera, castellano, estancia y garbanzo) and, finally, records, three centuries later, in the nineteenth century, the first uses of two other terms from Spanish (encomendero and presidente).

As for the dissemination of these terms, being a compilation, TPN includes texts from different writers of the period such as David Ingram, Francis Drake, Henry Hawkes, Humphrey Gilbert, John Chilton, John Sarracoll, John Whithall, Luke Ward, Miles Phillips, Robert Tomson, Roger Bodenham or Thomas Cavendish, among others. Thus, having in mind the wide list of authors whose works compose TPN, the consultation in the OED of the Hispanicisms in the corpus reveals the fundamental role played by these texts, not only in the introduction of Hispanicisms not used before, but in the dissemination of terms that had been introduced into the English language very recently.

Nevertheless, apart from the information contained in the OED, we considered it a good idea to expand our search to other texts similar in nature to those written by the authors collected in Hakluyt’s TPN. Therefore, we resorted to the AMERLEX database⁷ so as to check whether our Hispanicisms were also used in other travel texts from the period or not. Among the English works registered in this database, 15 include Hispanicisms of our list. Of these 15 texts, 7 were originally written in English, while the remaining 8 are translations from Spanish or Latin. Table 3 lists the travel books that include the Hispanicisms in the corpus with an indication of the number of words they contain:

Table 3 Sixteenth-century English travel books that include the Hispanicisms of the corpus (data extracted from AMERLEX)

According to the data registered to date in AMERLEX, the text originally drafted in English that includes the largest number of Spanish words from the corpus is Walter Raleigh’s The discoverie of the large, rich, and bewtiful empyre of Guiana (1596). It contains 14 words: calabaza, calentura, castellano, don, lagarto, palmito, patata, peso, piña, real, tabaco, brasil, bravata, and negro. On the other hand, the translated work in which we can find more Hispanicisms is Nicolás Monardes’ Joyfull newes out of the newe founde worlde (translated by John Frampton, 1577), which gathers 8 words: cañafístula, piña, sasafrás, tabaco, zarzaparrilla, añil, china and negro.

Regarding the words from our corpus, 34 of them were registered in AMERLEX, of which 25 belong to the group of terms and phrases that entered English through Spanish (Figs. 1) and 9 to the group of terms and phrases that have Spanish as one of the possible donor languages (Fig. 2); groups (a) and (b) in Sect. 3.

Fig. 1

Distribution of terms / phrases that entered English through Spanish in sixteenth-century travel texts on the New World

Fig. 2

Distribution of words and phrases that have Spanish as one of the possible donor languages in sixteenth-century travel texts on the New World

As shown in Figs. 1 and 2, the Hispanicisms in group (a) with a higher number of occurrences are castellano (2 English texts + 4 translations) and tabaco (5 English texts + 1 translation), while in group (b) we find negro (3 English texts + 3 translations) and coco (1 English text + 4 translations).

The data recorded in the OED and the examples extracted from AMERLEX prove that the Spanish words used in the different texts compiled in TPN are not rare cases, but words that are deployed in other coetaneous (travel) texts originally written in English or translated from other languages into English. It is important to note that the authors collected in TPN not only made use of words that had entered the language during the sixteenth century, thus contributing to their dissemination, but also introduced 32 words that became part of the English lexicon, 27 of which have been identified as antedatings.

Strategies to Render the Meaning of Spanish Words

This data inevitably leads us to ask the following questions: given the novelty of these Spanish borrowings, how did the authors of these texts facilitate understanding of the new terms deployed in their narratives? Or, to put it in another way, what mechanisms or strategies did the authors use to help readers understand the meanings of the Spanish loanwords?

In order to discover these strategies, we have analysed all the Hispanicisms used in the corpus, paying special attention to the context, as it will provide us with the elements on which the authors relied to convey the meaning of the new words.

The different strategies have been classified into the following categories, ordered according to their prevalence in the texts of the corpus, from greatest to least.

Explanation or Definition

The most common strategy to render the meaning of the loanwords inserted in the texts was to explain or define the new term, as illustrated in the following examples.

• (2) I haue seene cloth made in the Citie of Mexico, which hath bene sold for ten pezos a vare, which is almost 4. pounds English, and the vare is lesse then our yard. (Hakluyt, 1589: 550)

• (3) […] they make much cloth, which is course, and sell it for lesse then 12. pence the vare. It is called Sayall. (Hakluyt, 1589: 550)

• (4) The Gouernour of this Citie, is a Spaniard, called among them, the Alcalde Maior, who administreth chiefest causes of iustice, both vnto the Christians, and Indians, referring smaller and lighter vices, as drunkennes, and such like, to the iudgement, and discretion of such of the Indians, as are chosen euery yeere to rule amongst them, called by the name of Alcaldes. (Hakluyt, 1589: 588)

In (2) the value of the Spanish currency is explained, as English readers are informed that ten pezos (Spanish word peso) are equivalent to 4 English pounds, an example similar to (1) above. Readers are also told that a vara, a Spanish unit of measurement, is slightly less than a yard, the unit of measurement used in England. Sayall (Spanish sayal) is defined in (3) as a coarse cloth, whereas in (4), we find both a definition for the word alcalde, “the governour of this citie,” and an extended explanation of the functions exercised by the “governour”: “who administreth chiefest causes of iustice…”.

Long explanations, detailed descriptions and even encyclopaedic information are quite common when the Spanish term refers to a natural element. This is the case of (5), where readers are told that a flamingo (Spanish flamenco, flemengo in the text) is a type of “foule of the fresh rivers,” and then provided with a detailed description of these birds, allowing them to visualize the animal: “having all redde fethers …”. Likewise, the text in (6) illustrates the definition of tabacco (Spanish tabaco), “a kinde of herbe dryed,” as well as a lengthy account of its qualities.

• (5) But for the foule of the fresh rivers, these two I noted to bee the chiefe, whereof the Flemengo is one, hauing all redde fethers, and long redde legges like a Herne, a necke according to the bill redde, whereof the vpper nebbe hangeth an inche ouer the nether. (Hakluyt, 1589: 542)

• (6) [gloss in the margin] Tabacco, & the great virtue thereof. [text] The Floridians when they trauell haue a kinde of herbe dryed, which with a cane, and an earthen cup in the end, with fire, and the dried herbs put together, do sucke thorow the cane the smoke thereof, which smoke satisfieth their hunger, and therewith they liue foure or fiue dayes without meat or drinke […]. (Hakluyt, 1589: 541)

In most of these cases, the status of a term as a borrowing from another language, and, therefore, alien to English, is signalled by means of phrases such as “it is called”, “called among them” or “called by the name of”, highlighting the otherness of the term.

Context

In other instances, the meanings of the loanwords can be easily inferred from the context. Thus, in (7), the meaning of the word buttizio, a rendering of the Spanish botijo, can be easily understood as it collocates with a word designating a liquid, wine, such that the reader may assume it is a vessel or container:

• (7) […] and three Negroes, who thinking vs. to haue bene Spaniards and their friends, welcommed vs. with a drumme, and made ready a Buttizio of wine of Chile to drinke to vs. […] (Hakluyt, 1589: M m m. 6. r).

In (8), the reference to a sickness suggests that callentura (Spanish calentura) is a word related to disease, and in (9) the narrative itself helps English readers to understand that the only way to cross the river is to build a wooden boat, called by the Spanish word balsa, which is used by the Spaniards, while the Indians swim. The Spanish word is also translated in the margin as drafte:

• (8) After dinner came the General, […] and divers others, to visite Master Walker, who sickened the Friday before of a Callentura. (Hakluyt, 1589: 657)

• (9) […] going still along by this riuer the space of 3. daies seeking passage to passe ouer, & finding none, we were at length inforced to cut timber to make a Balsa, which when we had made we sate on it, & the Indians swimming in ye water […]. (Hakluyt, 1589: 592)

No Explanation or Contextual Aid

In the corpus, we find a large number of borrowings that are integrated into the text without any explanation or contextual cues. In some cases, it seems obvious that the word was well known at the time, like armada (armado in the text) (10) and negro (11). The defeat of the famous Spanish or Invincible Armada had made this word popular just the year before the publication of Hakluyt’s compilation, and African slaves had been transported from across the Atlantic Ocean to America since the early sixteenth century (Dowlah, 2020: 81). Other terms, such as cargazón in (12), were related to the field of navigation and may have formed part of the usual jargon of these authors, most of whom were navigators.

• (10) Our captaine replied, that hee was in an Armado of the Queenes maiesties of England, and sent about other her affaires […]. (Hakluyt, 1589: 534)

• (11) And being amongst other particulers assured, that Negroes were very good marchandise in Hispaniola, and that store of Negroes might easily be had vpon the coast of Guinea […]. (Hakluyt, 1589: 521)

• (12) This sorowful accident caused them with such pepper and teeth, as they could then finde, speedely to returne to the shippe, as by the Cargason will appeare […]. (Hakluyt, 1589: 818)

The Use of an English Equivalent

A fourth strategy used by the authors to convey the meaning of new words was through direct translation; that is, to replace the words in the source language, Spanish, with their equivalents in English. The English equivalent terms are usually introduced with the coordinating conjunction “or”, thus creating a pairing of the Spanish and English words: “Crocodile or Alligato” (13) (Spanish lagarto), “Manilios or Bracelets” (14) (Spanish manilla), “quinto or costume” (15) (Spanish quinto), “bread or ruske” (16) (Spanish rosca).

• (13) […] wee sawe in the water among us a Crocodile or Alligato, which we assaulted […]. (Hakluyt, 1589: 650)

• (14) All the people generally do weare Manilios or Bracelets, as big as a mans finger, upon each of their armes […] (Hakluyt, 1589: 557–558).

• (15) But nowe they [the Indians] must be well paied, and much entreated to have them worke. So it hath bene, and is a great hinderance to the owners of the Mynes and to the Kings quinto or custome. (Hakluyt, 1589: 549)

• (16) Nowe having […] put aboorde our provision, which was wines, bread or ruske, fishe wette and drie, sweete oyles: besides many other, as marmalades, figs, lymmons […]. (Hakluyt, 1589: 690)

The Use of a Generic term

On other occasions, the use of a generic or superordinate term referring to a broad category that includes the loanword contributes to a general understanding of the meaning of the new word integrated into the English text.

In example (17) the author uses the generic term “fruit” to explain the meaning of the word figo (one of the spellings of the word higo in sixteenth-century Spanish).

• (17) Wee had of them store of rice, hennes, vnperfect and liquid sugar, sugar canes, and a fruite which they call Figo, with store of cloves. (Hakluyt, 1589: Mmm. 9. v)

The use of the broad term shippe in (18) indicates that the word vizcaíno, spelled Biskaine in the text, is a type of vessel:

• (18) The 17. wee met a shippe at Sea, and as farre as wee could iudge it was a Biskaine: wee thought she went a fishing for Whales, for in 52. degrees or thereabout, we saw very many. (Hakluyt, 1589: 792)

Inclusion in an Enumeration or List

Inclusion of the loanword on a list, together with other terms with similar meanings, also helped readers to understand it. Lists which include new loanwords are sometimes introduced by a generic term or expression; therefore, the meaning of new words can be inferred (a) because it is included on a list with similar terms, and (b) because there is a reference to a generic term.

In (19), for example, the mere reference to the word fruites makes clear to the English reader that plantanos (Spanish plátano), “whereof wee haue none,“ is the name of a fruit. The coexistence of the word plantanos with other words known by the reader in the same enumeration (i.e., black cheries) indicates that they are all semantically related.

• (19) Also there are many goodly fruites in that Countrey, whereof wee have none such, as Plantanos, Guyaues, Sapotes, Tunes, and in the wilderness great store of black cheries, & other wholsome fruites. (Hakluyt, 1589: 587).

Similarly, the superordinate term fish that introduces the words on the list in (20) indicates that the words on it belong to this category, including the Spanish word bonito, while the reference to other fish on the same list reinforces this meaning.

• (20) There are sundry other fish very delicate, namely the Bonito, lobsters, turbut, with others infinite not sought after […]. (Hakluyt, 1589: 689).

Conclusions

This study has shown the relevance of Richard Hakluyt’s TPN in the context of the lexical expansion that characterized the Early Modern English period, as it played a fundamental role in the introduction and dissemination of loanwords from Spanish.

After an exhaustive study of the corpus, we identified 90 Hispanicisms whose frequency of overall use and distribution across the different texts reveal a preference for words related to the maritime and commercial contexts. Likewise, the classification of Hispanicisms by lexical field, following the categories established by the Historical Thesaurus, yields results confirming the most frequent words and those with the widest distribution, thus demonstrating the impact that contact with the Spanish colonies in the Americas had on the language of English travellers.

Analysis of the texts in which the Hispanicisms of the corpus appear allows us to identify six strategies used by the authors to transmit the meaning of these words to English readers: (i) the Hispanicisms are accompanied by an explanation or definition, (ii) the context helps the readers to understand the meaning of the Spanish words, (iii) sometimes there is no explanatory gloss or contextual help, but this usually occurs with words familiar to the readers, (iv) the Spanish loanword is accompanied by an English synonym through a coordination, (v) the use of a generic term helps the readers to understand the meaning of the Spanish word, and (vi) the inclusion of the Spanish term on a list, together with other similar words, helps the reader to understand it. Moreover, these lists are usually preceded by an introductory generic term. The use of these explanatory strategies indicates that these were terms with which English readers were not familiar, precisely because of their recent incorporation into the language. This last point has been corroborated by the comparison carried out with the registration dates in the OED, which reveal to us that 11 terms in our inventory were contemporaneous with the publication of TPN, this work being among the first sources in 10 cases. The fact that 42 of the terms are dated close to the publication of Hakluyt’s popular compilation confirms the important role played by this work in disseminating Spanish borrowings among readers. Finally, we find 27 antedatings, which point to TPN as a pioneering work in the introduction of these words in the English language.

The analysis of TPN has demonstrated the necessity of resorting to original texts to validate and complement the data recorded in the OED and corroborate the use and introduction of Spanish words in the Golden Age of the Spanish Empire. Travel literature, and TPN in particular, has proved a valuable source of information for the study of loanwords from Spanish, however, many texts on exploration remain to be studied. It is the aim of these authors to continue this line of research by analysing other travel books on America and discovering the lexical heritage that other languages have bequeathed to the English language in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.