Academy’s word banks like CORDE and CREA, and the Hemeroteca digital of the BNE will be fundamental (but not the only) sources for our research. For this reason, it is essential that anyone who wishes to investigate the Hispanic lexicon should be prepared to embrace other linguistic traditions or other spaces that are not solely and exclusively Hispanic. Indeed, these websites can help to complement or verify what is being researched. In short, in this essay, we attempted to underline the relevance of international digital media as a research corpus that can help to elucidate the history of the Spanish lexicon. We insist on this: the global digital ecosystem is a fundamental linguistic space, which provides data often unavailable through literature from official or academic sources, via online dictionaries of medieval Italian, Occitan, or etymological dictionaries of French or other Romance languages.

In other cases, we unveiled the existence of databases and word banks especially elaborated for the Hispanic tradition, which are not amongst the academic or official banks, and thus not amongst the most commonly used. Often, these are projects by universities from the English-speaking world, and if we are not up to date on research regarding Romance or Hispanic linguistics, we can miss out on many tools that are freely accessible on the internet.

As we saw above, in addition to the university projects by philologists and linguists, the work displayed on other, perhaps non-academic online resources, such as the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, turn out to be surprisingly helpful.

In this essay, in summary, we wanted to present some cases where research in historical lexicology was complemented with the data mined from the total digital ecosystem. Thanks to a methodological philological approach, which involved the review and investigation of various bibliographic sources, starting with dictionaries, and followed by the use of official word banks (i.e., RAE or the Hemeroteca digital). Other resources were essential in aiding our understanding of cases where there was no standard conclusive or defining information, either from the Hispanic tradition or from Romance linguistics. Therefore, as researchers of the lexicon and its history, we owe a debt of gratitude to the work emanating from international universities and academic projects, and also to the work coming from non-typical centres of research. Together they have made a vital body of information freely accessible to researchers and to those who are curious about the topic.

11. Bibliographic references

Academia Chilena de la Lengua. 2010. DUECh. Diccionario de uso del español de Chile. Santiago: MN.

Alcalá Venceslada, Antonio. 1980 [1933]. Vocabulario andaluz. Madrid: Gredos.

Alemany, José. 1917. Diccionario de la lengua española. Barcelona: Ramón Sopena.

Alonso, Amado. 1947. “Trueques de sibilantes en el antiguo español”. Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica. First edition, nº1, pp. 1-12.

Alvar Ezquerra, Manuel. 2000. Tesoro léxico de las hablas andaluzas. Madrid: Arco Libros.

Álvarez de Miranda, Pedro. 2007. “Palabras y acepciones fantasma en los diccionarios de la Academia”. Alicante: Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes.

Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (ASALE). 2010. DA. Diccionario de americanismos. Madrid: Santillana.