[DCRM-L] Clues for distinguishing between 16th- and 17th-century Portuguese vs. Spanish?

[Piscitelli, Felicia A]

Caveat: I work a lot with early Spanish-language imprints, especially colonial-era Mexico, but very rarely with Portuguese. So I’m basing my comments on what I know.

I don’t know how much was published or printed in the province of Galicia during those centuries, but Galician would look more like Portuguese than Spanish, even though that province is part of (present-day) Spain.
Your hunch that that anything Iberian-looking from the Spanish Netherlands is probably Spanish, is probably correct.
Google Translate has its uses, but (IMHO) one should always take it with a pinch of salt.

I hope this helps somewhat.

Felicia Piscitelli, M.M., M.L.S.
Associate Professor
Rare Book and Special Collections Cataloger and Italian Resources Librarian
Cushing Memorial Library & Archives
Texas A&M University
f-piscitelli at library.tamu.edu<mailto:f-piscitelli at library.tamu.edu>
5000 TAMU | College Station, TX  77843
Tel. 979-458-7880 or 979-845-1951
Fax: 979-845-6238
http://library.tamu.edu

From: DCRM-L <dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu> On Behalf Of Erin Blake
Sent: Tuesday, March 02, 2021 3:20 PM
To: DCRM Users' Group <dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu>
Subject: [DCRM-L] Clues for distinguishing between 16th- and 17th-century Portuguese vs. Spanish?

I'm seeking advice from catalogers experienced with early Portuguese and Spanish imprints....

Our OPAC has a large set of "preliminary records" where the language coding is incorrect. These won't be shared outside our OPAC, and all have an Advisory statement<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/folgerpedia.folger.edu/Advisory_statements__;!!KwNVnqRv!Wa4h7keffTHBnzhTHonkgc7T3TtyzGOMbkxlQVEOr0LzhB54tw9-JSeE_Y4kle4ODNmj6zMlbr8$> warning that they're not to be trusted, so the stakes are very low.

We're looking for a way that non-experts can make the language coding "reasonably okay".

Options include:

  1.  Assume everything in an Iberian language is in Spanish if published in what's now modern Spain, and Portuguese if published in what's now modern Portugal.
  2.  Use Google translate, even though it has a modern bias, in the hope that it's mostly okay for Spanish vs. Portuguese. [NB. this is how we discovered the problem in the first place: someone using Google Translate coded a whole bunch of 16th- and 17th-century Dutch as "Afrikaans".]
  3.  Code them all "Undetermined language", even though they're already narrowed down to "almost certainly Spanish or Portuguese"?
Also, is it unreasonably dangerous to code anything Spanish-looking that was published in the Spanish Netherlands (almost always Antwerp) as "Spanish"?

Thanks for any advice you might have!

Erin.

______________________
Erin Blake, Ph.D.  |  Senior Cataloger  |  Folger Shakespeare Library  |  201 E. Capitol St. SE, Washington, DC, 20003  |  eblake at folger.edu<mailto:eblake at folger.edu>  |  www.folger.edu<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/protect-us.mimecast.com/s/-t5RCjRgpBtArRXC7R7_2?domain=urldefense.com__;!!KwNVnqRv!Wa4h7keffTHBnzhTHonkgc7T3TtyzGOMbkxlQVEOr0LzhB54tw9-JSeE_Y4kle4ODNmj9UHG0PI$>   |  Pronouns: she/her/hers

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