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

Tue Mar 2 16:32:43 MST 2021

If you don’t get a definitive answer from the list about dates of first printing in Iberian languages/relative frequency, could you do some targeted searching in OCLC to see what languages are found in imprints from the period for the regional centers of the more established languages? You have quite a few on your list of locations in Spain. It might not be worth it, since I have a sneaking suspicion that a lot of people sent out records to OCLC using essentially your geographic language calculus during recon, and that scholars of non-Spanish/Portuguese Iberian languages probably already have a bunch of catalog hacks to account for the problem.

That said, there are probably entire monographic series on the relative morphologies and orthographies of the Iberian Romance languages, so maybe there’s a quick and dirty chart somewhere that would help someone with another Romance language correctly identify the vast majority of the long tail?

Honor

From: DCRM-L <dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu> On Behalf Of Erin Blake
Sent: Tuesday, March 2, 2021 5:49 PM
To: DCRM Users' Group <dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu>
Subject: Re: [DCRM-L] Clues for distinguishing between 16th- and 17th-century Portuguese vs. Spanish?

Thanks!

FWIW, I took a sample of 300 "Spanish or Portuguese?" and found the following places (all imprints are pre-1800):

Belgium:

  *   Antwerp
  *   Brussels
France:

  *   Perpignan
Netherlands:

  *   Amsterdam
Portugal:

  *   Coimbra
  *   Lisbon
Spain (none are in Galicia, as far as I know):

  *   Alcalá de Henares
  *   Barcelona
  *   Cadiz
  *   Cordoba
  *   Huesca
  *   Lleida
  *   Madrid
  *   Málaga
  *   Mallorca
  *   Múrcia
  *   Pamplona
  *   Salamanca
  *   Segovia
  *   Seville
  *   Toledo
  *   Tortosa
  *   Valencia
  *   Valladolid
  *   Zaragoza

______________________
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.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__protect-2Dus.mimecast.com_s_-2Dt5RCjRgpBtArRXC7R7-5F2-3Fdomain-3Durldefense.com&d=DwMFaQ&c=WO-RGvefibhHBZq3fL85hQ&r=gfxDZP5m9KyeWhmono1ADELcLUOEQEwGHybTpd5N2Wk&m=eQOwv3JwQnF_H0BhTKjDZLJvZP7DvjO_Q0Q-bCmvvCM&s=-KfujRLhMaF9KiHS9Yxjj9YZy0vilHAJkzPejnhy8Bg&e=>   |  Pronouns: she/her/hers

On Tue, Mar 2, 2021 at 4:34 PM Piscitelli, Felicia A <f-piscitelli at library.tamu.edu<mailto:f-piscitelli at library.tamu.edu>> wrote:
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<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__library.tamu.edu&d=DwMFaQ&c=WO-RGvefibhHBZq3fL85hQ&r=gfxDZP5m9KyeWhmono1ADELcLUOEQEwGHybTpd5N2Wk&m=eQOwv3JwQnF_H0BhTKjDZLJvZP7DvjO_Q0Q-bCmvvCM&s=4Iw65xMsSNFQPmII5je4b7NVI5ACJbiUkJ8ybOGEaak&e=>

From: DCRM-L <dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu<mailto: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<mailto: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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