Greek etymologies in Corominas´ dictionary and in Nuevo diccionario histórico del español (The new Dictionary of the Spanish Language): critical remarks on goals and methods in two reference works

Abstract

The article is a brief critical review of two reference works in the field of Spanish lexicography, from the specific point of view of Greek scholars interested in etymology. In contrast to Corominas-Pascual´s etymological dictionary, which tends to group words of Greek and Latin origin according to their common Indo-European ancestry, the NDHE (New Dictionary of the History of the Spanish Language by the Spanish Royal Academy of Language) treats etymology from a strictly historical point of view and offers countless possibilities to the scholars interested in learned words. However, as the author argues, such a treatment may sometimes impede the correct understanding of some phonetic or morphological phenomena which occur in the adaptation of Greek words into Spanish, i.e, the understanding of a part of the history of those words themselves.