Las palabras olvidadas: las denominaciones de la alcachofa en el castellano medieval
Forgotten words: denominations of alcachofa in Medieval Spanish

Summary/Abstract: The Arabic element was the most important layer of the Spanish lexicon until the 16th century, after the Latin one, but after the loss of Arab political and cultural influence, many Arabisms fell into disuse. The field of botany is one of the ones that has incorporated the most Arabisms, with many names of fruit, vegetables and vegetables used in human nutrition and one of the best preserved to date. From this field, we have selected the word alcachofa, which in the medieval period was part of a synonymic series that included 5 elements: alcachofa – alcaucil – alcana – alcanería – cardo arrecife. Its competitors have all disappeared or have been relegated to the dialect sphere and alcachofa is, today, the only current name in common Spanish. The purpose of this work is a lexicological, lexicographical and diachronic approximation of these words, which have in common their Arabic origin (except cardo). We will try to trace the linguistic history of these words thanks to the data provided by the diachronic corpus of Spanish, CORDE and CDH, as well as through the historical and etymological dictionaries of Spanish, collected in NTLLE.

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