In this essay the linguistic characteristics of Laerte's memories,as an autobiographic work that can be credited as one of the firsttestimonies of the Hispano-American novel, though the certaintyof the historical events that are narrated and the picaresque spiritof its main character may allow for a double classification fromthe gender point of view, that is, historical or picaresque dependingon whether the stress is laid on either one of the contents. Besidesits inestimable value for the understanding of the context in whichthe Peninsular life develops, and specially so regarding the Rio dela Plata, their daily aspects, their commercial relations through theprovinces of Buenos Aires and Tucumán, the consequences broughtabout by the expulsion of the Jesuits and the confiscation of theirtemporalidades, the text is valuable in its own right for its descriptionof the Colonial language during the Enlightenment century, itsformation stage already elapsed, which provides testimonial featuresof a characteristic state of language, beyond mere generalizations,in which the variety between both forms of Spanish is confirmedby the resort to constructions prevalent in other stages of Spanishdevelopment, but that remain as constrastive features -in numerouscases, interpreted as innovative- in the dialect varieties of bothPeninsular and American Spanish, together with linguistic usesdeveloped in the American variety through the adaptation of thepatrimonial fund to the realities of the new habitat, by lexical andgrammatical contrast, and for the process of becoming native bygrowth involved in the adoption of general indigenisms.
Franco Figueroa, M. (2008). The speech of a native from Navarra in the West Indies: Fracasos de la fortuna y sucesos varios acaecidos by Miguel de Learte. Boletín De Filología, 43(2), Pág. 51–97. Retrieved from https://boletinfilologia.uchile.cl/index.php/BDF/article/view/18057
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