We explain what archaisms are, where they come from, what types exist and various examples. Also, what are neologisms.
What are archaisms?
Archaisms are those words and linguistic formulas in disuse within a language, which come from times and forms of speaks passed, but still remain on the tongue in contexts very specific. In other words, these are forms of the language outdated, which remain as relics in a language.
In the case of Spanish, most archaisms come from the Spanish spoken during the Middle Ages and until the seventeenth century. They have generally lost their context and respond to structures and formulas that Spanish lost over time. For that reason they are listed in most dictionaries of the language as outdated (ant.), obsolete (des.) or little used (p. us.).
They also count as archaisms certain meanings of words still in use but with another meaning, that is, certain meanings that were lost in time, although the words are still in use with a contemporary meaning.
Archaisms, in any case, can continue to be used but they are very rare and sometimes persist in very specific areas, such as the literary language. In this sense, the use of innovative and modern formulas is always preferred, since language is a living organism and in a constant process of updating.
Types of archaisms
There are two types of archaisms, depending on how frequent it is still in use. This is because the same language can vary enormously depending on the geography, and what is considered extinct on one site is still in use on another site. Thus, we must distinguish:
- Absolute archaisms, those ancient words and twists that are not commonly used in any community speak the same language, that is, they have lagged absolutely behind in the course of the language.
- Relative archaisms, those ancient words and turns that have disappeared only from some geographical variants of the language, but persist in others, and therefore remain relatively valid.
Examples of archaisms
Some examples of archaisms in Spanish are the following:
- The American dialectal voseo, that is, the substitution of the personal pronoun “tú” by “vos”, frequent in different latitudes from Latin America, whose origin dates from the Latin you, plural of the second grammatical person, and that was used to address the royal authorities (to mark their superiority) in old Spanish.
- The peninsular you, used in central and northern Spain to designate the plural of the second person, in situations of more intimacy and trust, which do not merit the use of "you". Both "you" and its conjugation are used normally in this linguistic region, but they have been lost in absolutely all the other Hispanic variants.
- Truje instead of "suit", still used in Mexico and in other linguistic areas of Hispanic America.
- iron instead of "iron", used in Argentina and in other linguistic areas of Hispanic America.
Archaisms and neologisms
If archaisms are vestiges of the history of a language, the neologisms they are quite the opposite: new forms, uses and meanings, incorporated into the language by its younger speakers, often due to the need to name new realities. For that reason, for example, technology and the Sciences they are a constant source of neologisms, as new inventions and new procedures merit new names.
Examples of neologisms are: tweet, bitcoin, blogging, cyberbullying, customize or drone.