Mole Poblano & Gaspacho & Empanada (1839)

[Mike Salovesh]

Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:
>
> Coleccion de Recetas de Cosina y Reposteria, del Vso y propiedad del Combento(sic) de Senores Religiosas de N. Me. Pma de la Concepon Ano de 1839, 2 p.l., 150 p., 60 l. front, 4to.

Barry:

I know you're not (sic), and you rightly (sic)ed the "combento" spelling as
non-standard.  Nonetheless, that's a common spelling that goes back to 16th
century orthography in Mexican documents.

"b" and "v" are alternate representations of a single phoneme in Mexican
Spanish. The phoneme is most commonly produced as a bilabial continuant
rather than either a bilabial stop or a labiodental continuant. Some
speakers consistently produce bilabial stops in some environments and
labiodentals in others, but even they usually have [b] and [v] in
complementary distribution.

"m" for "n" in the environment of vowel plus (something) plus "b" would
produce consistent pronunciation with "n" when the word is read aloud by a
literate native speaker of Mexican Spanish. That's a standard assimilation
rule for combining forms. Using /B/ to represent the phonemic combination
of [b] + [v], /-m/ + /B-/ gives /-nB-/.

Mexican schools sometimes propagate the myth that Spanish spelling is
"phonetic" (i.e., phonemic).  That's why even university-trained teachers
are likely to make non-standard choices when it comes to spellings that
involve the following sets: b/v; c/s and c/qu; i/y/ll; h/zero.  Foreign "k"
and "w" are, well, just plain foreign, and their (mal)distribution tends to
demonstrate that quite clearly.

These spelling "errors" increase in frequency as you go back, century by
century.
When I find 16th century spellings confusing, the meaning usually emerges
easily if I simply read the dubious passage aloud.

Asta la bista!


-- mike salovesh   <m-salovesh-9 at alumni.uchicago.edu>   PEACE !!!

        IN MEMORIAM:     Peggy Salovesh
        25 January 1932 -- 3 March 2001