Extension of the Gacería in the province of Segovia Gacería is the name of a slang or

argot A cant is the jargon or language of a group, often employed to exclude or mislead people outside the group.McArthur, T. (ed.) ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (1992) Oxford University Press It may also be called a cryptolect, argo ...

employed by the (or makers of the , or threshing-board, as well as threshing-sledge) and the (or makers of : metathesis of Spanish word

sieve A sieve, fine mesh strainer, or sift, is a device for separating wanted elements from unwanted material or for controlling the particle size distribution of a sample, using a screen such as a woven mesh or net or perforated sheet materia ...

) in the village of Cantalejo, in the

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

province of

Segovia Segovia ( , , ) is a city in the autonomous community of Castile and León, Spain. It is the capital and most populated municipality of the Province of Segovia. Segovia is in the Inner Plateau ('' Meseta central''), near the northern slopes of t ...

. Gacería incorporated Galician, French, Basque and

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

words into its vocabulary, a linguistic practice employed by other traveling professional groups of Castile. Users of Gacería also incorporated words from

Caló (Spanish Romani) Calo, Caló, or Calò may refer to: * Caló language, the language of the Iberian Romani ** Iberian Kale (''calé''): *** Romani people in Spain, more frequently called ''gitanos'' *** Romani people in Portugal, more frequently called ''ciganos' ...

Germanic languages The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, E ...

and Catalan. These trade routes did not usually extend into the Basque Country or

Valencia Valencia ( va, València) is the capital of the autonomous community of Valencia and the third-most populated municipality in Spain, with 791,413 inhabitants. It is also the capital of the province of the same name. The wider urban area al ...

, but words from these foreign lexicons were incorporated for their foreignness. Its vocabulary arose amongst those involved in the industry of manufacturing farm implements in the village (

yoke A yoke is a wooden beam sometimes used between a pair of oxen or other animals to enable them to pull together on a load when working in pairs, as oxen usually do; some yokes are fitted to individual animals. There are several types of yoke, u ...

wagon A wagon or waggon is a heavy four-wheeled vehicle pulled by draught animals or on occasion by humans, used for transporting goods, commodities, agricultural materials, supplies and sometimes people. Wagons are immediately distinguished from ...

s, footstools; and the threshing-board, a wooden tool resembling a sledge, with his bottom-side holding many lithic flakes that cuts the pile of cereal crop, in order to separate the grain of the rest of the plant:

threshing Threshing, or thrashing, is the process of loosening the edible part of grain (or other crop) from the straw to which it is attached. It is the step in grain preparation after reaping. Threshing does not remove the bran from the grain. History ...

. In Spain, the farmers use the threshing-boards more than the

flail A flail is an agriculture, agricultural tool used for threshing, the process of separating cereal, grains from their husks. It is usually made from two or more large sticks attached by a short chain; one stick is held and swung, causing the othe ...

; its use was considered unusual.) The argot was thus used by the itinerant salesmen of these products, in opposition to settled villagers. In the face of mechanized agriculture, Gacería has survived amongst those who still sell such ancient farm implements as collectors' items.

The mechanics of Gacería

The vocabulary comprises some 353 words, with pronunciation following the phonetic rules of the

Spanish language Spanish ( or , Castilian) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from colloquial Latin spoken on the Iberian peninsula. Today, it is a global language with more than 500 million native speakers, mainly in th ...

. The small vocabulary served those who used it, as only a handful of words from the argot were required for specific occasions, without the need for long speeches or paragraphs. Tracing its evolution or performing any lexicographical work is difficult, as Gacería employed words that either changed in meaning or were replaced by new words over time. Most of these 353 known words are

noun A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for: * Living creatures (including people, alive, ...

s; there are some 40

verb A verb () is a word ( part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descr ...

s. Some common

adjective In linguistics, an adjective (abbreviated ) is a word that generally modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives were considered one of the ma ...

s include: ' ("good, pleasant, pretty"), ("bad," "stupid," "sick," "ugly" from Basque ), ("small," "scarce," "little"), ("old," "ancient"), ("annoyed," "crazy," "gravely ill"), and ("dirty"). Some words were formed through the process of metathesis. Thus, the Castilian "criba" is in Gacería (whence ), "cribo" becomes , etc. Other words were formed through aphesis (from "apanar" was derived ; from "otana," ). In Gacería, the nouns and are used as pronouns to indicate whatever person or thing that currently form the topic of conversation. In Castilian, carries the meaning of "daring" or "impudent" as an adjective, and "daredevil" or "smart aleck" as a noun. Gesticulation also plays a large part in giving added meaning to words from Gacería, as one word could potentially have many meanings. "In Gacería eyes speak more than words," one scholar has written. "A simple gesture is enough to change the meaning of a word

Some words from Gacería

Sources

Gacería

The mechanics of Gacería

Some words from Gacería

Sources

See also