Le mot comme événement et comme outil d’investigation historique et historiographique

morisco et arábigo dans le Tesoro de la lengua española o castellana (1611) de Covarrubias

Abstract

We consider that the lexical unit called “word” can be an event and a tool of historical and historiographical investigation. We will demonstrate this in the case of the words morisco and arábigo in the Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española. We will see, on the one hand, how the internal structure of the word morisco states the historical fact of the failure of the policy of cultural and religious assimilation of the moros by the Spanish Catholic monarchy. On the other hand, we argue that through the word arábigo and the discourse of Diego de Urrea on the palabras arábigas the first monolingual dictionary of Spanish reveals itself as a testimony and actor of a new science being constituted in modern Europe: Orientalism.