ANOTACIONES SOBRE LA JERGA DE LOS MAESTROS CANTEROS DE TRASMIERA (CANTABRIA)

Abstract

This article shows the lexical creativity of the Trasmiera stonemasons who used a jargon of their own, known as pantoja, in their professional dealings both within and outside Cantabria. In 1947 Fermín de Sojo y Lomba wrote a little treatise on this cant entitled La Pantoja: The Jargon of the Trasmiera Master Stonemasons, which we have updated in our 2003 edition. In this essay we point out some lexical aspects of this group’s patois, where everyday realities and feelings are expressed by means of terms and phrases where the symbolic and the cryptic, the different and the differentiating, are predominant, all of which increases the speakers’ feeling of belonging to the said guild of stonemasons