The old-fashioned image of the Wild West as portrayed in the 1950s TV serials may be over, but there’s still a high interest in that period of American history, as evidenced by the popularity of a BYU professor’s new book on cowboy lingo.

Robert Smead, associate professor of Spanish, wrote “Vocabulario Vaquero/Cowboy Talk” to func-tion as a dictionary of common cowboy terms influenced by the Mexican vaqueros.

“The Spanish contribution to cowboy talk is extensive," he said. "Much more than people thought it was."

For example, the word “jerky” comes from “charquear,” the Spanish verb for drying strips of meat in the sun.

“Stampede” comes from “estampida.”

The phrase “a good man” comes from the Spanish legal system. The title for an arbitrator is “Hombre bueno,” translated as “good man.”

In some cases, the borrowed words came from much older languages.

“Word history is interesting,” Smead said. “Many times it’s not just a case where the word was borrowed from Spanish—but Spanish also borrowed it from some other source.”

The term “mecate,” as in a mecate rope, originally came from Aztec language, later adopted into Spanish. “Hackamore,” a kind of horse bridle, originally came from Arabic.

The book makes a substantial contribution to western studies, according to Richard W. Slatta, professor of history at North Carolina State University and author of “Comparing Cowboys and Frontiers.”

“Historical and anthropological linguists will find a bounty of material, nicely gathered and ready for further study,” Slatta said.

Smead got the idea for the book after reading Mackey Hedges’ “The Last Buckaroo,” which included a short glossary of rancher terms. Some of which were identified as being of Spanish origin. When Smead couldn’t find other books on the same topic, he decided to write his own.

Out since May, the book has gained more popularity than expected.

“I was blown away by the interest this has generated. I just thought, ‘Well, this is a book I can write; it’s a nice project I’ll do. Some libraries will acquire it and that will be the end of it.’”

The book’s publishers, University of Oklahoma Press, had to push the originally scheduled paper-back release date up by two months after the hardbound copies sold out. The book has sold about 400 copies since its release date.

“This book was intended to be a scholarly contribution,” Smead said. “But where it’s made the biggest impact is with people that are inter-ested in the Old West. Or people whose ancestors were cowboys or ranchers, or who are today, and recognize that some of these terms are not English.”

Just for fun, Smead sent the book to President Bush.

“I figured, ‘Hey, he’s a rancher—he’s from Crawford, Texas,’” Smead said.

The president wrote back, “Thank you for thinking of me.”



Copyright Brigham Young University 18 Jan 2005