Diversidad denominativa del Pisum sativum en español: una historia de variedad y confusión

Abstract

Spanish speakers use a great diversity of terms to refer to Pisum sativum, from the better known guisante and arveja, to other less common forms such as chícharo, bisalto, pésol, présules, pitos, titos, pedrolos, mánganos, garavanzos, fréjoles, etc. This work analyzes the great diversity of names that the species Pisum sativum receives in Spanish and it does it through the Spanish geolinguistic atlases and the lexicons of the cultured norms of the main cities of the Hispanic world. Through this analysis we will try to explain the reason for this diversity with the objective of understanding if this variety is due to a question of synonymy or to a confusion between species of legumes or between varieties within the Pisum species itself. We will explain that the history of the denominations of the pea, and of the legumes in general, is marked by its confusion from the beginnings of language; a confusion that comes motivated mainly by the similarity that possess all the species that conform the family Papilionoideae and that causes that the speakers confuse in many occasions some plants with others..