Maroto, Manotera, Salmerón: aportaciones de toponimia española a propósito de la expresión de loma

Abstract

In this paper we study a group of Spanish place-names collected from different regions: Badajoz, Jaén, Málaga, Huesca, etc. All these place-names share something which could be relevant: they provide good evidence for the existence in all the cases of the same root, lomo, loma, with the meaning 'back' in Spanish, but also 'hill' in the orographical sense, with the addition of several suffixes: lomana, lomano, lomar, lomal, lomato, etc. The presence of adjectives like alto, otero, 'high', allows us to explain satisfactorily many place-names very dark, as La Maroto, Manota, Manotera, Malotera, etc. We focalize in the other hand the appearance of other metaphoric images for the expression of the same concept, like albarda, alforja, salma, 'packsaddle', 'saddlebags', etc. In this way, this study can make important contributions to our knowledge of the vocabulary of old Spanish. Nevertheless, for some names the evidence so far available is not decisive and explanations may be somewhat provisional.