Using the rhyming word search

The rhyming word search is simple tool with which you can find all rhymes that occur for a given word in the Cantigas de Santa Maria. Like the text concordance it may be of chiefly academic interest, and not that much use to performers, but I'm happy to make it freely available to all. The best way to find out how it works is to have a go, but the following notes should help you get the most out of it.

Entering words

This is similar to the text concordance, but with some subtle differences, so it's worth covering separately here.

  • Don't bother typing written accents on vowels (tilde, acute, grave) or the cedilla in ç. Just use the plain letters and the search will match any accented ones automatically, giving you a list to choose from if there are multiple matching words. Note however that plain n will not match ñ / nn / nh so you will need to type one of the latter three spellings for the sound [ɲ].
  • The wildcard ? matches any one single letter, e.g. senn?r finds SENNOR and SENNER.
  • The wildcard * matches zero or more letters. For example, fezer* finds FEZER, FEZERA, FEZERDES and so on. Similarly, entering *er finds all rhyming words that end in those letters, even though there are two distinct rhyming sounds.
  • Multiple words may be entered with spaces and hyphens, but this is will only find multiple-word rhymes, for example aqué o, deitá-la.
  • Searches are not case-sensitive.
  • Variable spelling options are supported, so you can enter moller or molher, punnaron or puñaron or punharom, and so on. Don't mix systems, however: puñarom, for example, won't produce any results.
  • Etymological h can be entered or omitted, with the same results, e.g. typing aver will find rhymes for HAVER.

General considerations

Keep the following points in mind when using the rhyming word search:

  • All search results are derived from actual rhymes that occur in the Cantigas de Santa Maria, not merely possible rhymes out of the complete set of word forms. In particular, results are based on the output of the automated analysis that works out the rhyming schemes (ababbabbab, ABAB/cdcdefefB etc.) and there's no re-examination of the rhyming sounds.
  • The previous point is especially important when considering the ‘indirect’ rhymes in the ‘extended set’, which are shown in italics. These are rhymes-of-rhymes, rhymes-of-rhymes-of-rhymes, and so on, following the chain until the set can grow no further. However, this doesn't exclude the possibility of multiple word sets having the same rhyming sound, but no words in common. For example, we know that demandavan and achavan could rhyme, but they nevertheless belong to distinct, non-overlapping sets in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.
  • Results are displayed using whatever spelling preferences you have selected, regardless of the system you have used to enter the word.
  • As with the text concordance, beware of variations in original spelling that escape regularization by my own spelling changes; for example, rhymes for Jerussalen and Jerusalen are currently kept separate, as my changes leave medial -s- and -ss- untouched (rightly or wrongly). Using the wildcard * (e.g. entering jerus*alen) can be useful if you're in any doubt, to ensure that you haven't missed anything.
  • For each rhyming group in the table of results, the search term is included along with its rhymes, with the words listed in order of use. This is for two reasons: first, I think it gives a more intuitive idea of the group and helps to identify common patterns, without the reader having to mentally supply the missing word all the time; and second, it accommodates words like empãada in CSM 57:69 and cego in CSM 57:80 that appear in rhyming position but have no other words in the same group.

Finally, as with the text concordance, if you do find a serious academic use for this rhyming word search, a citation would be welcome. Thank you!