As I've noted, I love the Spanish language. Admittedly, I have more training than most white Americans in the language and its nuances, but that doesn't mean I love it any less. Contrary to my childhood friend Greg, who once told me that although he loved photography taking a class in it lessened his enjoyment because it revealed the secrets behind the art, studying Spanish just made me love it more. I with I could study Irish and become proficient in it; I can only imagine how many more quirky nuances it has.
In any event, I thought today I'd talk about some of the quirkiness that is the Spanish language. It's a beautiful language -- mellifluous, lyrical, soothing -- that has it's rougher edges, to be sure: The a personal, ser v. estar, por y para, vosotros v. voseo. But those problems are typically glossed over by native speakers and, unlike the French, aren't picked apart because they're used imperfectly.
So today I'm going to highlight a couple of quirky -- perhaps even humorous -- oddities within the Spanish language.
The first one is the use of the word papa. Papa when spelled like that means potato. When papá carries the accent over the second a, it means father. Yet, when Pope Benedict announced his retirement this week, the Spanish-language newspapers carried the headline Buscan papa, or PopeSought. The typesetter didn't make a mistake; Papa, without the diacritical. For reasons too lengthy and obscure to go into here, Spanish uses papa and not papá when talking about the pope. Depending on your perspective, you could say the Catholic Church is headed by a potato.
The next involves the use of the word esposas. There are various ways to say wives, including but not limited too mujeres and esposas. Mujeres can mean women or wives, depending on context. Esposas means wives, typically, unless we're talking at police headquarters. Again, context will determine the actual meaning, but there esposas can mean either wives or handcuffs. Some might say the two are interchangeable.
The following involves words that aren't typically for mixed company. One of the idiomatic expressions used to say that one is tired is estar hecho polvo; literally, one is made into dust. It might sound a little funny, but when one thinks about it, we have similar phrases in English: I'm beat. In neither case is the expression literally true. An ellipsis of the phrase is hecho polvo, which is pronounced AYcho POLE vo. The problem arises when one is using that phrase and context hasn't been established. One of the euphemistic phrases used to say that one is getting laid is echar polvo. In the first person singular, it's pronounced exactly the same: AYcho POLE vo. It pays to listen closely sometimes.
A particular quirk is the pronunciation of the great artist Salvador Dalí's surname. Contrary to popular American opinion, Dalí and Dolly are not pronounced the same. Editors all over the country love to use Hello Dalí when leading an article about a Dalí exhibit or book. The problem is that the surname, correctly pronounced, is Dah LEE, not DAH lee. Americans tend to treat diacritical marks like suggestions when in fact they're helpful directions.
The final quirk is the pronunciation of Spanish surnames, which are routinely butchered. Virtually any surname that ends in -ez should be easy to pronounce with one simple rule: The accent never, ever falls on the syllable ending with -ez. The reason for that is simple: The -ez ending is a vestigial suffix from Arabic that translates to son of. Here are some pairings that show how similar yet how morbidly mistaken the pairs are often pronounced:
Peterson -- Pérez -- Son of Peter
Henderson -- Enríquez -- Son of Henry
Martinson -- Martínez -- Son of Martin
If you follow the pattern, the other surnames come out correctly:
Chávez -- Son of Chavo
Gómez -- Son of Gomero
López -- Son of Lope
As with English, the emphasis never falls on the last syllable; it's not Peet er SON, but PEET er son. Newsanchors and reporters everywhere get it wrong, yet it's so simple.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
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