• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Interfluency

Tagline
  • +1-901-288-3018
  • Contact
    • English

Mobile menu contact icon

Mobile menu contact information (EN)

  • Telephone: +1-901-288-3018
  • Contact Us
  • Home
  • About
    • What We Do
    • The Word “Interfluency”
    • Our Team
    • Clients
  • Services
    • Linguistic
      • Translation
      • Interpreting
      • Writing/Editing
    • Cultural
    • Consulting
  • Resources
    • For Translators
    • For Clients
    • General Interest
  • Testimonials
  • Blog
  • Search

estornudo

2013-04-12 by Pablo J. Davis Leave a Comment

How do you translate a sneeze… or a kiss?

Dear reader,

Onomatopeia, a powerful expressive resource, represents in written or spoken language a sound, action, or phenomenon. Some months back, we looked at some animal sounds, like the rooster’s “Cock-a-doodle-doo!” that Spanish expresses as ¡Kikirikí or ¡Cocoricó!

¿”¡Chuik!” ó “¡Muá!”… ?¿O tal vez, de acuerdo al inglés, “Smooch!”?

This week, let’s consider some human sounds, starting with the little explosion that is a sneeze. Spanish represents it as ¡Achís! (ah-CHEESS) or¡Achús! (ah-CHOOSS); the second, less common, is similar to English “Ah-choo!”

Since sneezing is physiological, much more than cultural or linguistic, it’s evident that each language “hears” or “interprets” the sound uniquely.

Sometimes the languages differ widely. Spanish represents a kiss as ¡Chuik! (chweek) or ¡Muá! (mwah); English, as “Smooch!” For physical revulsion, Spanish uses ¡Puaj! (pwach, with guttural Germanic/Scots ‘ch’) or ¡Uf; typical in English is “Yuk!” or its infantile adjective form, as in “That’s yucky!” The latter’s one of the first words children in Spanish-speaking homes learn from English-speaking schoolmates.

Throat-clearing, on the other hand—a physiological act, that can also be used expressively to get someone’s attention or request silence—is similar: ¡Ejem! is almost identical to English “Ahem!”

Exclamations of pain are a curious case: the Spanish speaker stubbing her toe on a rock cries “Ayyy!” (like the letter ‘I’), nothing like English “Ouch!” or “Oww!” It turns out that an act one would think purely  physiological is actually cultural, and that pain is “pronounced” differently from language to language.

¡Buenas palabras!

Pablo

Copyright  © 2013 por Pablo Julián Davis. All Rights Reserved. This essay was originally written for the 21-26 April 2013 edition of La Prensa Latina (Memphis, Tennessee), as part of the weekly bilingual column “Mysteries and Enigmas of Translation”. Pablo J. Davis (www.interfluency.com) is an ATA Certified Translator (English>Spanish) and a Tennessee Supreme Court Certified Court Interpreter (English<>Spanish).

Filed Under: Interflows Language+Culture Blog Tagged With: "Pablo J. Davis", beso, Certified Translator, Davis, dolor, English, español, estornudo, inglés, kiss, language, Memphis, Mid-South, onomatopeia, onomatopeya, Pablo, Pablo Davis, pain, sneeze, Spanish, traducción, traductor, traductor certificado, translation, translator

Primary Sidebar

Interfluency Translation+Culture

Follow Blog via Email

Enter your email address, then click on Follow! to follow this blog and receive email notification of new posts.

    First Name *

    Last Name *

    Email Address *

    Latest Posts

    • Tonight, sometime around midnight, will mark the 300th anniversary of… well… how shall I put it?
    • Drinking a unique toast
    • The violent alienation of “ajeno”
    • No “mere drudge” or slinger of words: Our teacher and friend, Samuel Johnson

    Tags

    "Pablo J. Davis" cultura culture Davis English español inglés Julián Pablo Spanish traducción traductor translation translator
     

    About Us

    Interfluency Translation+ Culture offers top-quality, reliable, professional services in two broad areas: linguistic and cultural. We also consult to help organizations identify and implement meaningful, quality solutions to cultural and language-related challenges.

    Latest Posts

    3.4.18 Tonight, sometime around midnight, will mark the 300th anniversary of… well… how shall I put it?

    By PABLO J. DAVIS Sunday, March 4, 2018 Tonight marks an extraordinary anniversary… of an extremely ordinary event, one that occurs millions of times a day around the world. ...

    12.20.17 Drinking a unique toast

    Enlace para español/ Click here for Spanish Dear reader, In this season, many a glass is raised and “toasts” offered. The word seems to come from an old custom of using spiced ...

    12.10.17 The violent alienation of “ajeno”

    Enlace para español/Click here for Spanish Dear reader, Recently your faithful servant stumbled across a recording of a song he had heard from time to time, but has now had a chance ...

    Latest Tweets

    Tweets by Interfluency

    Contact Us

    • +1-901-288-3018
    • info@interfluency.com
     

    Copyright © 2022 Interfluency™ Translation+Culture

    Website by John Gehrig

    • Copyright Notice
    • Privacy Policy
    • Site Map
    • Contact Us