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Memphis

2017-01-26 by Pablo J. Davis Leave a Comment

The handmade magic of “Cartonera” books: a feast for the eyes, a lift for the soul!

Memphis Cartonera: Cooperative Publishing, Art & Action
Exhibit at Rhodes College, Clough-Hanson Gallery
Opens Fri., Jan. 27, 2017 (5-7pm), through Mar. 18.
Artist-in-Residence: Nelson Gutiérrez

An extravaganza of color, lettering, images, and textures, these books want you to judge them by their covers. On a base of the plainest possible material—corrugated cardboard, repurposed from boxes and packaging—a delightful festival of creativity leaps out at the viewer.

Cartonera 8 tapas de libros 2017-01-26.png

What’s inside those covers? Some of the stories are original. Some are classics in the public domain. Some brim with illustrations, some are for coloring. The variations are endless. But the covers are all made of recycled cardboard, with hand-painted titles and artwork. Each one’s a personal statement—a true original.

Introducing the “Cartonera” (from the Spanish word for cardboard) phenomenon! This truly grassroots movement was born in Argentina during the early 2000’s economic crisis. Cartoneras are cooperative, neighborhood-based publishing ventures. They’ve spread throughout Latin America.

Now the movement has caught on here with the founding of “Memphis Cartonera” by Rhodes College students and local nonprofits. Dr. Elizabeth Pettinaroli, a Spanish literature and language professor at Rhodes who conducted field research on cartoneras in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Paraguay, has coordinated these efforts and led the mobilization of community partners.

These partners have included Centro Cultural (Cartonera comics), Cazateatro Bilingual Theater (Cartonera for adults/kids), Danza Azteca Quetzalcoatl (Spanish/Nahua poetry workshop), Refugee Empowerment Program (kids afterschool program), Latino Memphis/Abriendo Puertas (high-schoolers workshop), Caritas Village (Cartonera photo books for afterschool reading program).

It’s about rethinking art and literature’s place in our lives, fostering creativity, literacy, and sustainability.

A chance to learn more, talk with participants, and enjoy viewing some of the creations so far will be at the opening of a two-month-long exhibit Fri., Jan. 27 (5-7pm) at Rhodes College’s Clough-Hanson Gallery.  Nelson Gutiérrez will be the artist-in-residence throughout the exhibit. For more about the opening and a series of other activities, including workshops and talks by artist Gutiérrez, an info session on zines, and other events, please visit https://www.facebook.com/events/754637584693600/

Further info: Dr. Elizabeth Pettinaroli, 901-843-3828, pettinarolie@rhodes.edu. Sponsored by Rhodes College.

memphis-cartonera-letras-2017-01-26

Filed Under: Interflows Language+Culture Blog Tagged With: "Memphis Cartonera", cartonera, Elizabeth M. Pettinaroli, exhibit, Gutierrez, Latin American culture, Memphis, Nelson Gutierrez, Pettinaroli

2016-07-23 by Pablo J. Davis Leave a Comment

What good translation is “for”!

Enlace para español/Link here for Spanish

Dear reader,

 “Latinos para Trump” read signs at the GOP Convention. Clearly it meant “Latinos for Trump” but it didn’t say that: Spanish para can mean “for” but it’s not the same “for” used to indicate support of a candidate. (An even more unfortunate version of the sign, also seen at the convention, was  “Hispanics para Trump” which didn’t even use the Spanish word for “Hispanics”: hispanos.)

Latinos-Hispanics para Trump

Scenes from the Republican Convention held in Cleveland, Jul. 18-21, 2016.

The preposition para mainly means “for the purpose of, in order to, to be used by.” Papel para fotocopiadora, “paper for  photocopier, photocopy paper”; vegetales para ensaladas, “vegetables for salads, salad greens.”

“Latinos para Trump” says something like “Latinos to be used by Trump.” It should read: Latinos por (or con) Trump.

(We’ll revisit por/para again in the near future.)

The mistranslation unintentionally said some other things, too: “This sign was not made by a Latino” or (more accurately) “was not created by a native Spanish speaker.” Even worse: “We don’t care about Latinos, we just want their votes.”

Poor translation is poison: it undermines your message; makes you look foolish; and sends adverse signals—the worst being, “We don’t care enough to do this right.”

Every time an organization assigns a translation to some employee who happens to (it is believed) “speak Spanish,” the result will almost certainly be unfortunate—and maybe deadly: imagine the mistranslation of a safety warning!

Few of us would let our brother-in-law “who fools around with electrical stuff” do the wiring of our house. Or have the neighbor who once took a CPR course operate on our liver. But, in essence, that’s what’s routinely done with translation (and its spoken cousin, interpreting). These are professional, technical skills requiring training and experience, not something you can do just because you (sort of) know a second language—and not even just from being bilingual.

Filed Under: Interflows Language+Culture Blog Tagged With: "Pablo J. Davis", Certified Translator, Davis, Donald J. Trump, error, Hispanics, Hispanics para Trump, latinos, Latinos para Trump, Memphis, mistranslation, Pablo, translation, translator, Trump, wrong

2016-04-21 by Pablo J. Davis Leave a Comment

“Cartonera” publishers: books for (and by!) everyone

Enlace para español/Link here for Spanish

Some stories are original. Some are classics in the public domain. Some brim with illustrations, some are for coloring. The variations are endless. But the covers are all made of recycled cardboard, with hand-painted titles and artwork. Each one’s a personal statement—a true original.

cartonera foto1Introducing the “Cartonera” phenomenon! This truly grassroots movement was born in Argentina during the early 2000’s economic crisis. Cartoneras are cooperative, neighborhood-based publishing ventures. They’ve spread throughout Latin America.

Now the movement has caught on here with the founding of “Memphis Cartonera” by Rhodes College students and local nonprofits. Dr. Elizabeth Pettinaroli, a Spanish literature and language professor at Rhodes who conducted field research on cartoneras in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Paraguay, has coordinated these efforts and led the mobilization of community partners.

It’s about rethinking art and literature’s place in our lives, fostering creativity, literacy, and sustainability.

This spring’s ongoing workshops: Centro Cultural (Cartonera comics), Cazateatro Bilingual Theater (Cartonera for adults/kids), Danza Azteca Quetzalcoatl (Spanish/Nahua poetry workshop), Refugee Empowerment Program (kids afterschool program), Latino Memphis/Abriendo Puertas (high-schoolers workshop), Caritas Village (Cartonera photo books for afterschool reading program).

A chance to learn more, talk with participants, and enjoy viewing some of the creations so far will be on Sat., Apr. 23 (6-9pm) at StoryBooth, 431 N. Cleveland in Crosstown Arts: the Memphis Cartonera opening party and exhibition. Free and open to the public. Attendees can paint, read, and make their own Cartonera book! The event continues Sun,. Apr. 24 (12-5pm).

Further info: Dr. Elizabeth Pettinaroli, 901-843-3828, pettinarolie@rhodes.edu. Sponsored by Rhodes College.

Filed Under: Interflows Language+Culture Blog Tagged With: "Memphis Cartonera", books, cartonera, cultura, culture, humanidades, humanities, libros, Memphis, sustainable

2015-02-21 by Pablo J. Davis Leave a Comment

Ladybug, ladybug, don’t fly away!

Enlace para español/Link for Spanish

Dear reader:

We’re used to thinking of cultural difference.  But some things in this world are so inherently beautiful that people everywhere, and always, seem to have loved them. To name a few: butterflies, roses, kites, rainbows.

Este diminuto insecto, ¿puede que sea amado por todas las culturas humanas?

Is it possible that this little insect is loved by all human cultures?

A small, flying insect, usually red and spotted—English “ladybug,” Spanish mariquita (little Mary), vaquita de San Antonio (St. Anthony’s little cow), and other names—also has a strong claim on membership in this select group.

The English and Spanish names are subtly linked: the “lady” in “ladybug” seems to refer to the Virgin Mary.

Some others: French la bête à bon Dieu (the good Lord’s bug), Russian bozha kapovka (God’s little cow), Dutch lieveheerbeestje (the dear Lord’s little animal), Yiddish moyshe rabbeynus ferdele (or) kiyele (Moses’s little horse, or little cow).

Why this affection so strong it often crosses into the sacred? The ladybug’s pretty colors are not unlike a butterfly’s; the spots remind us of cows.  Ladybugs readily rest or walk on a human hand.  And mariquita, a farmer’s friend, eats such agricultural pests as the aphid.

Some religious traditions, like Judaism, shrink from naming the Deity, so the prophet Moses is used instead. Spanish also steers clear of God in naming this insect, displacing to the Virgin or St. Anthony.

Maybe the ladybug is one of those utterly joyous things whose contemplation once moved Robert Louis Stevenson to write: The world is so full of a number of things/I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.

             ¡Buenas palabras/Good words!

Pablo

Pablo Julián Davis, PhD, CT is a Certified Translator (ATA/American Translators Association) eng>spa and a Certified Interpreter (Tennessee State Courts) eng<>spa, as well as a recognized trainer in the fields of translation, interpreting, and cultural competence. He has over 25 years experience in these fields. An earlier version of this column was written for the Jan. 24-30, 2015 edition of La Prensa Latina (Memphis, Tennessee) as part of his bilingual weekly column Mysteries & Enigmas of Translation/Misterios y Enigmas de la Traducción.  

Filed Under: Interflows Language+Culture Blog Tagged With: "Pablo J. Davis", cultura, culture, Davis, English, español, inglés, Interfluency, ladybug, mariquita, Memphis, Pablo, San Antonio, Spanish, traducción, traductor, translation, translator, vaquita, vaquita de San Antonio

2013-11-21 by Pablo J. Davis Leave a Comment

How to work with an interpreter

If you’re a patient or physician, attorney or client, it’s quite probable that at one time or another you’ll use the services of a foreign-language interpreter. Some ideas and suggestions to keep in mind:

  1. An interpreter converts spoken dialogue from one language to another, a translator with written text. Two separate professions, two distinct sets of skills (though there are professionals who perform both, at a high level).
  2. Whenever possible, use the services of a professional interpreter certified by one of the following: Legal: The Supreme Court of your state (Certified is the highest level, while Registered means the person has not passed all of the required examinations), the Federal Courts, or NAJIT. Medical: IMIA, CCHI, or NBCMI. (The ATA certifies translators.) These certifications represent an important level of reliability and professionalism. And they can be verified; falsely claiming certification is fraud—an illegal act.
  3. It’s very common for bilingual children or friends to be used as interpreters. In legal and medical matters particularly, this is not advisable. There’s too much at stake to leave things in amateur hands. And there are issues that minor children should not be hearing and interpreting.
  4. Though it doesn’t feel natural, make every effort to look into the eyes of the person you’re talking to, of addressing them directly as “you”—almost as if the interpreter weren’t there. The interpreter is part of the interaction, facilitating your conversation, but is not part of the conversation, so you shouldn’t look at the interpreter and say, “Tell the doctor that…”  The interpreter must use the first person, “I” (Spanish yo) except when speaking for him or herself, and then it’s the third person: “The interpreter wishes to clarify…”
  5. There are two main modes of interpreting: consecutive and simultaneous. In consecutive, an individual speaks, then pauses while the interpreter interprets what was just said. If you’re using consecutive interpreting, it’s important that you keep your sentences short, so that the interpreter can be as accurate and complete as possible. If you’re stating numbers, addresses, or dates, say them slowly. In simultaneous interpreting, the interpreter conveys what’s being said in “real time”; a skilled professional interpreter can keep up with the pace of the person, or persons, for whom he or she is interpreting, usually with just 1 or 2 seconds’ delay.
  6. Interpreting is one of the most complex activities the human brain can perform. The pressure on the interpreter is great, especially in the legal and medical fields, and is mentally and physically exhausting. Respect the interpreter’s need for breaks (or the interpreters’ need, if the interaction is lengthy and there is more than one interpreter assigned to it), not just out of concern for that person’s health, but also in order to assure the highest possible level of work.
  7. If you’re unsure a word was interpreted (translated) correctly, just politely ask to go back to it.
  8. If the interpreter pauses to ask a question or get clarification of a particular point, don’t be alarmed: almost always, that is a sign of professionalism.
  9. If the interpreter’s utterances are significantly shorter, or longer, than those of the persons being interpreted, there could be a problem. The interpreter is not supposed to give a summary of what was said, nor embellish or add to it. It’s not a matter of the word count or timing being exactly the same, but the length and degree of detail between the original language and the interpreter’s version should be roughly comparable.

Pablo Julián Davis, PhD, CT, has more than 25 years of professional experience as interpreter and translator. As an interpreter, he is Certified by the Supreme Court of Tennessee and has passed the Federal Courts’ Written Examination. He performs varied interpreting work, with a legal/judicial specialization as well as work in medical and other fields. As a conference interpreter, he has worked with distinguished world personalities including Rigoberta Menchu Tum (Nobel Peace Prize laureate), theologian Ada María Isasi-Díaz, journalist David Bacon, the late writer Julio Cortázar, and others.

Filed Under: Interflows Language+Culture Blog Tagged With: Certified Translator, interpretation, intérprete, interpreter, interpreting, Memphis, traducción, traductor, traductor certificado, translation

2013-09-27 by Pablo J. Davis Leave a Comment

Hispanic Heritage: Why Spanish Matters

La Mezquita, or Cathedral-Mosque of Córdoba, southern Spain, is considered one of the treasures of humanity and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Its majestic geometry embodies the encounter of Africa, Europe, and Asia that unfolded in complex ways in medieval Spain and helped shape the modern Spanish language.

Spanish dominates foreign-language study in the US: 865,000 college students took it in 2009,  followed by French (216,000) and German (96,000). Spanish enrolls more than all other world languages combined. In K-12 public schools, the dominance is even greater: 2007-08 figures showed 6.4 million taking Spanish (72% of all foreign-language enrollment), French a very distant second at 1.3 million.

Why is the “language of Cervantes” so widely studied (if not always mastered)? Here are some of the more common reasons:

A large and growing population. The US’s Spanish-speaking population, over 40 million, surpasses all but a few Latin American countries. Many see Census numbers alone as proving the importance of Spanish and making it “the language to learn.” Not to mention geography: the US shares a border with the most populous Hispanic country in the world, and millions more Spanish speakers live in the Caribbean, not far from Florida’s shores.

Community service.  Idealistic young people in substantial numbers pursue Spanish to serve immigrant community needs such as literacy, health, legal aid, and education, or in missions of faith. In turn, those interactions often become an arena for “service learning” where classroom knowledge of the language is put to the enriching test of real-life experience.

It’s “easy”?  The perception of Spanish as easy to learn is widespread; college students typically see it as the shortcut to meeting language requirements.  It’s a half-truth: Spanish really is a marvel of grammatical and phonetic consistency, due in part to Nebrija’s 1492 Grammar (one of the earliest for a modern language) and the 1713 founding of the Royal Spanish Academy. But true mastery of the language is anything but easy to attain.

It’s “funny”? Fascination with “Spanglish”— incorporation of English words and patterns into immigrant speech—treats as odd the natural result of language contact between populations. In any case, this linguistic resource hardly amounts to a dialect, much less a separate language. Somewhat different is the popularity of “Faux Spanish”: “no problemo”, “perfectamundo”, “mucho macho”, or “el grande jefe” convey a playful, at times mocking, attitude towards Spanish and its speakers.

Laborers. Many North Americans associate Spanish with poorer, often undocumented, immigrants—an understandable perception based on current media and political obsessions, and perhaps personal experience.  In this view, the language is useful to communicate with, and manage, laborers. It’s not really a “serious” language, though: this was actually the message a prestigious private school in Virginia explicitly placed on its website in the recent past, with the boast that for reasons of academic rigor, they proudly offered only French as a foreign language. The same unexamined premise was shared by the judge in an Amarillo, Texas family court who infamously, in August 1995, ordered a Mexican-born immigrant mother to stop speaking in Spanish to her five-year-old daughter, as using that language constituted “child abuse” and would condemn the girl to a future “as a housemaid.” (Both the school and the judge did later about-faces in the light of avalanches of public criticism.)

A “quaint” culture.  It’s common to hear people express love for the culture, often in terms of salsa (cuisine) and salsa (music and dance).  Adjectives such as “colorful,” “quaint,” simple”, and “exotic” paint a Hispanic world of peasants, rural and village life, “traditions”. This view can unintentionally place Hispanic or Latino people in a primitive past, even outside of time. An associated perception sees Spanish as the language of places college students on Spring break and other tourists go to run wild, places—many of them—that the United States once conquered, occupied, or dominated. Indeed, this is the other side of the coin from language-of-manual-laborers. A long history of power relations has planted such deeply-rooted habits of thought.

Quite a mix of reasons (and it’s only a sampling)! Sincere interest in other cultures is there, as are a calling to service, faith, and love of justice. So, too, are simplistic romanticization, patronizing superiority, and power agendas.

Here are some other, crucial reasons why Spanish matters and why learning it is one of the best things you can do in the early 21st century:

A global language. Spanish now ranks second in the world in number of native speakers, with over 410 million (approximately 1 in 20 members of the human race), trailing only Mandarin Chinese. English, with over 360 million worldwide, is in third place, right behind (though when we add the number of people who speak English as a second language, it moves into second place). Portuguese, which I like to call Spanish’s “fraternal twin”—no living language is nearly so close a relation to English—has over 220 million native speakers, mostly in rising economic powerhouse Brazil; Spanish speakers can understand Portuguese to a considerable degree and have an automatic head-start in learning the language.

Economic power. The US’s 53 million Hispanics (1 in 6 people!) spend some $1.3 trillion annually; Spanish-speaking countries’ combined GDP, $3.4 trillion, equals industrial giant Germany; add sister nation Brazil, and at $5.9 trillion it matches Japan. There are countless markets to sell to, jobs to be done, texts to be translated, by people with significant mastery of the language (inseparable, in the end, from cultural understanding).

A world civilization.  Every language bears witness to a people’s experience and creativity.  For Spanish that includes ancient Iberian, Celtic, Roman, and Germanic legacies, as well as the unique Rom or ‘Gypsy’ presence (Spanish gitanos, a word derived from egiptanos and bearing witness to the passage of part of that wandering people into North Africa via Egypt); a near-millennium of Christian-Jewish-Muslim coexistence; the world’s first global empire; and, today, twenty multicultural societies of indigenous, African, European, and Asian heritage.  Just one example of the cultural richness that Spanish embodies: in societies viewed as overwhelmingly Christian, one says ¡Ojalá! (Arabic Inshallah) for “I hope so!”

The Knight of the Woeful Countenance. Likely the world’s best-known and loved work of fiction, Cervantes’s Don Quixote crowns a literature that includes the brilliant 17th-century Mexican poet Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz; the greatest of modern stylists, José Martí, who died fighting for Cuban independence; Chile’s beloved poet Pablo Neruda, Argentina’s Jorge Luis Borges with his metaphysical mysteries, and master storytellers of our lifetime like Colombia’s García Márquez, Peru’s Vargas Llosa, Mexico’s Carlos Fuentes, Chile’s Isabel Allende, Julia Alvarez of the Dominican Republic.

Recovering one’s own heritage.  Significant numbers of US-born (or raised) Hispanics are English-dominant, even monolingual (note that the Hispanic/Latino population, at 53 million, is larger than the Spanish-speaking figure of 40 million). For “heritage learners,” as the language-teaching profession calls those who grew up with significant home exposure to Spanish, learning it can be a powerful reclaiming of family and cultural legacy.

An outlook on life.  To master Spanish is to learn another way of being in the world, a peculiar combination of seriousness, humor, hierarchy, and dignity. The native English speaker learns to tuck away that ever-present, imperial pronoun “I” (the only one English capitalizes!), taking on a more sparingly-used yo: Spanish embodies a certain modesty.  One learns words for relationships and customs English can’t name: compadre or comadre if you’re their kid’s godparent, tocayo if you share the same name, sobremesa for staying at the table talking after a meal.  Saying Nos vemos mañana (See you tomorrow), one often adds si Dios quiere (God willing): a small linguistic bow to the Deity, or simply to life’s unknowns.

There are many valid reasons to learn Spanish; it’s fine as preparation for a Cancun vacation or to improve HR.  But a global economic force, a major world literature, and the quest for genuine intercultural fluency offer other motivations that can be mind-expanding, even life-changing.

Copyright ©2013 by Pablo J. Davis. All Rights Reserved.

Pablo J. Davis provides professionally-certified translation/interpreting services, and cultural coaching, through Interfluency.com. He has formal graduate training in Latin American History. A version of this article was published by The Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN) on Fri., Sep. 27, 2013.

Filed Under: Interflows Language+Culture Blog Tagged With: "Pablo J. Davis", bilingual, Certified Translator, culture, Davis, English, English-Spanish, español, foreign language, heritage, Hispanic, inglés, Latin America, Latino, Memphis, multicultural, multilingual, Pablo, Spain, Spanish, Spanish-English, translation, translator, USA

2013-06-15 by Pablo J. Davis Leave a Comment

Translating “bird” into Spanish

Dear reader,

E.G., a native English-speaking friend who’s quite proficient in Spanish, asked about the differences between aveand pájaro in translating “bird”.

For starters, both originate in Latin: avis and passer (sparrow), respectively.

How do the two Spanish words divvy up the turf of meaning—what linguists call the “semantic field”

Sparrow and ostrich: in Spanish both birds are aves, but only one would typically be called pájaro. Which one?

Ave (AH-veh, as in Ave María; that ave is a different word, a Latin greeting usually translated as “hail”) is a scientific term: the taxonomic class Aves. It’s broad, covering hummingbird and sparrow, turkey and heron.  It can name categories, e.g. birds of prey (aves de rapiña), poultry (aves de granja, literally “farm birds”), or songbirds (aves cantoras).  And it is often literary or poetic in tone.

Pájaro, true to its origins, is almost always used to mean used a relatively small, flying bird, typically a songbird.  Somewhat informal, it can also be applied humorously to birds that would usually not be so called: a penguin, for instance, or a goose, or a ñañdú (the three-toed South American counterpart of the ostrich).

In English, “bird” carries singly almost all the weight that in Spanish is shared by ave and pájaro. In English, the Latin root avis appears only in scientific or technical terms such as “avian”, “aviform”, or “aviation”.

In highly informal or vulgar language, pájaro can refer to the male genital organ, a connotation not absent from English: think of “flipping the bird” for the obscene, middle-finger gesture. In some (particularly Caribbean) countries, pájaro, pato (duck) and the like can mean male homosexual.

Bird-related expressions where English and Spanish coincide include “A little birdie told me” (Me lo contó un pajarito) and calling someone “a strange bird” (rara avis).

On the other hand, Pájaro que comió, voló (literally: Bird that ate, flew away) is rendered in English simply as “Sorry to eat and run”.  And saying something is “for the birds”, or worthless, in English, has no avian counterpart in Spanish, although in Argentina the rhymed expression “Alpiste, perdiste” (literally: Birdseed, you lose) is common in a situation where someone has said something they regret, or otherwise made a mistake.

While we’re on the subject of birds, we can’t help but think of the humorous definition of Homo sapiens, often attributed to Plato, as “the featherless biped”.

¡Buenas palabras!

Pablo

Copyright © 2013 by Pablo Julián Davis. All rights reserved. A version of this essay was originally written for the June 23-29, 2013 edition of La Prensa Latina (Memphis, Tennessee), as part of the regular bilingual column “Mysteries and Enigmas of Translation”. Pablo Julián Davis (www.interfluency.com) is an ATA Certified Translator (inglés>español) and a Supreme Court of Tennessee Certified Interpreter (inglés<>español) who also provides custom-designed cultural/linguistic coaching and training.

Filed Under: Interflows Language+Culture Blog Tagged With: "Pablo J. Davis", ave, bird, Certified Translator, culture, English, español, inglés, language, Memphis, Mid-South, Pablo Davis, pájaro, Spanish, traducción, traductor, traductor certiticado, translation, translator

2013-05-29 by Pablo J. Davis Leave a Comment

CIA and “SEE-ya”: Adventures in translating abbreviations

Dear reader,

The name of the agency is abbreviated, in English, as an initialism (each letter pronounced separately, “C-I-A”). In Spanish, the initialism is transformed into a true acronym, pronounced as if it were a word: “SEE-ya”.

In an earlier column, we observed how  abbreviations made up of initial letters (sometimes, initial syllables), can be divided into two subtypes: (i) acronyms like PIN or  RAM, which are pronounced like words, and (ii) initialisms like ATM or NGO, pronounced letter-by-letter. These abbreviations present many curiosities and challenges to the translator. Here are just a few examples…

  • Where English uses the initialism “UN” for the United Nations, Spanish has“ONU” (pronounced “OH-new”), for Organización de las Naciones Unidas.
  • The birth of “laser” as an acronym for “Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation” was long forgotten in English by the time Spanish officially adopted láser.  Likewise for “radar”, “scuba”, and “MIDI”.
  • “CIA”, a famous initialism, is different. The agency’s name has an official Spanish translation: Agencia Central de Inteligencia,  but the Spanish abbreviation, oddly, is not “ACI”. Rather, Spanish long ago imported the initialism directly and made it an acronym: CIA (pronounced “SEE-yah”). An additional oddity is that the acronym is occasionally spelled Cía, which, with a period following, happens to be the Spanish abbreviation forCompañía (Company)—and “The Company” is a fairly well-known nickname for that agency.
  • Yet another situation is that of “compact disc”. This term has an accepted Spanish translation, disco compacto.  As with “CIA”, though, the abbreviation is not “DC” (as you might expect) but “CD”, straight from English.  Until about a decade ago, this was usually pronounced “seh-DEH” in the Hispanic world; but, more and more, Spanish speakers use English phonetics to say it: “see-DEE”.

Much agility is needed to translate and interpret these terms. The circumstances of their birth are diverse—and so are the paths they take from one language to another.

¡Buenas palabras!
Pablo

Copyright © 2013 by Pablo Julián Davis. All rights reserved. A version of this essay was originally written for the 12-18 May 2013 edition of La Prensa Latina (Memphis, Tennessee), as part of the regular bilingual column “Mysteries and Enigmas of Translation”. Pablo Julián Davis (www.interfluency.com) is an ATA Certified Translator (inglés>español) and a Supreme Court of Tennessee Certified Interpreter (inglés<>español) who also provides custom-designed cultural/linguistic coaching and training.

Filed Under: Interflows Language+Culture Blog Tagged With: "Pablo J. Davis", abbreviations, abreviaturas, acrónimos, acronyms, certificado, certified, cultura, culture, Davis, English, español, idiomas, inglés, inicialismos, initialisms, language, lenguaje, Memphis, Memphis translator, Pablo, Spanish, Tennessee, traducción, traductor, traductor en Memphis, translation, translator

2013-05-02 by Pablo J. Davis Leave a Comment

How we “save a file” in Spanish

Dear reader,

It’s something yours truly will do in a few minutes, you will likely do more than once today… and forgetting to do it can sometimes bring real headaches.

We’re talking about one of the most common, ordinary acts of contemporary life: preserving what you’ve written or changed in a computer document: “saving a file”. This term has no single, accepted Spanish translation; rather, there are various options.

When you stop to think about it, “file” is a strange noun to use for a single document; its ordinary, non-computing meanings are a device, drawer, or piece of furniture where documents are kept; or a folder holding papers on a matter or topic. The computing sense of “file” is usually rendered as Spanish documento or archivo, with the latter increasingly dominant.

Archivo, whose standard meanings include a cabinet or archive (a room or building where many documents are held), is also a curious thing to call a letter or other simple document.

And “to save”? Here, also, there are two main possibilities: salvar or guardar.  The first directly translates “save”, but with a discordant connotation of rescue that the English word can shed. The second conveys well the notion of preserving, but with the added sense of putting away—which doesn’t quite fit, as we “save a file” frequently while working on it.

Both languages struggle with the novelty of computing: what we do when we “save a file” has no exact analogy in the world of pen and paper, or even typewriter.

¡Buenas palabras!

Pablo

Copyright © 2013 by Pablo Julián Davis. All rights reserved. A version of this essay was originally written for the 5-11 May 2013 edition of La Prensa Latina (Memphis, Tennessee) as part of the weekly bilingual column “Mysteries and Enigmas of Translation. Pablo Julián Davis (www.interfluency.com) is an ATA Certified Translator (Eng>Spa) and a Supreme Court of Tennessee Certified Court Interpreter (Eng<>Spa).

Filed Under: Interflows Language+Culture Blog Tagged With: "Pablo J. Davis", archivo, Certified Translator, computación, computadoras, computing, Davis, document, documento, English, español, file, guardar un archivo, informática, inglés, language, léxico, Memphis, Mid-South, Pablo, Pablo Davis, save a file, Spanish, traducción, traductor, traductor certificado, translation, translator, vocabulario, vocabulary

2013-04-15 by Pablo J. Davis Leave a Comment

After the meal, the lovely (and untranslatable?) ‘sobremesa’

Dear reader,

Imagine a tasty and pleasant meal shared with friends, or at a family reunion.  Dessert is finished.  Now comes coffee, or perhaps cordials… maybe some other confection… and more coffee… And all the while, the conversation rolls on, the stories, the jokes.

Spanish has a term for it: la sobremesa, when the talk and the laughter are just more food and drink.

After the meal, that long session of coffee, or tea, or wine, or dessert, or a combination of these… but conversation as the main dish. It’s the ‘sobremesa’ so important in Spanish/Latin American culture… and virtually untranslatable into English.

How to translate this lovely, expressive word into English?

That’s quite a puzzle, because sobremesa simply has no exact equivalent in English—not even a fairly close one.

The attempts at translation we’ve seen (“table talk,” “after-dinner conversation,” and “sitting on after a meal,” among others) describe it, barely. And, really, la sobremesa is more than any of those things!

But, phrases like these may be the best we have.  Sometimes that’s how we translate, by describing, even if the result is inexact and clumsy.

At other times, the foreign word is used directly.  It typically happens when the translator has the need, or luxury, of emphasizing how different the other culture is: this is the case of many novels and anthropological accounts.

It’s an intriguing question, why one language lacks a word for something another names. Clearly, English speakers have “sobremesas,” though likely less frequent and less lengthy.  Our sense is that it doesn’t quite have enough importance, in this culture, to have “rated” being given a name.

¡Buenas palabras!

Pablo

Copyright 2013 Pablo Julián Davis. All rights reserved.

Filed Under: Interflows Language+Culture Blog Tagged With: "Pablo J. Davis", certificado, certified, comida, conversación, costumbres, cultura, culture, customs, Davis, English, español, inglés, intérprete, interpreter, language, lenguaje, meal, Memphis, Pablo, Pablo Davis, sobremesa, Spanish, traducción, traductor, translation, translator

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