{"id":596,"date":"2012-10-17T10:13:12","date_gmt":"2012-10-17T15:13:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/interfluency.com\/?p=596"},"modified":"2021-02-21T17:13:31","modified_gmt":"2021-02-21T23:13:31","slug":"mysteries-and-enigmas-of-translation-you-say-tamal-i-say-tamale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/interfluency.com\/en\/2012\/10\/17\/mysteries-and-enigmas-of-translation-you-say-tamal-i-say-tamale\/","title":{"rendered":"Mysteries and Enigmas of Translation: You say \u201ctamal\u201d, I say \u201ctamale\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dear readers,<\/p>\n<p>Tamales have been a favorite food in the US for over a century.&nbsp; Oddly, Spanish&nbsp;<em>tamal<\/em>&nbsp;is generally not used in the singular&mdash;English speakers tend to say &ldquo;<strong>a tamale<\/strong>&rdquo;.<\/p>\n<p>This use is so widespread, especially in the phrase &ldquo;hot tamale&rdquo; (already a favorite item for sale from roadside stands and urban street vendors before the First World War), that it must be considered the correct English singular.<\/p>\n<p>Another common phrase, &ldquo;a (real) hot tamale&rdquo;, describes a physically attractive woman, with a likely added connotation of sparkling, magnetic personality.<\/p>\n<p>Why does English use this &ldquo;incorrect&rdquo; singular?<\/p>\n<p>One hypothesis: English speakers inferred from the Spanish plural&nbsp;<em>tamales<\/em>&nbsp;that the singular must be formed by removing final &lsquo;s&rsquo; (the English rule). Linguists call this &ldquo;back-formation&rdquo;; it&rsquo;s how the verb &ldquo;televise&rdquo; arose from &ldquo;television&rdquo;, or &ldquo;gruntled&rdquo; as a humorous opposite of &ldquo;disgruntled&rdquo;.<\/p>\n<p>The other possibility: the indigenous (Nahuatl) singular,<em>tamalli<\/em>, was widely used in old Mexican North\/US Southwest Spanish dialect; Anglos might have picked up &ldquo;tamale&rdquo; that way.<\/p>\n<p>But retroformation is highly likely.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s what&rsquo;s behind &ldquo;a frijole&rdquo; (instead of<em>&nbsp;frijol<\/em>), for instance.<\/p>\n<p>The process occurs in all languages. In medieval Spanish, Sant&rsquo;Iago (Saint James) became&nbsp;<strong>Santiago<\/strong>; retroformation led people to believe the saint&rsquo;s name was Tiago (San Tiago).&nbsp; From there came the &ldquo;invention&rdquo; of the name Diego, highly popular today.<\/p>\n<p>&iexcl;Buenas palabras!<\/p>\n<p>Pablo<\/p>\n<p>PS For a further reflection on &ldquo;tamale&rdquo; vs&nbsp;<em>tamal,&nbsp;<\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/interfluency.wordpress.com\/2012\/10\/19\/mysteries-enigmas-of-translation-the-cha-cha-and-one-more-hot-tamale\/\">please click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em>A version of this essay first appeared in&nbsp;<\/em>La Prensa Latina,<em>&nbsp;Memphis, Tennessee, on 23 Sept. 2012.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dear readers, Tamales have been a favorite food in the US for over a century.&nbsp; Oddly, Spanish&nbsp;tamal&nbsp;is generally not used in the singular&mdash;English speakers tend to say &ldquo;a tamale&rdquo;. This use is so widespread, especially in the phrase &ldquo;hot tamale&rdquo; (already a favorite item for sale from roadside stands and urban street vendors before the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[93],"tags":[179,180,161,58,59,29,30,10,11,45,36,126,181,182,183,47,101,184,12,13,48,24,50,39,25,51,52,185,186,187,188,189,54,55,19,20],"class_list":{"0":"post-596","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-interflows-language-culture-blog","7":"tag-back-formation","8":"tag-borrowings","9":"tag-certified","10":"tag-comparative","11":"tag-cultura","12":"tag-cultural","13":"tag-culture","14":"tag-english","15":"tag-english-spanish","16":"tag-espanol","17":"tag-hispanic","18":"tag-hispano","19":"tag-hot","20":"tag-hot-tamale","21":"tag-influence","22":"tag-ingles","23":"tag-interfluency","24":"tag-interlinguistic","25":"tag-interpreter","26":"tag-interpreting","27":"tag-julian","28":"tag-language","29":"tag-latin-american","30":"tag-latino","31":"tag-linguistic","32":"tag-pablo","33":"tag-pablo-julian-davis","34":"tag-retroformacion","35":"tag-tamal","36":"tag-tamal-or-tamale","37":"tag-tamale","38":"tag-tamales","39":"tag-traduccion","40":"tag-traductor","41":"tag-translation","42":"tag-translator","43":"entry"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Mysteries and Enigmas of Translation: You say \u201ctamal\u201d, I say \u201ctamale\u201d - Interfluency<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/interfluency.com\/en\/2012\/10\/17\/mysteries-and-enigmas-of-translation-you-say-tamal-i-say-tamale\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mysteries and Enigmas of Translation: You say \u201ctamal\u201d, I say \u201ctamale\u201d - Interfluency\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Dear readers, Tamales have been a favorite food in the US for over a century.&nbsp; Oddly, Spanish&nbsp;tamal&nbsp;is generally not used in the singular&mdash;English speakers tend to say &ldquo;a tamale&rdquo;. This use is so widespread, especially in the phrase &ldquo;hot tamale&rdquo; (already a favorite item for sale from roadside stands and urban street vendors before the [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/interfluency.com\/en\/2012\/10\/17\/mysteries-and-enigmas-of-translation-you-say-tamal-i-say-tamale\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Interfluency\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-10-17T15:13:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-02-21T23:13:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Pablo J. Davis\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Pablo J. 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