{"id":681,"date":"2015-02-28T14:03:55","date_gmt":"2015-02-28T20:03:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/interfluency.com\/?p=681"},"modified":"2021-02-21T17:25:53","modified_gmt":"2021-02-21T23:25:53","slug":"carry-that-weight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/interfluency.com\/en\/2015\/02\/28\/carry-that-weight\/","title":{"rendered":"Carry that weight"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/interfluency.wordpress.com\/2016\/02\/28\/portar-y-soportar\/\">Enlace para&nbsp;espa\u00f1ol\/Link for Spanish<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Dear reader:<\/p>\n<p>The languages we live in are very old, older than the earliest ancestors most of us can name.&nbsp;&nbsp; Yet most of our words are older still. Remember: go back more than 500 years and you will not find an English (or a Spanish) language you can understand\u2014but for many of the words we use, there is a lineage that goes back not a few hundred years, but&nbsp;<em>thousands<\/em>.<\/p>\n<div data-shortcode=\"caption\" id=\"attachment_1141\" style=\"width: 246px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1141\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1141\" src=\"https:\/\/interfluency.files.wordpress.com\/2016\/02\/mujer-llevando-canasta.jpg?w=630\" alt=\"Mujer llevando canasta\"><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-1141\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">What this woman is doing is the basis for one of the most powerful word roots in all of human language.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>What is the first thing we ever do in the world? Actually, it\u2019s less something we do than something done for us, the first thing done for us as separate beings, making all else possible: After nine months of giving us the very marrow of their bones, &nbsp;our mothers \u201cbear\u201d us into the world: we are \u201cborn.\u201d Old Engl. <em>beran<\/em> (to bear, bring, produce, endure) could trace its lineage back to Proto-Indo-European <em>*bher-<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>In ancient Greek (another Indo-European descendant), <em>pherein<\/em> is \u201cto carry\u201d or \u201cto bear\u201d\u2014the root of \u201cfer\u201d in \u201ctransfer.\u201d Carry a word over from one place (meaning) to another: <em>meta <\/em>+ <em>pherein<\/em> yields \u201cmetaphor.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s the same root shared by the <em>fer<\/em> element in words like <em>ferriferous<\/em> and <em>auriferous<\/em>, iron-bearing, gold-bearing.<\/p>\n<p>Latin turned <em>ph<\/em> into <em>p<\/em> and we got the <em>-port- <\/em>in \u201c<em>transport<\/em>\u201d (to carry across), \u201cimport\u201d (to bring in), to \u201ccomport\u201d (carry) oneself\u2014and so on, and on.<\/p>\n<p>Spanish <em>portar<\/em> is to bear\u2014<em>portar arma<\/em> is to be packing, to carry a weapon. An aircraft carrier is a <em>portaaviones<\/em>, a case for carrying papers a <em>portafolios<\/em> (portfolio), etc.<\/p>\n<p>To bear or endure a burden, is to \u201csupport it\u201d\u2014<em>soportar<\/em>, in Spanish. To \u201csuffer,\u201d <em>sufrir<\/em>, is the same root.<\/p>\n<p>The name of Christopher, the Christian saint and friend to travellers, comes from Church Greek <em>khristophoros<\/em>, literally Christ (<em>Khristos<\/em>) + bearing (<em>phoros<\/em>), as the saint is fused with medieval legend of a benevolent giant who helped travellers across rivers.<\/p>\n<p>From this sublime meaning to such a humble object as a \u201cwheelbarrow\u201d (a \u201cbarrow\u201d is for carrying, from that Old Engl. <em>beran<\/em>); the essential figure in poetry and language itself ( \u201cmetaphor\u201d); and reaching back to the very moment of our \u201cbirth\u201d: what unfathomable mystery and power in this word, in all its vast reach and its countless forms!<\/p>\n<p>Good words! &nbsp;\u00a1Buenas palabras!<\/p>\n<p>Pablo J. Davis<\/p>\n<p><em>A version of this essay originally appeared in the Nov. 20-26, 2015 edition of<\/em>&nbsp;La Prensa <em>Latina (Memphis, Tennessee) as number 157 in the weekly bilingual column,&nbsp;<\/em><em>\u201cMisterios y Engimas de la Traducci\u00f3n\/Mysteries and Enigmas of Translation\u201d. &nbsp;Pablo Juli\u00e1n Davis, PhD, CT is an ATA (Aamerican Translators Association) Certified Translator, Engl&gt;Span; a Tennessee State Courts Certified Interpreter, Engl&lt;&gt;Span; and an innovative trainer in the fields of translation, interpreting, and intercultural competency, with over 25 years experience. He holds the doctorate in Latin American History from The Johns Hopkins University, and is a Juris Doctor Candidate at the Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law, University of Memphis (May 2017).<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Enlace para&nbsp;espa\u00f1ol\/Link for Spanish Dear reader: The languages we live in are very old, older than the earliest ancestors most of us can name.&nbsp;&nbsp; Yet most of our words are older still. Remember: go back more than 500 years and you will not find an English (or a Spanish) language you can understand\u2014but for many [&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":[95,486,487,488,489,59,30,490,491,492,51,54,493,19],"class_list":{"0":"post-681","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-interflows-language-culture-blog","7":"tag-pablo-j-davis","8":"tag-bear","9":"tag-birth","10":"tag-born","11":"tag-carry","12":"tag-cultura","13":"tag-culture","14":"tag-etimologia","15":"tag-etymology","16":"tag-metaphor","17":"tag-pablo","18":"tag-traduccion","19":"tag-transfer","20":"tag-translation","21":"entry"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Carry that weight - 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\/2015\/02\/28\/carry-that-weight\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Carry that weight - Interfluency\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Enlace para&nbsp;espa\u00f1ol\/Link for Spanish Dear reader: The languages we live in are very old, older than the earliest ancestors most of us can name.&nbsp;&nbsp; Yet most of our words are older still. 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