Like A Candle In The Wind

 

 By Alli Sinclair

Growing up in a country that is part of the Commonwealth, it was normal for me to see photos and hear stories about English monarchs. But when I walked through the doors of a tea house in Gaiman, Argentina, I hadn’t expected the Princess of Wales would be staring straight back at me.

Set in Argentina’s Patagonia region, Gaiman is home to the descendents of Welsh immigrants who arrived on these windswept plains in 1865. Back then, the Welsh were looking for a way to protect their lifestyle that had become endangered by the English. The Argentine government wanted to promote immigration to Argentina and offered the Welsh 100 square miles of land along the Chubut River in southern Patagonia. In exchange, the Welsh made a deal that the Argentines would respect their language, religion, and traditions. Who knew that years later, the Argentines would have their own issues with the English when it came to the Falkland Islands (or las Islas Malvinas, as the Argentines call it)?

The settlers arrived on a converted tea-clipper and found they had been given false promises. The supposed fertile land was arid, and little food was available. Floods washed away their crops and hampered construction of towns. The Argentine government introduced conscription and insisted the Welsh men drill on Sundays, even though it went against the Christian principles of the settlers. A wide rift grew between the Welsh and the Argentine government, but it wasn’t enough to stop more Welshmen from travelling to Argentina over the next 50 years. By the time immigration stopped just before World War I, approximately 2,300 Welsh had arrived.

As I strolled through the streets of Gaiman back in 2000, it was difficult to remember this was an Argentine town. The concrete block buildings found in Argentine suburbia weren’t common in this quaint town. Instead, Gaiman’s streets were lined with weatherboard houses with white shutters, lush gardens were in full bloom, and the air sagged with the scent of roses. Tea houses surrounded the settlement and Welsh tea, accompanied by pastries, cakes, and other delectable delights were on the menu.

In a hallway of the Ty Te Caerdydd tea house, Princess Diana of Wales is honored at a shrine of sorts. A large photo of the former princess in royal regalia is framed by bunches of roses and the original tea set she drank from when she visited the establishment sits under her picture. The day Diana visited, a children’s choir sang in Welsh, and she shook the hands of each child. She drank tea and ate pastries and when she left, despite being forbidden to accept flowers for security reasons (!!), she took a red rose from a bouquet.

On the 31^st of August every year, the anniversary of her death, the Welsh descendants gather to pay their respects to the Princess of the People. The Argentine Welsh have an undying love for an English woman, which is ironic, given they once had such contempt for the English. Maybe their adoration for Diana was a result of her charm, or perhaps it was because she appeared to be a thorn in the side of the “real” royals.

The Eisteddfod, a Welsh tradition, is held every year and plays an important role in Patagonian heritage. Choir singing, poetry, and dancing competitions are held during the Eisteddfod, and keep the Welsh tradition alive. The water channels the Welsh built were Argentina’s first man-made irrigation system and are now used all over the country. It is one of the reasons Argentina has thrived in the farming arena for so many years.

I’ve often wondered why my connection to Argentina has always been strong. When I discovered my own Welsh heritage and its connection to Argentina, everything fell into place. No wonder this invisible umbilical cord that attaches me to Argentina feels like it could never be severed.

How about you? Have you ever travelled somewhere and realized the bond with the place is because of your ancestry?

I Say Tomate, You Say Tomato – English, Arabic, and Spanish Word Migration

Photo by Fastily Talk

It wasn’t until I started learning Spanish as an adult that I realised a lot of words used in English were, in fact, of Spanish origin. I grew up with words such as cargo, chilli, chocolate, and oregano, using them in the English sense but not having a clue about their beginnings.

English and Spanish are both part of the Romance language family (along with Italian, Portuguese, French, Romanian, and Catalan), so once I got my head around learning a new language, Spanish didn’t feel so hard (except for the grammar, don’t get me started on the grammar!). Since becoming fluent in Spanish, I’ve found I can read or hear other romance languages and get the general gist. And when words from one language are used in another in the same context (or at least sounds similar), then it makes life a lot easier.

American English (as most of you know) comprises of a lot of Spanish words passed to us from Mexican and Central and South American immigrants. This influence dates back to the days of the Gold Rush, and with more adventurous palates, Spanish words are used to describe certain dishes of which there is no English equivalent. Sometimes we adapt a foreign word even though there is a version in English – coriander is often substituted with cilantro, a Spanish word of French origin.

But it’s not just Spanish that influenced the English language. A lot of Spanish words have strong ties to Arabic, harking back to the occupation of the Iberian Peninsula in the 5^th century and continuing on into the 8^th and 9^th centuries. Many people of Islamic descent occupied this region, and as time went on, many Arabic words migrated into the Spanish language. You’ll find many words in English that begin with al have Arabic origins and commonly a Spanish influence. Classic examples are alcove and alfalfa.

The Internet and increasing travel opportunities have opened up new worlds of language, so it's no surprise that words from numerous languages are adopted across borders. Perhaps one day, there will be a single common language, such as Esperanto (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto), but in the meantime, English will continue to adopt new words from different cultures and put its own spin on it.

Photo by Enzik

Here some examples of Spanish to English (with a bit of Arabic, Caribbean, Nahuatl, Quechua, and Arawak thrown in):

adios

aficionado

alcove (Arabic al-qubba)

alfalfa (Arabic al-fasfasah..)

alligator (from el lagarto, "the lizard")

alpaca (Aymara allpaca)

armada

armadillo (means "the little armed one")

banana (originally an African word but was adopted in Portuguese and Spanish then English)

barbecue (Caribbean barbacoa)

barracuda

bonanza

bravo (Italian and old Spanish)

cafeteria (cafetería)

canyon (cañon)

cargo (Spanish meaning to load -- cargar)

chaps (chaparreras)

chihuahua (dog breed named after Mexican city and state)

chocolate (Nahuatl language xocolat)

cigar, cigarette (Spanish cigarro)

cilantro

cinch (Spanish word cincho)

condor (Quechua)

conquistador

corral

el Niño (means the child and this weather pattern was named this because it appeared close to Christmas)

enchilada (Spanish participle enchilar which means to season with chili)

fajita (In Spanish faja means a sash or belt which best describes the cut of meat)

fiesta

flan

flotilla

Picture by John Ryan M. Debil

galleon (Spanish galeón)

garbanzo

guacamole (Nahuatl ahuacam, "avocado," and molli, "sauce")

guerrilla

hacienda (silent H in Spanish)

incomunicado

jalapeño

llama (Quechua)

machete

machismo

maize (Spanish maíz but originally from the Arawak mahíz)

mariachi (a Mexican musician that performs a special type of music)

matador (in Spanish it means a person who kills)

mosquito

nacho

oregano (from orégano)

papaya (Arawak)

patio (often means courtyard in Spanish)

piñata

plaza

poncho (originally Araucanian, an indigenous South American language)

potato (Caribbean batata)

puma (Quechua)

rodeo

salsa (In Spanish this word refers to any sauce or gravy)

sassafras (sasafrás)

savvy (Derives from sabe which means to know)

siesta

silo

sombrero (The Spanish version of this means any hat, not just the Mexican hats most people think of. The word originates from sombra, which means shade)

stampede (estampida)

tango

tequila (named after a Mexican town that makes this drink)

tobacco (Caribbean tabaco)

tomatillo

tomato (Nahuatl tomatl)

tornado (tronada which means thunderstorm)

tortilla (in Spanish, an omelette is called a tortilla)

tuna (atún)

vanilla (vainilla)

vigilante

yucca (Caribbean yuca)

The Traveling Word – Denglish, Yenglish, and Linguistic Globetrotters

Public Viewing in Berlin
Photo by Thalan

I love it when words go a-travelin’. I picture them walking down the syntactical breezeway on their spindly, alphabetical legs, clad in a Hawaiian shirt, a Stetson on their vowelly heads. And like some global travelers, the first thing that happens to these linguistic tourists is they immerse themselves in the local culture and gain an experience that changes them forever.

When the globetrotting word or phrase is English (or American or Australian, for that matter) and the language receiving it German, the cultural merger is known as Denglish – a melding of “Deutsch” (German) and “English.” These words have been absorbed from English into German, sometimes undergoing a semantic shift along the way so that they no longer mean exactly the same thing they did in the original language.

Here are a few of my favorites:

A Handy (pronounced “hendy”) is what German speakers call a cell phone. This word has been around so long, it isn’t really Denglish anymore but a regular German expression. And while cell phones are certainly “handy” (some would say “indispensable”), the term is based on the human appendage and not on the device’s convenience. “Handy,” in its German usage, may have been derived from Motorola’s Handie-Talkie AM SCR536, a handheld radio transceiver American troops used in World War II.

A public viewing, in American English at least, has me picturing funerals and corpses, especially when the deceased is famous. Michael Jackson had a public viewing when he died, as did Teddy Kennedy. But in Germany, you’re likely to find a Public Viewing at a soccer game. There, it refers to the live broadcasting of sports matches, concerts, or other major events on oversized video screens set up in public areas such as city squares, shopping malls, or bars.

The German term was coined in 2006 during preparations for the World Cup Soccer Championships. FIFA, the International Federation of Association Football, introduced Fan Fest events, where they broadcast the matches on video screens in major cities around Germany. The reason, ostensibly, was because they’d miscalculated the number of fans attending the World Cup and didn’t have enough tickets to sell.

Interestingly, the Denglish version of “public viewing” has migrated back into English usage, at least in the media, where it is now applied to sports broadcasts. But for me, the expression will always have to do with a state funeral.

Here’s another of my favorite Denglish words: If a German speaker were to ask me to turn on the Beamer, she wouldn’t be suggesting I get into the luxury car sitting in my garage (I wish!) and warm up the engine. In German, a Beamer is not a BMW but a video projector. The term is derived from the English verb “to beam” or shine a light, which is precisely what a projector does.

Denglish also works in the opposite direction. Take the über-use of über. In American English these days, the expression is a prefix meaning “the most,” “the best,” or “the ultimate.” We have über-achievers (especially here in Silicon Valley), who are a step up from overachievers. The chocolate fudge cake you ate for dessert was probably über-yummy, and if you have a teenage girl in your family, chances are you’ve heard her refer to her brother as an “über-dork.”

The German original has the connotation of exaggeration as well – as in übertreiben (to exaggerate). But über in German can mean “across,” as in übersetzen (to translate – literally to transport words across linguistic boundaries). And it can stand on its own; über means “over” or “via” or “above.” Note that Germans always write über with an umlaut (the two dots over the u), while the term is becoming so well integrated into English that it’s often written without the dots.

Then we have the English word, “mensch” – a decent person. Jimmy Stewart in It’s A Wonderful Life is a mensch – a regular, stand-up guy. Rhett Butler from Gone With The Wind is not. Except in German he is, because Mensch in that language means, simply, a human being, male or female, neither good, bad, nor devious. In English, though, mensch isn’t really Denglish. It’s Yenglish, because English borrowed the word from Yiddish (which, in turn, got it from German). This globetrotter has a lot of stamps in its passport.

What are some of your favorite traveling words? Any Denglish, Yenglish, Spanglish, or Franglais in your vocabulary?

Oh, English! How Do I Love Thee!

My parents always said that they would leave the Soviet Union at the first opportunity, so I’ve studied English since my early childhood. I took it in school and later in college, and I spent hours crafting letters to my Los Angeles pen pal Maya, a daughter of my father’s university friend, who, unlike my family, had been lucky enough to escape the authority’s clutches. 

Before we embarked on our American journey, I also took an immersive English intensive class so by the time I got off the Boeing, I thought of myself as a pro. On my fifth day in New York and my first subway experience, I approached a bystander with a well-rehearsed question, “Sir, would you be so kind as to tell me what train I should take to Broadway?” His answer was, “Ain’t no train taking you to B’way from here. You gotta take the E to the Eighth Avenue and schlep crosstown.” His statement left me confused about much more than traveling to my destination. I never heard of a contraction form ain’t, a verb gotta, or the word schlep. But this was only the beginning of my long English journey, from British to American to New Yorkese.

Three months later, when the street slang baffled me no more, I started college. After my first day in school, I laid out my heavy textbook next to an even heavier English-Russian dictionary and proceeded to translate every word on the page I didn’t know, writing its meaning in Cyrillic above the Roman letters. When I was done with the chapter, I read it to myself in Russian and realized in sheer horror, that it still didn’t make any sense whatsoever! I lowered my head on my textbook and cried, utterly convinced that I will never understand this indecipherable language that had more tenses than I had fingers to count, imposed auxiliary verbs on some sentences but not all, and used the same words to describe two or three completely different concepts!

Two and a half years later, I completed my bachelor’s degree that I’d earned cum laude. To this day, I don’t know how I managed that achievement, but it still didn’t take me any closer to my goal: being able to write a story in English. I no longer had to translate words in a textbook, but I still needed a dictionary to get through a novel. Accustomed to reading classic literature for the beauty of the language, I kept putting down every book I started, bogged down by the sheer amount of vocabulary I still didn’t understand. To trick myself, I switched to crime fiction, figuring I would have to finish the book to find the villain. I wrote down fifty new words from every paperback and hardcover I read and memorized them before moving onto the next target. After six months, I decided it was time to pick up my own pen.

God, even I couldn’t read my first passages without tears! My sentences were awkward and long – like Leo Tolstoy’s, my characters spoke with a Russian accent and my metaphors and jokes didn’t translate. I bought myself a dictionary of Russian-English idioms. It became my bible of the year, eventually replaced by an era of prepositions. “Why do you say in the backyard, but on the plaza?” I desperately questioned my husband, trying to find logic in the idiosyncrasies of the Roman language. “Why do you say on the table, but in the chair?” The mysterious usage of articles was next. Why was it The New York Times, but Times Square, and at what point did a bowl of soup become the bowl of soup?

And just when I fancied myself having conquered the spelling rules, I discovered there was more to it than I’d thought. Russian is extremely phonetic so instead of spelling bees, we had dictations, writing down passages a teacher slowly read from a book. Yet because my first language didn’t differentiate between the æ, ɒ, and ʌ sounds, I was deaf to the intricate differences of flush and flash, crush and crash, bonnie and bunny, or bog and bug. The more words I learned, the more spelling confusion they created in my head. The words heel, hill, and heal sounded exactly the same. Cease and seize or knight and night were phonetic twins. Even couch and coach had such a similar ring to them, I always had to think which one was which. Once I sent my writing class into a laughing fit when I misspelled John Doe as Jon Dough.

Strangely enough, I practically never make the classic mistakes so many Americans do. I never confuse two, to, and too; it’s and its; than and then; or their and there. More so, I have recently heard from two editors I work with that my articles are cleaner and require less rewriting than the average freelancer they work with. I attributed it to the genius of spell-checking programs, my general paranoia, and my obsessive-compulsive tweaking sentences to perfection. Having a husband who can fix my messed up a’s and the’s is a gift from god. Every writer needs an editor and having one in house certainly helps. But the most important thing for me was perseverance. 

Speaking of which, I ain’t giving up on my schlep to being published – gotta go send out a few queries!