Top 10 spanish quotations of linguistic interest
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www.spanishling uist.us Top 10 Spanish quotations of linguistic interest 10 quotations from Spanish literature, from Old Spanish to Cervantes to 2011, that illustrate key aspects of the language yesterday and today.
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www.spanishlinguist.us
Top 10 Spanish quotationsof linguistic interest
10 quotations from Spanish literature, from Old Spanish to Cervantes to 2011, that illustrate key
aspects of the language yesterday and today.
www.spanishlinguist.us
1. Early 13th century:El Cid (trans. R. Hamilton and J. Perry)
Fijas del Cid porque las vós dexastesen todas guisas, sabed, que más valen que vós.
Because you deserted them, the Cid’s daughtersare superior to you in every respect.
Con estos caballeros que le sirven a su sabor.
‘With these knights who serve him willingly.’
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• These two quotations from El Cid, the epic poem generally
considered the earliest work of Spanish literature, show that
object pronoun usage in Old Spanish was both different from,
and similar to, usage today.
• The first quotation shows that object pronouns were still treated
somewhat like independent words, so that another word (in this
case, vós) could separate them from a verb.
• The second quotation shows that leísmo -- the use of le as a
direct object pronoun -- was already present in Old Spanish.
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2. 1276: Prologue to Alfonso el Sabio (ed.),Libro de la Ochava Esfera.
Tolló las razones que entendió eran sobejas et dobladas et que no eran castellano drecho, et puso las otras que entendió que complían.
‘He removed the expressions that he felt were superfluous or duplicated and that were not written in correct Castilian’. (trans. D. Pharies)
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• This is one of the earliest recorded explicit references to the Spanish
language: that is, castellano.
• King Alfonso X (1252-1284), known as Alfonso el Sabio ‘Alfonso the Wise’,
established Spanish as a national language of cultural significance.
• Himself a poet, Alfonso gathered a coterie of Christian, Muslim, and
Jewish scientists, translators, and writers to publish Spanish-language
treatises on subjects as diverse as history, astronomy, and games.
• In the process, he took steps to standardize and refine the new language.
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3. Before 1604: Lope de Vega, El viaje del alma
¿Dónde cae el mundo nuevo?¿Es la clima ardiente o fría?
Where is the New World?Is the climate hot or cold?
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• Most Spanish words that end in -a are feminine. Many exceptions
are intellectual terms of Greek origin, such as clima or tema.
• Although these words were masculine or neuter in Greek, Spanish
initially treated some as feminine: hence la and fría in the quotation.
• When Spanish borrowed more Greek words during the Siglo de Oro,
scholarly awareness caused most to be borrowed as masculines. At
this point most earlier borrowings became masculine as well.
• The gender of some words in this group, such as esperma ‘sperm’
and reuma ‘rheumatism’, still fluctuates.
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4. 1605: Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote
En un lugar de La Mancha, de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme…
Somewhere in La Mancha, in a place whose name I choose not to recall…
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• This quotation, the first sentence of Don Quijote, is probably the
most famous bit of Spanish prose.
• It derives its vigor in part from the simplicity and authenticity of
its vocabulary.
• All twelve words in the sentence passed directly from classical
Latin to Vulgar, or spoken Latin, then to Old Spanish, and finally
to the modern language.
• Today, only about a third of Spanish words fall into this category,
but they account for about two-thirds of Spanish word usage.
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5. 1924 and 1954:Pablo Neruda, “Oda al mar” and “Poema 20”
Ella me quiso, y a veces yo también la quería.
‘She loved me, and sometimes I loved her too.’
Me llamo mar, repite pegando en una piedra sin lograr convencerla, entonces … la recorre, la besa, la humedece.
‘”I am the sea”, it repeats,Hitting a rockwithout convincing it,then washes over it, kisses it,soaks it.’
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• These quotations show the expressive power of two aspects of Spanish
that challenge English-speaking students: gender and the past tense.
• In the first example, Neruda describes the interplay between the
aggressive (masculine) ocean and the passive (feminine) stone. As
Guy Deutscher points out, “the English ‘it caresses it, kisses it, drenches
it, pounds its chest’ is not quite the same”.
• In the second example, Neruda chose the preterite quiso to describe
his former lover’s affections, and the imperfect quería to describe his
own, thus implying that her love had ended more definitively than his.
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6. 1988: Magali García Ramis, Felices días Tío Sergio.
– ¿Ah Mami? ¿Ah, nos laj haces?– Nos lassss hacesss – corrigió Mami.– Bueno, nosss lass hacesss ¿Sí?
– Mom, will you make them for us?– Will you make them for us? – Mom corrected.– OK, will you make them for us?
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• This quotation highlights one of the most characteristic features of
Caribbean Spanish -- the weakening of final -s -- and its societal
setting.
• Final -s is also weakened (and even deleted) elsewhere in the
Spanish-speaking world, including parts of Spain.
• The mother’s correction of her child’s -s shows that speakers are
aware of this feature and consider it “incorrect”.
• The fact that -s deletion has nevertheless continued to spread makes
it what William Labov calls a “change from below”.
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7. 1991: Stephen King, It
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• This Spanish translation of It retains the English title because it has no
straightforward Spanish translation.• Spanish sentences usually drop subject pronouns, as in Es verde ‘(It) is green’.
This includes impersonal sentences such as Llueve ‘(It) is raining’.
• Verbs like gustar turn semantic objects, such as ‘it’ in Me gusta ‘I like it’, into
syntactic subjects that can be dropped.
• Since all nouns have gender, explicit pronouns are generally masculine or
feminine, as in Elena lo admira or Esta es bonita.
• Neuter pronouns like ello and eso exist, but are relatively uncommon.• This explains why eso is only a parenthetical subtitle in this edition.
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8. 2000: Arturo Pérez-Reverte, La carta esférica
Todo el rato, hasta que la cerró [la puerta] tras de sí, estuvo esperando que fuese hasta él y lo agarrara por el brazo, que lo obligase a mirarla a los ojos, que contara cualquier cosa para retenerlo.
‘The whole time, until he closed the door behind him, he was hoping that she would come after him and grab him by the arm, that she would make him look her in the eyes, and say anything to stop him.’
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• Considering that English rarely uses the subjunctive, it’s impressive
that Spanish has not only a present tense subjunctive, but two past
tense subjunctives: one with -ra endings, and one with -se endings.
• This is the only case I’m aware of in any language of this kind of
grammatical duplication.
• In this quotation Pérez-Reverte exploits the two forms of the past
subjunctive for expressive purposes.
• The alternation between -se and -ra forms adds internal structure
and rhythm to the sentence.
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9. 2010: Fernando Labarta Vélez,Circuitos Cerrados. La segunda guerra de las marcas
Ensimismada en su perfeccionismo obsesivo, quiso ser siempre la mujer perfecta: la perfecta estudiante, la perfecta hija, la perfecta empresaria, la perfecta compañera.
‘Absorbed in her obsessive perfectionism, she always wanted to be the perfect woman: the perfect student, the perfect daughter, the perfect businesswoman, the perfect mate.’
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• Spanish adjectives normally follow
nouns.
• Putting an adjective before a noun
changes its meaning or nuance.
• The quotation details the
stereotypical facets (adjective
before noun) that combine to
create a genuinely perfect woman
(adjective after noun).
Change Before the noun After the noun
figurative pobre ‘unfortunate’
pobre‘lacking money’
quantity/degree simple‘just one’
simple‘naïve’
subjective pequeña ciudad ‘one-horse town’
ciudad pequeña(refers to size)
stereotypical tímido cordero‘timid lamb’
hombre tímido‘timid man’
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10. 2011: María Dueñas, El tiempo entre costuras
Los señores que veía en mis idas y venidas por las calles prósperas de Madrid al repartir los encargos del taller de doña Manuela eran para mí como seres de otro mundo, entes de otra especia que en absoluto encajaban en el molde que en mi mente existía para la categoría de presencia paterna. (p. 34)
‘The gentlemen that I saw in my comings and goings through the prosperous streets of Madrid as I made my deliveries for Doña Manuela seemed like beings from another world who in no way lived up to my idea of a father figure.’
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• En absoluto ‘absolutely’ has come to mean ‘absolutely not’.
• This change started with the common phrase no…en absoluto.• An example from the same book is No me seduce en absoluto ‘He
doesn’t attract me at all’.
• First used to reinforce no, en absoluto is now negative on its own.
• This process is common enough to have its own name:
Jespersen’s cycle, after the linguist who first wrote about it.
• It is also responsible for the Spanish negatives nada, nadie,
jamás, and tampoco. For example, nadie comes from homines
nati, meaning ‘people born’.
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You can now pre-orderJudy Hochberg’s book
¿Por qué? 101 Questions about Spanish(Bloomsbury Academic Press)
