Family Resemblances
Spanish and English are linguistic cousins in spite of the fact that the former derives almost directly from Latin while the latter is of decidedly Germanic origin. They are related because both Latin and German share a common ancestor: Indo-European. Of course we can only speculate as to the exact nature of this language which was spoken many thousands of years ago somewhere in the area of what is now the Indian peninsula, but even so it did exist, eventually breaking up into eight large branches, two of which are Italic and Germanic. Italic evolved into Latin and Osco-Umbrian while Germanic divided into North Germanic, East Germanic (Gothic) and West Germanic. Latin evolved into our modern Romance languages: Romanian, Italian, Rhaeto-Romanic, French, Provençal, Spanish, Catalan, and Portuguese. West Germanic, on the other hand, evolved into High German (which gave way to Modern High German and Yiddish) and Low German: the cradle of Afrikaans, Dutch, Flemish, Modern Low German, Frisian, and —last but not least— English. (For those who are interested, on the other side of Indo-European are the Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian groups, which eventually evolved into such diverse languages as Polish, Serbo-Croatian, Russian, Lithuanian, Persian, and Hindi). The only reason I’ve written this rather academic preamble is to demonstrate that English and Spanish are cousins, although they are many times removed. We tend to forget that detail because of the hundreds upon hundreds of loan words that have been accumulating in both languages since —roughly speaking— the Twelfth Century. While the island we now call Britain was indeed conquered by Latin-speaking Romans, it was through Medieval French, thanks to William the Conqueror in 1066, that the English language acquired so many words of Latin origin. And as far as Spanish is concerned, it began receiving a hardy influx of English loan words during the Nineteenth Century with the raising of the Union Jack over a good part of what we now call the Third World (Africa, India, and Asia). But it wasn’t until the Twentieth Century, and the hegemony of the United States, that it became extremely fashionable to pepper one’s Spanish with English words, in addition to the French terms already absorbed by the Castillian dictionary.
This has led to widespread chaos, which is probably why Richard Rancitelli of West Caldwell, New Jersey, has sent me an e-mail commenting on the word actual in Spanish. He figured that it meant “existing in reality or in fact”, as it does in English, for example: “We’re talking about actual tax records from the sixties”, as opposed to imaginary or supposed tax records from that decade. But when in Spanish he came out with “Estamos hablando de cantidades actuales de los años 60”, the people with whom he was speaking just sat there staring at him, trying to figure out why he would call tax records from 40 years ago actuales, when actual means “present” as in “right now”. If I were to say, for example, “Actualmente soy el novio de Shakira”, it would mean one of two things: either that I’m lying or that right now I’m Shakira’s boyfriend, as opposed to last week, when I was going out with Boyancé. If I wanted to say, in a sort of nonchalant way, “Actually, I’m Shakira’s boyfriend,” I’d have to utter something like: “En realidad, soy el novio de Shakira”. Two different things entirely. Mr. Rancitelli has thus touched on a very important topic: false cognates. These are two words, in two different languages, spelled similarly or in exactly the same way, seeming to mean the same thing, when in actuality they have nothing to do with each other. Let’s take a look at another example:
Eventual, eventual. These words are spelled in exactly the same manner, but they mean two totally different things in English and Spanish. In English the word refers to something that happens at an unspecified later time: “We are counting on Mexico’s eventual recovery”. It can also be synonymous with ultimate or final. But in Spanish, “eventual” means something that takes place on an irregular basis, as in “Jorge es un trabajador eventual”, meaning that he works on-and-off, not regularly. When these words become adverbs, the confusion only gets worse. In English I can say that “We are eventually going to purchase 25 super computers”. But in Spanish I should never write “Eventualmente compraremos 25 supercomputadoras”. This would be tantamount to saying that I would be buying, once in a while, 25 super computers. If I wanted to give the idea of something that will occur at some later date or after a certain time, I would have to say “en el futuro,” “tarde o temprano,” “después de un tiempo,” “más tarde,” or some other equivalent. Needless to say, this one-word alternative has proven very attractive to Spanish speakers (one could always use después), and —unfortunately— it has become almost ubiquitous all over the Hispanic world. It is unfortunate because, as a false cognate, it can easily become confused with the actual meaning of the word in Spanish, situation which may well lead to its elimination from everyday usage. This would eventually constitute a crying shame. So don’t get carried away with family resemblances.
If you would like to know more about any idiomatic expressions you
may have heard, or about any Spanish-language difficulties, feel free
to contact me at sandrocohen@gmail.com
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