Post-Revolutionary Cuban Spanish:
A Glossary of Social, Political, and Common Terms
(Glosario de términos socio-políticos y autóctonos
de actualidad (español-inglés))
(Paperback)
by Jesus Núñez Romay (Author)

Book Description (Amazon .com)
Because the first socialist revolution in the Americas took place in Cuba, this country has also seen the rise of new terms and the introduction of new, very specific meanings for old terms, adopted as required to express new realities. How can these neologisms be rendered in English, when no English-speaking country has as yet carried out a Marxist-Leninist social revolution and, therefore, no ready-made equivalents are available? This situation has been a poser not only for translators but also for language teachers and other professionals whose work required frequent contact with English.

The present glossary should be exceptionally useful to all of them. From the author: "A revolution triumphed in Cuba in 1959, making it the first socialist country in the Americas. The Cuban Revolution sprang from the need to make thoroughgoing political and economic transformations - which, in turn, created a need for new terms to express them. Cuba's growing international prestige and new diplomatic, trade and cultural relations led us to look for new equivalents in foreign languages so we could communicate with the rest of the world."

PROLOGUE

The first edition of this glossary subsequently enlarged and now in its fourth printing triggered considerable interest, clearly demonstrating its usefulness.

The product of patient research that its young, enthusiastic, and tireless author carried out over the course of five years in the little free time left him from his teaching duties, this glossary unquestionably fills a lexicographic vacuum that had long existed in Cuba.

The determining factor in the development of languages now, as in its origins is the social praxis of men and women. Thus, as a social instrument par excellence, a language and especially the lexical aspect of it always reflects the changes that occur in society.

Because the first socialist revolution in the Americas took place in Cuba, this country has also seen the rise of new terms and the introduction of new, very specific meanings for old terms, adopted as required to express new realities. How can these neologisms be rendered in English, when no English-speaking country has as yet carried out a Marxist-Leninist social revolution and, therefore, no ready-made equivalents are available? This situation has been a poser not only for translators but also for language teachers and other professionals whose work required frequent contact with English.

The present glossary should be exceptionally useful to all of them.

Obviously, a glossary including terms from all spheres of human activity would require many years of work. The author has thus limited himself to collecting the terms most often used in the sociopolitical sphere of daily life, and in this field, he has produced a wealth of up-to-date material.

Marjorie Moore Reynolds, Ph.D.

Full Professor,

Instituto Superior de Ciencias Médicas de La Habana

Author's note

A revolution triumphed in Cuba in 1959, making it the first socialist country in the Americas.

The Cuban Revolution sprang from the need to make thoroughgoing political and economic transformations - which, in turn, created a need for new terms to express them.

Cuba's growing international prestige and new diplomatic, trade and cultural relations led us to look for new equivalents in foreign languages so we could communicate with the rest of the world.

The problem of how to describe in foreign languages concepts and things that do not exist in the countries in which those languages are spoken is extremely challenging.

In tackling this problem, and to reduce bias and arbitrariness, we compared texts from the Granma Weekly Review and Tricontinental, Prisma, Soberania and Cuba Internacional magazines. We then consulted five translators and a professor with more than twenty-five years of experience in this field in order to reach a consensus on the terms included in this glossary and their equivalents.

This has been the result of our painstaking work.

Cuban terms not related to work (a)

Sociopolitical terms (b)

Terms related to different aspects of work (c)

Notice that the dialectical interrelationship linking the various spheres of the activities carried out by a single individual leads to the frequent overlapping of classifications.

Each term is listed in the section where it is most used.

Some terms, however, may appear in two or three classifications.