A New Spanish Dictionary

 

Speaking Spanglish?

http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=23272

Lisandro Otero

Rebelión


A CubaNews translation.
Edited by Walter Lippmann.

 

Languages are enriched with additions. No language has ever remained pure, and borrowings from other languages are frequent. The more words a language gains the more luscious it becomes. But a certain degree of purity is needed so this gain does not become distorting pain. Spanish, for example, has been flooded with English words – the present day lingua franca. The dominant culture of the hegemonic country, where most of the technical and scientific advances and discoveries are made, may lead to unlimited servitude.

The Royal Spanish Language Academy makes periodical editions of its Dictionary. However, in 1997 during the celebration in Zacatecas, Mexico, of the First International Conference of Spanish Language, a motion was put forward to compile a dictionary that would update the language and include the new inputs.

In Madrid, edited by Santillana and fresh from the printing house, the Pan Hispanic Dictionary of Doubts is now available. This is the result of eight years of joint efforts from all the Language Academies. It tries to introduce a certain order and discipline in the Spanish language, with a rational flexibility and avoiding rigidity. It was launched in Madrid with the presence of important Iberian American media representatives and directors of the Spanish and all the American Spanish Language Academies. 

The young information sciences, for example, are a tremendous source of neologisms. For instance, instead of the frequently used word software the Academies prescribe the use of programa informático. Instead of hardware they dictate equipo informático. Link, which is the connection between hypertext elements, should be substituted by vínculo. Attachment should not be used, but adjunto. The Academies authorize the use of byte to name the unit of information, but remind us that the Spanish equivalent is octeto. Chip, the minute semiconductor material, is accepted as such. A hacker must be referred to as a pirata informático and a back-up should be called a copia de seguridad.

Words from the world of theatre and entertainment are also taken into account. Instead of dancing they prescribe salón de baile. A compact disk is a disco compacto. Copywright must not be used, but derechos de autor. Atrezzo or the set of items needed for a staging can be called atrezo. Cassette or the plastic box containing a video or sound magnetic tape can be written as casete . Casting, the process of selection of actors for a movie or show is authorized as castin. Flashback should be referred to as retrospectiva or secuencia retrospectiva.

In the realm of clothing there are also novelties. The synthetic fabric known as lycra is accepted as licra. The blue jean should be referred to as vaquero. The paper napking kleenex is accepted as cíinex. The English word bloomer becomes blumer in Spanish. The sports jacket known as blazer legally becomes a bleiser. In the area of sports the word record is finally accepted, despite efforts to impose plusmarca – still valid. But training was not accepted instead of entrenamiento.

Instead of the word cash the Academies insists on efectivo. The bazzooca becomes bazuca, the French loaf known as baguette is accepted as baguete. The English term business legally becomes bisnes, but the Cubanism bisnero to name a business person is not accepted.

Regarding toponyms, the Academies prescribe that in Spanish the capital of China is Pekín and not Beijing as erroneously written by some who take the word from English or Pinyin, the system for transliterating Chinese characters into Latin alphabet letters, developed in China in 1958 to unify the different transcription systems of Chinese languages.

The famous by-pass of cardiovascular surgery should be referred to as puente coronario, but a road by- pass is a circunvalación. A bluff is now a bluf in Spanish. There will be no shorts but pantalones cortos, and no background but antecedentes.

Spanish has suffered an accelerated development in our century. At the onset of the 20th Century the language was used by 80 million people, today by more than 40 billion. This exponential rate of growth has been the main source of risk: Spanish has run the risk of fragmentation. There have been concerns about a serious disintegration and the emergence of vernacular languages that may grow increasingly distant from the mother tongue.


The fact is that languages are made by peoples, with their colloquialisms, their particular ways of saying things and the coinage of oral variants born in usage or in the fertile popular imagination. Language precepts should be circumscribed to the everyday use of the language by real people, the true authors of any language. And this is the aim of this new Pan Hispanic Dictionary of Doubts, the novelty of the moment.


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