Argentine Diarrhea - Lost In Translation
Monday, September 30, 2013
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| Cristina Fernández de Kirchner - President República Argentina |
For years I have formulated in my mind a pet theory on why countries like France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Latin American countries and few countries that speak romance languages in Eastern Europe invariably lost the military conflicts they began.
It has all to do with the very fact that
these countries all speak languages that had their origin in ancient Rome. Ultimately those
ancient Romans lost out to civilizations (or entities that lacked civilization)
that spoke un-romantic verbiage.
The romance languages all feature the
Subjunctive Mood. It is a mood of uncertainty. Americans and even the British
avoid the infrequent appearance of it. Thus, “I wish I were in Dixie (as I am
certainly not whoever might be singing that line),” becomes “I wish I was in Dixie.” That Future Subjunctive is excised and things become
a predictable as a constant present. That uncertain future is transformed most comfortably
into one of definite possibility.
The Subjunctive Mood is one of uncertainty, and the most uncertain of all uncertainties is the Future Subjunctive.
Consider, “When in Rome do as Romans do.” In Spanish it is far more complex. The very idea
of anybody finding themselves in Rome
is left as indefinite possibility. En
el país que fueres has lo que vieres.” It virtually defies translation but is
means something like, “In that country that you might just find yourself in
some future you may perhaps do as others do might do.”
Successful generals
fronting successful armies fight on certainties. If possible these generals
choose their place of battle and twist the situation to favour them. You cannot
run an army on just possibilities.
There is the Mexican
joke of the general that sends a soldier to the front to report on the numbers
of the attacking army. The soldier returns and says, “My general I saw about a
thousand and one of the enemy.” The general, incredulous at the lack of logic
in his soldier’s statement, orders him to clarify it. “Mi general,” the soldier
replies, “I saw one attacking soldier and perhaps a thousand behind him.”
And so, the French had
their Waterloo and their 5 de Mayo against the
Mexicans at Puebla.
The less said about the Italians in WWII the better.
Of late I have been
giving more thought to the vagaries of language and how language affects us
without our complete awareness.
Consider someone like CNN’s
Wolf Blitzer interviewing President Barrack H. Obama. They might sit close to
each other perhaps with the small interruption of a coffee table. Blitzer would
address Obama as Mr. President and might just continue with a, “What did you
mean bb… in your last statement, sir.” The sir would be marked.
Consider that in
English you might say:
Please come.
Please come here, sir.
Will you please step
this way, madam?
Or if a friend you
might say: Hey! Come over here!
It is difficult to
conceive rudeness or familiarity in those statements unless you shouted them or
simply said, “Get your ass over here!”
In Spanish like in
French we have two options:
There is the formal:
Venga señor.
Or the
informal
Ven.
The situation becomes
more complex in Argentine Spanish (perhaps borrowed from Italian immigrants) which gives you the further choice of:
Vení.
or
Venite para acá.
The informality of
that third method of ordering people around has a sense of intimacy unknown
(and what would I know of this if nothing) in other languages).
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| With Jorge Rial |
In English with the
advent of the World Wide Web we tried to give the impression of intimacy by stating:
“Visit us at our website.” Or “Browse our website.” The word visit seems to
inject an intimacy impossible to achieve in even in the most prurient of porn
sites. We cannot visit because we are alone.
All the above is my
introduction to the shock of finding myself watching a TV interview in which Jorge
Rial and Hernan Brienza, journalists, separately talked at length in two-part
interviews (separated by a week in which a cliffhanger question by one of the
journalists had to wait for a whole week!) with Argentine president Cristina
Kirchner.
The President, was
immediately called Cristina and the formal Spanish tense was used. The interviews
were very intimate and pleasant. Kirchner is a good talker and both journalists
did not press for uncomfortable moments with uncomfortable questions.
Once I became used to
the level of cheerful intimacies almost as if Kirchner were having a
conversation at the breakfast table with her deceased husband and former
Argentine president, Nestor Kirchner, I found myself enjoying the charla (chat).
To my horror Cristina (I want to write here Kirchner not Cristina) was asked
about names that had been used to insult her in the past. She mentioned “yegua”
(a female horse) with all the connotations to be read in a mare in heat waiting
for the stallion. But worse of all she said, “I have been called a puta.” Now
puta is an extremely nasty version of the English for whore.
Can you imagine
President Obama stating during an interview with a lessened in effect “I have
been called a son of a bitch.”?
For years before Nixon
went public and stated, “I am not a crook,” I used to emphatically say that the
difference in how Latin Americans perceived politicians and how North Americans
did was that the former expected politicians to be dishonest while the latter
were always surprised, even disappointed to find out that they were.
But because of
language, the use of the English language, even those who abhor Prime Minister
Harper would never resort to anything worse than, “He is an S.O.B.,”and would
probably do so in the intimacy of friends and never in public.
Argentina used to be run by patrician politicians, the
Catholic Church, the oligarch land-owners and the Military establishment.
Thanks to the Malvinas
war and the terrible and bloody campaign by the army in disappearing political activists
in the 70s the military establishment seems to be in a sort of bearish hibernation.
Conscription was eliminated by President Saul Menem. You do not see their military
uniforms and most officers and non-commissioned officers dress in civies on the
street. The Ministery or later Secretary of War became the less offensive Ministry
of Defence.
While the present
Argentine pope is as popular on the street as Messi the church no longer holds
the might it once did.
As I see it power in Argentina lies
in a sort of unofficial sharing by the moneyed oligarchies, many politicians
are from that sector, and powerful politicians with fingers in all kinds of
important infrastructure. Between these two powers lie the struggling middle
class and a vast, increasing in size, lower class.
Many of the lower class
have moved from the provinces in search of non-existent jobs in the sprawling Buenos Aires. They live
in shanty towns called villas miserias by Argentines.
One of my moneyed
relatives, a patrician, a very well educated lawyer with manners (most of the
time) and very white, upon seeing me said to me in Spanish, “You are a friend
of that chimpanzee. Luckily he is neither a Jew nor a homosexual.” He was of
course referring to my liking of the American President.
I was absolutely
speechless but in a few days I began to understand the level of vitriol that
Argentines have for politicians in the opposite side of their preferred political spectrum.
As a boy my father used to take me to the
Argentine and Buenos Aires version of Vancouver’s PNE. It is
called La Rural and it is housed in the leafy area of Palermo, close to the botanical garden and
the Zoo. It is right by the statue of Garibaldi. I will never forget seeing
those huge Simmental bulls walking slowly, side to side, like bull elephants,
with their huge testicles almost dragging and sweeping the hay floor.
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| Jorge Rial |
I have no idea if testicles (huevos,
testículos, cojones in Spanish) have any bearing with ultimate insults in the
Spanish language. If you are easily offended by language leave this page now.
The worst of all possible insults in Spain is”
Me cago en Dios, or I shit on God.
The Argentine version sounds much more
offensive but is less controversial religiously.
Me cago en la concha de tu madre (or more intimate
and direct, tu hermana, or sister) which translates to I shit on your mother’s
cunt.
A paler version, which you can almost utter
in the company of casual friends is
La concha de la lora (is it understood that
one is to shit on a female parrot’s cunt?). This statement is said when one
wants to say wow!
But the most often used insult in Argentina involves balls, bolas and Pelotas. If someone is an
idiot you call him “boludo”. If he
really is stupid then you up the ante with “pelotudo”. I have no idea if the
origin of this is that lumbering bull in la Rural. Doughnut holes (much larger in Argentina) are either called "bolas de fraile", monk's balls or "suspiros de monjas" a nun's sigh.
If you are from the struggling left any
politician serving the oligarchs is a “boludo,”or “pelotudo.” If this
politician is deemed to not only be stupid but also intelligently using his
position to better himself then he is a “pelotudo, hijo de puta.” And the same
level of insult goes in the opposite direction.
Had you visited Argentina in the 50s, 60s, 70s,
80s, 90s or now you would get the same answer to this question, “How are
things?”
“Es un pais
de mierda." It is a country of shit. We have never been
worse. Our politicians are hijos de putas.”
And on a final note there is a particularly
Argentine expression that begins with:
Me cago de (I shit)
Nos cagamos de (We shit)
By: risa (laughter) frío (cold), calor
(heat), hambre (hunger) and you name it.
I find the expression offensive to my Vancouver sensitive ears
and I can only surmise that my erstwhile fellow citizens suffer from a collective but figurative diarrhea.
