I don’t normally think of you, Colibri, of a person in dire need of a bug extraction. I can’t for the life of me figure out why this one particular subject has driven you to such, for you, extremes of incivility.
“Castilian is the official language of Spain” is 100% accurate. “Spanish is the official language of Spain” is somewhat less so, depending on context. Everything else I’ve written and said has been in support of the distinction between those two statements, all the while fully acknowledging the complications in the situation.
Your dictionary cites notwithstanding (I already distinguished between the descriptive and prescriptive contexts of this discussion), the non-debatable *fact * (see the Spanish Constitution) is that the official language of Spain is Castilian. The post that I responded to, while it may not have included the sentence “Spanish is the official language of Spain,” did not even include the word “Castilian” at all. So I thought that a post about the official language of Spain that did not even include the actual name of the official language of Spain, as laid out in that country’s constitution, was worthy of a note of clarification.
If my initial post on the matter too simplistic to cover all possible contexts and nuances, I apologize; my subsequent posts have been attempt to supply further details.
But the bottom line is that in a thread about official languages, a post about Spain that does not even include the word “Castilian” is open to clarification. THat’s all I’ve attempted to do. Sorry it got so deep under your skin.
Not being a wise-ass on this, but you’re up against translation vagaries once again. The language in which “I’m very hungry” is* “[Yo] Tengo mucho hambre”* is one which is referred to in English as “Spanish” (not Castilian, which is an adjective for either a medieval kingdom, a region of Spain, or soap) and in its own vernacular as Español or Castellano. This language is also spoken, in varying dialects, in on the order of 20 countries between the Rio Grande and Tierra del Fuego. There are several dialects of it spoken in the Kingdom of Spain, as well, notably Andalucian and Estremaduran. Two other Romance languages are spoken in Spain as well, and are “Spanish languages” (lenguas españolas) in the sense used in the Spanish Constitution: Catalan and Gallego (Galician, in some English renderings). Gallego is substantially closer to Portuguese than to Castellano puro; Catalan, a fully distinct tongue with some similarities to Occitan. Neither is any more a dialect of Spanish than Danish is of German. (Catalan, by the way, is also spoken in Andorra, a small portion of France, the Balearic Islands, and a few enclaves on Sardinia.) Finally, Basque, a language not only not Spanish, not Romance, but not even Indo-European (or, seemingly, any other group other than its own language-isolate self, paceJohanna’s megalo-phylogeny linguistics), is the tongue of three provinces, parts of a fourth, and several French departments as well.
While there is some slipperiness as to the precise lines between “dialect” and “separate language,” these four are well across the line into distinct-language status from each other. Moldovan’s distinctness from Romanian may be a political artifact, but Catalan’s and Gallego’s distinctness from Castellano Spanish are not.
So, in all seriousness, could I please ask **Colibri **to reconcile Nava’s initial post and the quote from the Spanish constitution, along with the nuances and complications laid out in the linked Wiki article in a clearer fashion than I have?
In other words, Colibri, with all the information elicited by this discussion, could you please rewrite my initial post in a way that you’d find unobjectionable? This is a serious request; I’m trying to find the gap in the facts as I understand them and the lack of clarity with which I have communicated them.
“Sheesh” is an “extreme of incivility?” Not where I come from. I think you are reading my posts more harshly than I intend them. I was just expressing some mild annoyance, not making a personal attack. However, I do admit to getting a little exasperated in GQ when people who may not be particularly familiar with the subject under discussion misinterpret something, and then go on at length trying to justify it. It just wastes everyone’s time. Do you actually have any familiarity with the usage of castellano in Spanish, or with the Spanish language in general, besides what you were able to google on the spur of the moment?
As I’ve already pointed out, in English, “Spanish is the official language of Spain” is more accurate, or at least more precise, than “Castilian is the official language of Spain,” due to the ambiguity of “Castilian,” which can apply to both the language and the dialect. While both phrases are technically correct, “Spanish is the official language of Spain” would be far more common in English, since “Castilian” is usually only used for the dialect. Nothing you’ve written or cited supports the distinction you are trying to make.
The official language of Spain, as stated in the Consitution, is castellano, not Castilian. The usage of castellano, as the article you cited describes, is rather more complex than “Castilian” in English. Your initial post implied that Castilian, in the context of an official language, was somehow distinct from Spanish. In the sense used in the Spanish Constitution, castellano is identical to the Spanish language. (Yes, I know the Constitution refers to other “Spanish languages”, but this does not imply they are considered part of Spanish as a language, merely that they are spoken in Spain. Your initial posted suggested they were considered part of the Spanish language.) Your post didn’t serve to clarify anything, but rather to confuse the issue.
It wasn’t just “simplistic;” as you stated it, it was wrong. Perhaps you were actually aware of the nuances and simply stated it poorly. If so, you should be clear about this. You went on to allege that “Castilian” is somehow more technically correct than “Spanish” to refer to the Spanish language in English (and are still doing so). This is wrong, and has been the main point of my disagreement.
Perhaps, but your initial post confused the issue rather than clarifying it.
Why should you imagine that this has “gotten deep under my skin” simply because I am taking the time to correct some errors? That’s standard practice in GQ. (And maybe I just want to avoid working on what I should be working on. ) I expressed some mild annoyance, that’s all. You are taking my remarks far too personally.
There’s really no conflict between Nava’s post and the Spanish Consitution or the Wiki article. **Nava’s ** post was 100% correct, and didn’t require any further clarification. “Castellano,” the way it is used in the Spanish Constitution, means the same as “Spanish” does in English. (Incidentally, I believe Nava is a native Spanish-speaker.)
Your initial post:
If you wanted to add something about Castilian, the following would have been sufficient:
“Castilian,” (castellano) the name of the “standard” dialect of Spanish, is sometimes used as a synonym for the language as a whole."
While one could get into esoterica about the nuances of the use of castellano, doing so in a thread about official languages would be rather a hijack, as this has already become.
“Español, “Spanish” in English, is the dominant language of Spain, and the official language of the country as a whole. It is often called Castellano by Spanish speakers, for which the English would be “Castilian,” but in English this is almost exclusively used to reference the particular dialect of Español spoken in the provinces of Castilla la Vieja and Castilla la Nueva, rather than the language as a whole, as is the case in Spanish. (“Castilian,” of course, is also the adjective meaning “of or relating to Castile” in non-linguistic senses.) While the Spanish Constitution also references Las demás lenguas españolas . . ., i.e., “the other Spanish languages” when translated literally, this is more accurately translated as “the other languages of Spain” and does not imply that that constitution regards Gallego, Catalan, or Basque as “Spanish” in the name-of-language English usage, but merely “Spanish” in the sense that they are used by some subgroups of the Spanish people.”
Would that suffice to provide the clarity you two seem to be seeking?
Besides, seemingly everybody in Hispanic America, no matter how far their dialect is from that of Toledo or Madrid, claims to speak Castellano puro.
If you want something funny about official languages/religion, many people I’ve met from the Philippines (1) think that Tagalog is the official language, and (2) Roman Catholicism is the official religoin. They’re not.
(So . . . when it’s convenient for you, personal anecdotal “evidence” should take precedence over linked cites? You continue to confuse me.) Insofar as it is open to interpretation, my different interpretation is not necessarily a “misinterpretation,” as you insist. Your accusations of dishonesty notwithstanding, the position I’m arguing is my actual, honest interpretation of all the information I’ve been able to find on the subject. Your different intepretation does not make me a liar.
I disagree. Depending on the context, “Spanish” is open to a degree of ambiguity. “Castilian,” however, means only one thing; your ambiguity is whether the thing it refers to is CALLED an language or a dialect. In other words, there are not two possible things: one a language, and one a dialect, and therefore some ambiguity as to which thing the word Castilian might refer to. THere is one thing, which some people call a dialect and some people call a language. That ambiguity of labels is irrelevant to the *name *of the thing, which is “Castilian.” That the Spanish constitution names the official language as Castilian removes all ambiguity from the statement “Castilian is the official language of Spain.”
Not at all. The language in question is one, but is referred to variously by two names: Spanish, and Castilian. Since the first basic right of any human being is the right to name himself, I say a parallel courtesy is to accept the name of a language from the people who speak it. If the Spanish constitution listed “espanol” as the official language, I’d never has dropped into this thread at all. So there’s no ambiguity as to the *language *in question; only as to its official label.
THat was your misinterpretation; I meant no such thing. Granted, I may at least as responsible for that misinterpretation, in my unclarity. But, not being retarded, I would not suggest that Basque was *linguistically *Spanish; only politically.
Well, to be fair, your assumption that I’m retarded and would suggest such absurdities that Basque is linguistically Spanish, didn’t help. I may have been unclear, but you certainly gave me no credit, and ran with your first misinterpretation. From which you now refuse to back off, making your first paragraph of this post as accurate a portrait of yourself as it’s ever been of me.
In the context of Official Languages, yes, it is. Technically, pedantically. That is my honest interpretation of the linked cites. Again, not to refer to the language in general; to refer to the Official Language of Spain, which is (see the constitution again) Castilian. That is, if you understand the translation of the word “espanol” to be “Spanish,” and the translation of the word “castellano” to be “Castilian.” Again, the *language *is not in question; only the label.
For some, this is obviously true. In large part this is due to the apparent assumption that I’m retarded; that it’s *obvious *that Spanish is the official language of Spain, and anyone who says different should just be insultingly dismissed without bothering to ask for clarification or, god forbid, look something up.
Well apparently we both are; as I said above you’ve seemed to indicate to me that I’m retarded, rather than unclear. I am not the smartest person here by a long shot, but I’m used, in real life, to being taken a little more seriously. At least to the extent that if someone disagrees to me, it’s an opportunity for discussion, rather than derisive dismissal. So it goes.
I disagree. If “espanol” is different from “castellano,” in connotation, then it follows (it seems to me), that “Spanish” is the perfect translation of “castellano.” Very few words are 100% synonymous, entirely interchangeable. Context matters.
Be that as it may, he or she may not have been explicitly familiar with that line in the Spanish constitution; I have no way of knowing.
That’s not inaccurate, certainly, but it’s not what I meant to say. Still, having asked for the suggestion, I’ll take it under advisement.
Hmm. Except that, once you use the word “official,” connotation and esoterica become relevant. The OFFICIAL language of Spain is “castellano.” Officially. It seems reasonable to me, upon some little research, to translate “espanol” as “Spanish” and “castellano” as “Castilian.” No, I’m not a scholar on the subject. But my limited research has not found anything to contradict that. To enrich and complicate it, yes; but not to contradict it.
It isn’t exactly “anecdotal;” My first Spanish teacher, some 38 years ago, was from Madrid and a speaker of the Castilian dialect (as are several of my friends here in Panama). I’ve lived in Latin America and spoken Spanish on a daily basis for 16 years, and traveled in a dozen Spanish-speaking countries using many different dialects. So far, you haven’t produced any cites that contradict anything I’ve said.
I of course never called you a liar, merely said that you misinterpreted what you had read. This may well be an honest error on your part. You allegation that I called you dishonest seems bizarre.
As a noun referring to a language, “Spanish” is not ambiguous. As an adjective it can apply to other languages used in Spain, but this is a rare usage, because it is, as you yourself have agreed, confusing.
Ah. Here we have the crux of the problem. It’s clear that you don’t understand the basic issue here. “Castilian,” and castellano, do refer to two different things: (1) the dialect of the provinces of Old and New Castile in Spain, (as Polycarp indicated), and (2) the Spanish language as a whole, which includes not only the dialect of Castile, but other dialects as well, including Andalusian of southeastern Spain and the various dialects of Latin America. Therefore, when one says either Castilian or castellano, it can be ambiguous whether one is referring to the dialect of Castile only, or to the Spanish language in general (less so in English than in Spanish). The meaning must be determined by context. Spanish and espanol are not ambiguous, because they can refer only to the language as a whole, not to both the language and the dialect of Castile.
Are you really proposing that we start referring to the Spanish language as “Castilian” in English? “Spanish” is the most general name for the language in English; “Castilian” is only rarely used to refer to the language, mainly being used for the dialect.
Although the issue here is not so much how the language is referred to in Spanish, but in English (since this was the language of both Nava’s and your posts), I would point out that Spanish speakers very commonly refer to their own language as espanol; although castellano is used more frequently to refer to the Spanish language as a whole in Spanish than Castilian is in English, it is by no means necessarily the most common way to do so. Here in Panama “espanol” is far more common, though I have heard castellano occasionally.
lissener, I know you are not retarded. You do, however, seem to be intent on taking offense where none has been offered. I did not say that you thought that Basque was linguistically Spanish, merely that your first post, as you stated it, implied that it was part of the Spanish language. This was evidently due to the poor way you phrased it.
The translation of the word “espanol” is “Spanish.” The translation of the word “castellano,” as I have already pointed out, can be either “Spanish,” if it refers to the whole language; or “Castilian,” if it refers to the dialect of Castile. Since in the case of the Constitution the word is being used to refer to the Spanish language as a whole, not the specific dialect, the correct translation in English would be “Spanish,” not “Castilian.”
For whatever reason, your initial post did confuse the issue. I offered you no insults. I politely asked you for a cite. I only got a bit annoyed after you persisted in misunderstanding the issues at hand even when they had been explained to you.
You would be taken more seriously in this thread if you were less quick to take offense, and spent more time trying to understand what I an others have patiently been trying to explain to you.
Nava’s post was correct. As I explained above, “castellano,” in the context it is used in in the Spanish Consititition, is best translated as “Spanish,” not as “Castilian.”
In other words, Spain’s constitution says that the official national language is castellano, or, as commonly and properly translated in English, “Spanish”. Maybe it’s courteous to let the speakers of a language pick its name, but then again, Germans speak German, not Deutsch.
And yet when I referene my own experience on a subject I get pitted. The standard around here is that cites trump anecdote.
You said that I was merely justifying my previous argument–do I really have to go back and quote? “I do admit to getting a little exasperated in GQ when people who may not be particularly familiar with the subject under discussion misinterpret something, and then go on at length trying to justify it.” This is accusing me of having an agenda of self-justification, NOT the agenda of actually addressing the point you accuse me of pretending to address in my craven need to justify myself. This is an accusation of dishonesty.
[QUOTE=Colibri]
As a noun referring to a language, “Spanish” is not ambiguous. As an adjective it can apply to other languages used in Spain, but this is a rare usage, because it is, as you yourself have agreed, confusing.[/qupte]The only way you can maintain the ambiguity that suits you is to continually shift the context. The context, when all is said and done, is the quote from the Spanish constitution. The use of the word “Spanish” as a political adjective referring to the languages spoken in Spain has been addressed and is no part of the discussion regarding the phrase in the constitution naming *castellano *as the official language.
Thank you special ed teacher. I am addressing the phrase in the Spanish constitution, not all possible connotations, in all possible contexts, of the word castellano. I know it also refers to a dialect. But not in this context. Tell me this: why does the phrase in the constitution not use the word “espanol” in place of the word “castellano”?
The only way I can address this absurdity is to repeat myself word for word. I refuse to do this.
Rarely doesn’t disqualify accuracy, especially (repeating again) once the word “official” is evoked. At that point, pedantry is valid.
. . . except in their constitution, although, according to you, that’s utterly insignificant, because Spanish=espanol=castellano, 1:1:1, with absolute interchangeability, and without nuance of any kind whatsoever.
And you took that absurdity as a given. So you don’t think I’m retarded, but that’s all the credit you’re willing to give me: “Hmm. Lissener is either not expressing himself clearly, or he’s retarded. I guess I’ll go with retarded. Yeah, he’s a retarded person expressing himself with absolute clarity.” The fact that you further interpreted my attempt to clarify as nothing more than justifying an absurdity, just so you could hang on to your idea that I was expressing an absurdity, makes this whole exercise seem all the more pointless. I’m dishonestly justifying myself when I’m attempting to clarify; but I’m perfectly lucid and to be taken at face value when what I say can be interpreted as an absurdity. Nice way to sabotage the playing field, Col. Me, when I’m having a discussion with an intelligent person, and they say something that can be interpreted as an absurdity, I try to give them the benefit of the doubt, rather than insisting that the absurdity is what they REALLY mean, and all else is dishonest self-justification.
This is gettting silly.
This, actually, is the crux. Obviously, since neither you nor I created the language, we can have no more than an opinion on this specific matter. The context that I’ve been able to gather leaves me with the opinion that “Castilian” makes more sense as a translation in this context. Your opinion differs. Your opinion, which I don’t accuse you of reaching dishonestly and justifying cravenly, is not, in *my *opinion, wrong. I see that there are gray areas and nuances and interpretations. Neither do I imagine my opinion on this matter is carved in stone and beyond debate. But I maintain that it makes very little sense to me that the constitution would have been written without using the word “espanol” instead of “castellano” if they meant, unambiguously, Spanish rather than Castilian. In other words, I agree with the opinion of the author of the Wikipedia article. We all know Wikipedia’s weaknesses, but having read the entire article, several of the references linked from there, and other references I discovered in researching this, I continue to think that the parallels between Spanish/British and Castilian/English make perfect sense; and that the language of the constitution, along with the other pieces of this surprisingly complicated puzzle, support the Wiki article,which I therefore agree with. I respect your different interpretation, but you have not convinced me that you are “more right”–which I acknowledge is relative–than the author of the Wiki article.
Whatever. I’m disappointed when a poster whose intelligence and contributions to this board I greatly respect suddenly doesn’t want to debate a perfectly innocuous subject like a grownup, and has to become sarcastic and dismissive. I expect that of certain people; I had not expected it of you.
I’d feel so much better if you could pat me on the head.
You have certainly made a good case for that opinion. Not that it should matter one whit to you what my opinion is, but I still like the Wiki author’s interpretation better.
As far as Nava’s post being correct, if you can honestly tell me with a straight face that a post on the official language(s) of Spain can mention almost everything *but *Castilian/castellano, is 100% complete and correct and not in need of any additions or clarifications of any kind, then I accuse *you *of dishonesty.
Actually, lissener, there is in your own posting the very clear reason why Castellano and not Español is used in the Spanish Constitution: it’s loaded with nuance and respect for ethnolinguistic minorities, to the point that you rendered a part of it as referring to “the other Spanish languages.” To call the particular language spoken in Madrid, Toledo, Seville, Mexico City, Bogota, Buenos Aires, Lima, Valparaiso, and Tegucigalpa by the name Español would be, in that context, denying “Spanishness” to speakers of Catalan, Gallego, and Basque. In that particular context, using the alternate common self-appellation of that language for itself, Castellano, conveys the nuance that “people who speak any of the four recognized languages of Spain are Spanish.”
Much of the rest of your post, to be quite frank, does not belong in GQ. If you are firmly convinced that people who have lived in numerous Spanish-speaking places or who are fascinated by minority languages cannot speak with authority about their own experience and scholarship, and prefer a random Wiki-savant who may or may not know what he’s talking about (remember that to Wiki, a 13-year-old smartalec and a Nobel Prize winner are equally knowledgeable about the subject on which the latter won his award), then perhaps you are not particularly interested in the fight against ignorance. In short, you’re taking this extremely personally, and converting a minor nitpick into a cause celebré deserving an assault by the Mobile Infantry. Finally, may I point out that some of your quotes from the Spanish Constitution are in English, and that we’re both quite familiar with instances where choice of wordage in translation renders a quite different connotation between the two languages.
Bottom line: There are four languages spoken in Spain and acknowledged in its Constitution: the official national language and three others, co-equal in their own autonomous regions. Since Español translates precisely as “Spanish” in both the language name and the national-adjective senses, the Constitution, presumably alive to nuance and the potential for giving offense to a minority, uses the common alternative term for that natrional language, Castellano. To English that as “Castilian,” though, is creating a false cognate, as the English is by most knowledgeable people customarily used to reference either the kingdom of which Isabella I and her daughter Joanna la Loca were the last Queens before being united with Aragon to create modern Spain, or the two provinces which were the heart of that kingdom, and the particular (more or less national standard) dialect of Español spoken there. To admit being tripped up by a false cognate might make you quite embarrassed, but not muy embarazado (“great with child,” as King James’s men might put it).
Thank you, severus. Fer Chris’ sake, I can’t believe how many foreigners assume to know my language better than I do!
Yes, I’m a native Spanish speaker. From Spain. The first known occurrence of Spanish was in a monastery in the province of Logroño, which back then was part of the kingdom of Nájera, which later changed its name to Navarra. I’m from current-day Navarra, hence my username. The distinction between “castillian the dialect” and “castillian the language” is used only as material for jokes; we used to call it Español but the guys who wrote the Constitution consider that “Español” is too narrow and too imperialistic to define the whole language and may offend the separatists: let’s use the name of a region instead of that of a country!
Yes, I’m familiar with the Constitution. My paternal family (heck, the whole subculture) considers debate as a normal mode of communication, sort of a bonding experience only we don’t use those terms; I recall saturday afternoons being spent by Dad, his siblings, their Mom and several of their SOs discussing the punctuation of a single sentence. We studied it in 11th grade and I’ve also re-studied it preparing for Government job exams (I’ve also read the treaty of Rome, the treaty of Maastritch and the current EU Constitution, and I’m not even a lawyer like half my family). The use of “Castellano” instead of “Español” in the Constitution is one of the points that was most argued about, it was on TV every day for I don’t know how long.
When I’m speaking foreign, I call my first language by whatever name said foreign language calls it. It’s Espagnolo in Italy, Espagnol in France and Spanish to you guys. Same as I try to remember that you guys write Saragossa and Seville, same as I’d appreciate it if any of you guys who wanted to come over and visit tried to remember that we write them Zaragoza and Sevilla. The names of things are an important part of any language - that includes the names of other languages.
goes off in a bit less of a huff than she was in after some of those posts
This is one point we can agree on (although I think it was silly from the beginning). I have already addressed all the points you raised adequately, as have both Polycarp and Nava. There really is no point in further discussion with someone who continues to argue in wilful ignorance.
) I expressed some mild annoyance, that’s all. You are taking my remarks far too personally.