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Sunday, June 14, 2015

Spanish language academy nods coinages


By Julio Nakamurakare
Herald Staff
Although the RAE is famous for being rather reticent to new words, some have found a spot

We all know that some new words — coinages — have an easy time finding their way in common folk’s everyday parlance, most in the technological field. Some institutions, like the French Academy, famously — and catastrophically — failed in their effort to impose a French version of the Anglicized Japanese word “Walkman.” Baladeur did not come as close to the concept was back then, nor would it sound appropriate for today’s “mp3 player” or whatever format techno gurus decide to adopt.
Japanese too is not immune to these gairago or loan words (borrowings), mostly from English but also from other Western languages and for more specific purposes (science, for example) to words phonetically “borrowed” from English but with a “made in Japan” meaning. Think “depãto” for “department store” (depãtomento stoa) and you find some kind of logic, even if the shopping experience is different in Japan and other countries.
Whatever the case, linguists observe, language changes according to needs (technological, societal, developmental), and so a descriptive approach to semantics and grammar is preferred over prescriptive notions.
Some languages and nations speaking and / or writing certaing languages do not have a ruling body dictating the proper use of nouns and collocations. Others do, like the Real Academia Española (RAE), which confers upon itself the right and the duty to rule, every couple of years, which words should enter the canonized lexicon, and which ones are mercilessly ruled out.
Coinciding with the appearance of Merriam Webster’s mammoth compilation of words in use in the English language, the RAE has established which words and coinages have made it to the Diccionario of the Real Academia Española (DRAE), launched on Thursday in most Spanish-speaking countries.
This new edition (the 23rd) includes new verbs like “escanear,” “tuitear,” “chatear” and femicidio, not to speak of that infamous borrowing, “drone,” unfortunaley seen and printed in every day news accounts.
The new edition — 2,376 pages — includes 93,111 words compared with the previous edition (2001), which amounted to just 88,431, with 140,000 amends and 8,000 Americanisms.
After intense debate and — one would presume — long hours of discussion among Academy members before each new edition, the linguistic experts include Americanisms such as the Argentinismo “tanguear,” “dni,” “agua viva” and “placar.”
“There are some exceptions which were proposed the success of which remains to be seen among speakers, such as “supermán,” “bungaló,” “hándicap,” “pimpón,” “baipás” and “espanglish,” Santiago Kalinowski, head of the Linguistic and Philological Research Department of the Academia Argentina de Letras told a local news agency.
Other words “which could be adapted were left as ‘extranjerismos,’ such as ‘baguette’ and ‘curry,” in this edition commemorating the 300th anniversary of the Real Academia Española,” Kalinowski said.
Apart from the technology-related terms such as “bajar” (literally, to download content, usually illegally, from the Internet), led, pin (as in “password”), chatear (which, before, only referred to ‘tomar chatos de vino,’ or, more appropriately, ‘to communicate with somebody via the Internet), and “tuitear,” the Academia also picked up terms tending not to reflect the sexist use of language from a social point of view.
The word “feminicidio” is now also correct to refer to what was previously (justifiably so?) the murder of a woman on account of her sex. The verb “feminizar” was added to strike a balance between the fact that “masculinizar” existed from the third edition of the Diccionario manual e ilustrado de la lengua española (1984),” but no in the RAE, Kalinowski claims.
One of the addenda is the noun “género” as defining “the group of people to which people of either sex belong to, understanding this from a sociocultural standpoint rather than exclusively biological.”
With the same consideration and so as to irk sexual political correctness adepts, the word “matrimonio” (marriage) now includes the meaning: “Under certain legislations, (it indicates) the union of two people of the same sex, arranged through certain rituals or formal legalities, to establish and maintain a community of life and (common) interests.”
Also under the same category fell the articles corresponding to “padre” and “madre,” which marked strong definitions in previous editions, whereas now “the first entry of ‘madre’ has gone from ‘female who has given birth’ to “Woman or female animal who has given birth to another of the same species,’ in accordance with the definition of “padre.”
However, another meaning of “padre” — a controversial one, at that — was maintained: “Head of a lineage, family or people,” Kalinowski said, adding that, “feminine forms were added to ‘soldador,’ ‘enterrador,’ ‘herrero,’ ‘costalero,’ and ‘alfarero.’”
Also, new compound nowns were added which reflect modern times: “demonizar,” “descontextualizar,” “coprotagonizar,” “antiarrugas,” “antidopaje” (not including “antidoping” because it entails that there is an adequate synonym in Spanish), “empoderar” (from the English “Empower”), “mundializar” and “versionar” (to perform a new version of a popular song).
The process of elaborations of the new editions “includes a natural process of continuous correction and amend, which is why it may be said that this edition started to be compiled the day after publication of the 2001 edition,” Kalinowski continued.
In the same vein, Kalinowski considered that, “The same thing will happen with the next edition,” and that, “the different editions of a dictionary may be regarded as periodical photographs of a continuous process.”
As for the terms emerging from Latin America, he said that, “progress has been made as regards registry, which is why the dictionary is surely morely complete than before, but the number of words with diatopic (equivalents) are phenomenons observed in a language on account of its geographical reach), which is always limited.”
For Kalinowski, a very “famous case is that of ‘tanguear,’ cited by all the press. It may be a case of a form originated in our River Plate variety which ends up being incorporated as a general term (that is, with no traces that it is used in a specific region.”
In this sense, he considered that, “it remains to be seen which is the real use of this word outside Argentina, even in our country it’s a word relatively used only occasionally.”
For Kalinowski, “a much more emblematic case is that of ‘papa,’ which, before, used to be used without regional markers, but referred to ‘patata’ (given as a primary and general term).”
“The new edition is completely the opposite: it defines ‘papa’ (word of quechua’ origin) as the primary form, and ‘patata’ has the marker that it ised solely in Spain and refers to ‘papa,’ which may ‘be cited as clear and concrete progress of the American vocabulary in the academic dictionary.”
One of the reasons behind this type of amend “is the intensification of the collaboration among all American academies with the DRAE in the framework of the Asociación de Academias de Lengua Española (ASAE).”
The Royal Academy also has the function of marking certain words as offensive or derogatory. This is the case of “zorra (for prostitute), which did not use to be marked and is now derogatory and does not sound right.”
In the case of “man,” which used to be used to refer to an “Individual having the qualities considered masculine par excellence, such as courage and firmness (of character). “Courage and Firmness” were supressed, and, in the case of the term “huérfano,” it was suppressed because (one) is considered to be more orphananed if the father, not the mother, is the parent who dies.”
Also left out of the new edition were the expressions “trabajar más que un negro, or “como un negro,” surely for being considered racist, even if, it occurs to me, there are still many speakers who do use it,” Kalinowski said
(With Télam and online media)
http://www.buenosairesherald.com/article/172480/spanish-language-academy-nods-coinages
Saturday, October 18, 2014

Spanish language academy nods coinages

The RAE’s linguist Santiago Kalinowski.
By Julio Nakamurakare
Herald Staff
Although the RAE is famous for being rather reticent to new words, some have found a spot

We all know that some new words — coinages — have an easy time finding their way in common folk’s everyday parlance, most in the technological field. Some institutions, like the French Academy, famously — and catastrophically — failed in their effort to impose a French version of the Anglicized Japanese word “Walkman.” Baladeur did not come as close to the concept was back then, nor would it sound appropriate for today’s “mp3 player” or whatever format techno gurus decide to adopt.
Japanese too is not immune to these gairago or loan words (borrowings), mostly from English but also from other Western languages and for more specific purposes (science, for example) to words phonetically “borrowed” from English but with a “made in Japan” meaning. Think “depãto” for “department store” (depãtomento stoa) and you find some kind of logic, even if the shopping experience is different in Japan and other countries.
Whatever the case, linguists observe, language changes according to needs (technological, societal, developmental), and so a descriptive approach to semantics and grammar is preferred over prescriptive notions.
Some languages and nations speaking and / or writing certaing languages do not have a ruling body dictating the proper use of nouns and collocations. Others do, like the Real Academia Española (RAE), which confers upon itself the right and the duty to rule, every couple of years, which words should enter the canonized lexicon, and which ones are mercilessly ruled out.
Coinciding with the appearance of Merriam Webster’s mammoth compilation of words in use in the English language, the RAE has established which words and coinages have made it to the Diccionario of the Real Academia Española (DRAE), launched on Thursday in most Spanish-speaking countries.
This new edition (the 23rd) includes new verbs like “escanear,” “tuitear,” “chatear” and femicidio, not to speak of that infamous borrowing, “drone,” unfortunaley seen and printed in every day news accounts.
The new edition — 2,376 pages — includes 93,111 words compared with the previous edition (2001), which amounted to just 88,431, with 140,000 amends and 8,000 Americanisms.
After intense debate and — one would presume — long hours of discussion among Academy members before each new edition, the linguistic experts include Americanisms such as the Argentinismo “tanguear,” “dni,” “agua viva” and “placar.”
“There are some exceptions which were proposed the success of which remains to be seen among speakers, such as “supermán,” “bungaló,” “hándicap,” “pimpón,” “baipás” and “espanglish,” Santiago Kalinowski, head of the Linguistic and Philological Research Department of the Academia Argentina de Letras told a local news agency.
Other words “which could be adapted were left as ‘extranjerismos,’ such as ‘baguette’ and ‘curry,” in this edition commemorating the 300th anniversary of the Real Academia Española,” Kalinowski said.
Apart from the technology-related terms such as “bajar” (literally, to download content, usually illegally, from the Internet), led, pin (as in “password”), chatear (which, before, only referred to ‘tomar chatos de vino,’ or, more appropriately, ‘to communicate with somebody via the Internet), and “tuitear,” the Academia also picked up terms tending not to reflect the sexist use of language from a social point of view.
The word “feminicidio” is now also correct to refer to what was previously (justifiably so?) the murder of a woman on account of her sex. The verb “feminizar” was added to strike a balance between the fact that “masculinizar” existed from the third edition of the Diccionario manual e ilustrado de la lengua española (1984),” but no in the RAE, Kalinowski claims.
One of the addenda is the noun “género” as defining “the group of people to which people of either sex belong to, understanding this from a sociocultural standpoint rather than exclusively biological.”
With the same consideration and so as to irk sexual political correctness adepts, the word “matrimonio” (marriage) now includes the meaning: “Under certain legislations, (it indicates) the union of two people of the same sex, arranged through certain rituals or formal legalities, to establish and maintain a community of life and (common) interests.”
Also under the same category fell the articles corresponding to “padre” and “madre,” which marked strong definitions in previous editions, whereas now “the first entry of ‘madre’ has gone from ‘female who has given birth’ to “Woman or female animal who has given birth to another of the same species,’ in accordance with the definition of “padre.”
However, another meaning of “padre” — a controversial one, at that — was maintained: “Head of a lineage, family or people,” Kalinowski said, adding that, “feminine forms were added to ‘soldador,’ ‘enterrador,’ ‘herrero,’ ‘costalero,’ and ‘alfarero.’”
Also, new compound nowns were added which reflect modern times: “demonizar,” “descontextualizar,” “coprotagonizar,” “antiarrugas,” “antidopaje” (not including “antidoping” because it entails that there is an adequate synonym in Spanish), “empoderar” (from the English “Empower”), “mundializar” and “versionar” (to perform a new version of a popular song).
The process of elaborations of the new editions “includes a natural process of continuous correction and amend, which is why it may be said that this edition started to be compiled the day after publication of the 2001 edition,” Kalinowski continued.
In the same vein, Kalinowski considered that, “The same thing will happen with the next edition,” and that, “the different editions of a dictionary may be regarded as periodical photographs of a continuous process.”
As for the terms emerging from Latin America, he said that, “progress has been made as regards registry, which is why the dictionary is surely morely complete than before, but the number of words with diatopic (equivalents) are phenomenons observed in a language on account of its geographical reach), which is always limited.”
For Kalinowski, a very “famous case is that of ‘tanguear,’ cited by all the press. It may be a case of a form originated in our River Plate variety which ends up being incorporated as a general term (that is, with no traces that it is used in a specific region.”
In this sense, he considered that, “it remains to be seen which is the real use of this word outside Argentina, even in our country it’s a word relatively used only occasionally.”
For Kalinowski, “a much more emblematic case is that of ‘papa,’ which, before, used to be used without regional markers, but referred to ‘patata’ (given as a primary and general term).”
“The new edition is completely the opposite: it defines ‘papa’ (word of quechua’ origin) as the primary form, and ‘patata’ has the marker that it ised solely in Spain and refers to ‘papa,’ which may ‘be cited as clear and concrete progress of the American vocabulary in the academic dictionary.”
One of the reasons behind this type of amend “is the intensification of the collaboration among all American academies with the DRAE in the framework of the Asociación de Academias de Lengua Española (ASAE).”
The Royal Academy also has the function of marking certain words as offensive or derogatory. This is the case of “zorra (for prostitute), which did not use to be marked and is now derogatory and does not sound right.”
In the case of “man,” which used to be used to refer to an “Individual having the qualities considered masculine par excellence, such as courage and firmness (of character). “Courage and Firmness” were supressed, and, in the case of the term “huérfano,” it was suppressed because (one) is considered to be more orphananed if the father, not the mother, is the parent who dies.”
Also left out of the new edition were the expressions “trabajar más que un negro, or “como un negro,” surely for being considered racist, even if, it occurs to me, there are still many speakers who do use it,” Kalinowski said
(With Télam and online media)
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