La Lenguage

June 1, 2010

As a whole, Spanish is a largely masochistic language. The default for many words is masculine, and when referring to a group of mixed gender, one will always use “nosotros” (we – masculine). Even if there are 100 women and only one man, it will still be masculine. Women are essentially invisible unless one expressly states that they are present, which is usually not done, simply for the sake of being concise. I have noticed however, that the staff at the seminary will differentiate between men and women by using “nosotros y nosotras,” or “amigos y amigas” or “hermanos y hermanas,” deliberately using both the masculine and feminine manifestations of “we,” “friends,” or “brothers and sisters,” something which my host parents do not do.

Thus far in my experience, I have also observed that Spanish-speaking Christians address and refer to God with the informal. For those unfamiliar with the Spanish concept of different forms of verbs, the language has two different ways of saying “you” – one (formal) is for addressing parents, grandparents, or others in higher authority; while the other (informal) is between friends, coworkers, or others at or near the same level or age. Up to this point, I had always assumed that God would be referred to in the formal tense, since by conventional wisdom, he is at a higher level of authority than we. This new way of referring to God forces one to necessarily redefine his or her view of God and his relationship to him or her.

Spanish is an eloquent language, both in its sentence structure and in the way in which ideas are expressed. There are ideas conveyed in Spanish that simply do not translate accurately into English or which lose some of their meaning. The above are just a couple of observations from the past week, and I’m sure that there will be more to follow.