This is the first post that will count toward the cultural project for Summer I; the previous two were an intro to the blog and games to learn some geography.
When we start chapter one, I go into a little of the culture that is included in the book. Spanish is a Romance language, which means it developed in a natural manner, over time, from vulgar Latin. English has many words that come from Latin, but this language was never spoken widely in England. Other romance languages are Portuguese, Italian, Romanian, French, and Catalan (spoken in some parts of Spain). Romance languages differ from one another because of the substrate languages - or those that were already spoken in the region - and also due to influence after the Romans. An enormous influence in Spanish is Arabic because the Moors from Northern Africa were in Spain for 8 centuries. Most of the words that start with the letters "al" in Spanish come from Arabic: al means the. Alfombra is carpet, aldea is village, almohada is pillow...and so on.
Languages are still evolving today, and there are many loaner words from English in Spanish: computadora, tecnologia, etc.
My question to you is...do you know any loaner words from Spanish that are used in English? Do not list more than 2 - and do not list anything anyone else has answered. Tell us what the words are, how they are used, what they mean, are they commonly used - and anything else you would like to add.
I can think of quite a few Spanish loaner words that we use in our English vocabulary. Two that come to mind in particular are piñata and alligator. A piñata is of course, a colorful hollow animal generally filled with candy and toys. They are commonly found at parties or special events throughout the Western Hemisphere. Alligator is derived from the word el lagarto meaning "the lizard." Alligators of course are the large water dwelling lizards that inhabit the southern United States. We sometimes shorten the name to "Gator."
ReplyDeleteBy Peter Dudek (Spn 101)
Cinch is a belt or strap for a pack. In English it is to describe a simple or seemingly simple task; implying a strong grasp of the problem.
ReplyDelete-Chris S.
There are many words that are used in English that were originally intended for use in Spanish. Some of these word are "Loco" and "Nada". Loco is a very common Spanish word that is used in the english vocabulary because it is a simple word and many people understand the meaning of it. Loco means crazy and is often used to describe something or someone for the most part. Nada means nothing and is also used a lot in the english vocabulary because of its direct content and is often used in english to answer a question someone has asked you.
ReplyDeleteAngelo C (Spanish 101)
Simple means of communication, as simple as "si" and "no" ("yes" and no in Spanish, respectively) are used by anyone and everyone in even the lightest conversations. For me, it's one of two:
ReplyDelete"que pasa?"/"que paso?" - informal or casual, Spanish for "what's up?" or something to that effect; used to segue into a conversation.
"gracias!" - Spanish for "thank you", showing gratitude.
- AJ Valcin (SPN101)
A few word's come to mind that are loner words from spanish, one in particular happen's to be the best drink to ever come from spanish culture and that is Tequila! Another word that comes to mind is fiesta, this word is commonly used when throwing a party. . . "Come chill at the fiesta ma dude!"
ReplyDeleteThese are a few loner word from spanish to english.
-Christopher Miano
As we all know Spanish is spoken worldwide. There are many words that are derived from Spanish that we use today in the English language. For instance burrito literally means little donkey but we use it for a type of food, but I guess you could say in some cases burritos are big enough to be called little donkey’s. Another word that we use quite often, when talking about a large ditch, would be the word canyon. In Spanish it is spelled canon with an accent over the middle N to give it a similar pronunciation. Even the word chocolate was derived from an indigenous Mexican language, Nahuati, and was first spelled xocolati. So as you can see different languages use similar words all the time but we just don’t see it.
ReplyDeleteA few words that I can think of that come from spanish are: Hospital, and vision. Hospital is obviously a place to care for the sick, pregnant, and injured; and vision can be refered to: Visual perception, interpreting what is seen; Visual system, the sensory mechanism of eyesight; and vision as spiritually.
ReplyDelete-Michelle Valerio
A few loner words that come to mind are presidente (president) and beisbol (baseball). Both, when said properly, sound almost identical to its English counterpart. President and baseball both have the same meaning in English and Spanish.
ReplyDelete- Kim Lamiroult
Some loner words from spanish to english that come to mind for me are banana, and bistec, since they are two foods that I like and sound similar to words used in the english language.
ReplyDeleteSpencer B.
Words that come to mind that are both used in the English and Spanish are cafeteria and chocolate. These words are loaner words because they originate from Spanish and English now commonly uses them. Cafeteria in both Spanish and English means a place of eating and chocolate also has the same meaning in both languages, the food. This is somewhat common that the meaning of the word carries over from Spanish to English, but this is not the case as seen in the example that was given by funkmastelo, burrito is a type of food in English but in Spanish it means a "little donkey."
ReplyDelete-Chris H.
There are a few words that used in both Spanish and English, like the word bronco which means wild or rough in Spanish. Another loaner word that is used in English from Spanish is the word armadillo which means in Spanish "the little armed one".
ReplyDelete- John Carroll
Some loner words that I came up with are the numbers. While they do not sound like the english numbers many people throughout the United States know at least the first five or so numbers in spanish. This can be for a variety of different reasons such as seeing the numbers on a sign or hearing them used in everyday conversation. Another loner word is el teatro which means theater. This is very similar to the english word theater and also has the same meaning.
ReplyDelete-Andrew W
A loner word that comes to mind from Spansih to English is estúpido, baño and tortilla. I feel as though if someone has little to no spanish speaking background they still us the words estúpido and baño on a daily basis. Estúpido is easily understood if you are an English speaking person, the word has almost been categorized as a word of the mixed language of Spanglish. Tortilla means "little cake" in Spanish and is used commonly for English speaking people in food scenarios.
ReplyDeleteLiam
A loner word that comes to mind from Spansih to English is estúpido, baño and tortilla. I feel as though if some one has little to no spanish speaking background they still us the words estúpido and baño on a daily basis. Estúpido is easily understood if you are an English speaking person, the word has almost been categorized as a word of the mixed language of Spanglish. Tortilla means "little cake" in Spanish and is used commonly for English speaking people in food scenarios.
ReplyDeleteLiam