Danny: No, venti is twenty. Large is large. Infact, tall is large and grande is Spanish for large. Venti is the only one thatdoesn't mean large. It's also the only one that's Italian. Congratulations,you're stupid in three languages.
The State of McLocalization 2012. Exhibit A: I see an Internet jobad entitled: "Spanish translators with Catalan and Castellano dialects areneeded ASAP." An ad calling for a Spanish translator who speaks Castellanoof course piques my curiosity. Greater delights awaited me. I kid you not, thisis what the ad said: "We have text in English and Spanish that should betranslated into Catalan and Castellano." Spanish to Castellano. Thewonders of the Web 2.0. The person who posted the ad helpfully adds a couple oflinguistic notes taken from the Monty Python Book of Flying Dialectology: "Castellanois a kind of Spanish which includes dialects at the central and north part ofSpain (the area from Cantabria to Cuenca)." I omit the notes on Catalanbecause it describes the language as a “dialect” and I don't want the comments setion inundated with people making threatening comments.
Let me start to unpack this monstrosity by beginning with the familiarterm of “Castilian Spanish.” Most people who use “Castilian Spanish” probablythink it sounds a little more fancy or scientific than “European Spanish” or “IberianSpanish” or the clunky “Spanish from Spain.” But steer clear from thejackass who uses this phrase, gentle reader, because an agency that uses it torecruit translators may also have trouble figuring out the complexities ofinternational wire transfers, whether willfully or not. Thatperson/agency/spambot is affecting an erudition that he/she/it does not reallypossess.
But, wait, “Castilian Spanish” is endorsed by a source as eminentas Wikipedia. Read this page:
CastilianSpanish is a term related to the Spanish language, but its exact meaning canvary even in that language. In English Castilian Spanish usually refers to thevariety of European Spanish spoken in north and central Spain or as thelanguage standard for radio and TV speakers.[1][2][3][4] The region where thisvariety of Spanish is spoken corresponds more or less to the Castilianhistorical region.No, no, no, no. Bad Wikipedia! Bad Wikipedia! Naughty, naughty Wikipedia!You went and urinated on the living room rug of knowledge again! The exactmeaning of “Castilian Spanish” does NOT “vary even in that language.” No one usesthe term “español castellano.” Why? Because he would be branded a jackass. Okay, I’m only going to say this once. Saying “CastilianSpanish” is just an economic way of proclaiming that a grandfather orgreat-grandfather deflowered a cousin somewhere in the adjacent branches ofyour family tree. It is the same as using the term “Tuscan Italian” or “AnglicanEnglish” or “Gallic French” or “Sino-Chinese” or “Nippon Japanese” or “TeutonicGerman.” It is a nonsense term used by Scientologists, Pataphysicists, conspiracytheorists, and sundry varieties of idiot who believe in the Singularity. Thinkof the funny made-up Roman names used in the Life of Brian, such as “Maximus Minimus”.
Castilian is the language spoken in the north-central region ofSpain that spread via the Reconquista and the political ascendancy of Castile tothe whole of the Iberian Peninsula, thus becoming the primary language ofliterature and government in what would eventually become Spain (sometimes inan uneasy and fraught cohabitation with other languages [careful: not dialects] such as Basque and Catalan).Later on, it also spread to the Americas and even the Philippines through the,er, free Spanish courses taught by those stabby, trigger-happy language tutorsknown as conquistadores. Castilian is just an old name for standard Spanish,whether spoken in Buenos Aires or Mexico City or Barcelona (or even Copenhagen,for that matter). The Castilian dialect, on the other hand, refers to thepeculiarities of the Spanish spoken in rural areas of Castile, where thisentire story started.
Visit these (correct) definitions to get a sense of what I’mtalking about:
Definition of CASTILIAN
1: a nativeor inhabitant of Castile; broadly : Spaniard
2 a : thedialect of Castileb : theofficial and literary language of Spain based on this dialectOr this one:
Cas·til·ian [ka-stil-yuhn] noun 1. thedialect of Spanish spoken in Castile. 2. theofficial standard form of the Spanish language as spoken in Spain, based onthis dialect. 3. a nativeor inhabitant of Castile.Or this one:
CastilianTherefore, if you insist on using the term “Castilian Spanish”, itcan only refer to the Spanish spoken in the Castile region, which by the sametoken will exclude the Spanish spoken in otherregions of Spain, which doesn’t make any sense when you are recruiting translators(who localizes only for Castile?). To sum it up, if you stress the “Castilian”in “Castilian Spanish”, you excludethe rest of Spain. And if you stress the “Spanish” in “Castilian Spanish” (to distinguish it from LatinAmerican Spanish), you get to the insane situation whereby Latin Americansspeak Castilian and Spanish, but notCastilian Spanish. In any case, the conceptual difficulties you can get into bysimply raising the term “Castilian” are thorny. Better to simply avoid using itand stick to safer terms such as “Iberian Spanish” or “European Spanish,”neither of which requires a doctorate in comparative philology. Yeah, I know “Castilian”sounds fancy, but everybody hurts sometime.
1 a native ofCastile. 2 the dialectof Spanish spoken in Castile, which is standard Spanish.adjectiveof orrelating to Castile, Castilians, or the Castilian form of Spanish.
Now, the job ad quoted at the beginning takes the “Castilian/Spanish/CastilianSpanish” idiocy one step further and totally dissociates español from castellano andasks for a translator to work a text from one to the other. That is the equivalentof asking someone to translate from Quebecois to Canadian French or from Englishinto “American.” This marks a step further in the divorce between Spanish and Castilian,similar to a fight between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde or between Bruce Banner andthe Hulk. Which is an extreme, relatively unstudied phase of multiple personalitydisorder.
The agency posting this is Ukrainian (the ad, sadly, was erased before I managed to save it). An autopsy of the way inwhich a project from English to Spanish came to be handled by an agency in thatregion of the world would perhaps provide an interesting radiography of whythere are so many poor translations out there.
Rant over. (Whew, it felt good to get that off my chest.)
Miguel Llorens is a freelance financial translator basedin Madrid who works from Spanish into English. He is specialized in equityresearch, economics, accounting, and investment strategy. He has worked as atranslator for Goldman Sachs, the US Government's Open Source Center, andH.B.O. International, as well as several small brokerages and asset managementcompanies. To contact him, visit his website andwrite to the address listed there. You can also join his LinkedIn networkby visiting the profile or followhim on Twitter.
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