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Society

The Hispanic World: United By Spanish, Divided By Spanish

Latin Americans are proud to be part of a "brotherly" region united by its Hispanic heritage, until they suffer hearing each other's "Spanish."

The Hispanic World: United By Spanish, Divided By Spanish

A wall in Mexico

Ricardo Bada

BOGOTÁ — In February this year, my friend and fellow columnist Juan David Zuloaga expounded on the reality of a historic, cultural and linguistic community known as Spanish or Hispanic America. It includes Spain and the nations that were once a part of its American empire. I won't dismiss the idea, but I do question it.

Days ago, I read the most interesting article by Itziar Hernández Rodilla, in Vasos Comunicantes, a translators' journal, which began, "I read these words in Claudia Piñeiro'sCatedrales: "The way we name plants, flowers, fruits, while still using the same language reveals our origins as much as any tune, if not more. That is where we are from, the place where every word blooms or gives fruit."


Piñeiro, an Argentine novelist and screenwriter, then gives us a list of names for the bougainvillea plant: "Buganvilla in Spain; bugambilla in Mexico, Peru, Chile and Guatemala; papelillo in northern Peru; Napoleón in Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama; trinitaria in Cuba, Panama, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and Venezuela; veranera in Colombia and El Salvador." In Argentina they call them santarritas. Piñeiro shows we speak Spanish in several languages.


It's all semantics 

Looking back, I recall that in October 1984 I was asked to represent my radio station, Deutsche Welle (the German BBC, as it were), at a symposium of the International Center of Higher Studies in Journalism for Latin America in Quito, Ecuador. Attending were representatives from all the Latin American broadcasters as well as various European ones. On the last day, there was a conversation between broadcasting reps from both sides of the pond.

A female colleague from Mexico spoke first and, surprisingly, discarded the traditional courtesy of Mexicans: She said she thought the best programs from Europe were on Deutsche Welle. Only, she was bothered by all the Argentine accents! I replied that no Argentine worked at our desk — only two Uruguayans.

I was surprised to hear this after listening for a week to so much talk of brotherly ties and Hispano-American fraternity. It was empty rhetoric, I said; if Mexicans found the Argentine accent irksome, Chileans would say the same thing about the Peruvian accent and Colombians of the Puerto Rican accent. Nobody thought to contradict me. Apologies here to our favorite Argentine girl, the beloved comic book character Mafalda.

Every year when it's October 12 (Columbus Day), I quietly repeat, like a mantra: Latin America is haunted — by the ghost of its Spanish identity.

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Ideas

Sincericide, When Speaking Your Mind Can Kill A Relationship

We all know good communication is the bedrock of a healthy relationship. Here's why keeping some of your thoughts to yourself, and a practiced lack of utter sincerity, is a bedrock of a healthy couple.

A couple sitting on a rooftop in front of skyscrapers.

A couple relaxing on a rooftop in front of skyscrapers.

Aleksandr Popov via Unsplash

BUENOS AIRES — We know we can often be hard on ourselves, even if our perpetual, and private, self-evaluation can help us reassess our conduct and do better.

But what if it's your spouse or partner criticizing you? How harsh can they be without harming or even killing a relationship? Ours is a time of limited tolerance for dissent (with a brisk tendency to cancel and "unfriend") and polls show younger generations are keener than before to meet kind and empathetic partners.

While we can always state our views and discuss a point of discord without offending, it is also crucial to understand why and when we feel we are justified criticizing a partner's conduct or decision. Because even the plain truth, blurted out freely and once too often, can do irreparable harm. Some call it "sincericide."

Psychoanalyst and therapist Irene Fuks told Clarín that the dangers of "sincericide" are in the word itself, which combines sincerity with homicide and suicide.

"There's something deadly at work," she stresses, as words become darts. And while some people like to boast they say things "as they are," we need to stop a moment, says another analyst Erika Salinas, and "ask ourselves, this thing I'm going to say, does it add up, is it necessary or does it contribute something?" It is one thing to disagree, she adds, and another "to tell [your partner] what they 'are' or 'are not'," which can be hurtful.

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