Is there such thing as neutral Spanish?
This question has been asked time and time again in translation circles. To many Spanish speakers the very idea is laughable. When people from different Spanish speaking countries strike up a conversation, they recognize, often understand, and sometimes chuckle at, the words and expressions the other uses. But these regional terms rarely impede the conversation, and, although there are sometimes universal word choices that more easily bridge national divides, there is no manufactured Spanish language shared by all speakers.
For practical purposes, however, there is. And it consists not so much in creating words shared by all as it does eliminating words unique to just one locale. For translation customers, this is good news. If you want to market your products to various Spanish-speaking groups, you can save money by translating your advertising just once. Agencies and translators, although they sometimes discourage the practice — especially in the case of advertising, which many would claim should be “hyper-local” to be effective — increasingly honor this request and have become more adept at creating a neutralized language.
According to Guillermo Cabanellas de las Cuevas, in his article, Neutral Spanish: Is it Necessary? Does it Exist?, finding words without local flavor is not always possible. “Suppose that our hypothetical client wants to market peaches in the Spanish-speaking world. What word should he use on his cans? Melocotón (used in Spain and other countries) or durazno (used in Argentina and other countries, and even in certain parts of Spain)? There is no ‘neutrality’ for this conundrum. We cannot mix melocotón and durazno and get a ‘melozno’ or a ‘duracotón’.”
On the other hand, Prof. Isabel García Izquierdo, in her article highlights the fact that some see neutral Spanish “not as an artifice devoid of any identity. Instead, they see it as a way of bringing the 400 million speakers of Spanish closer together without losing their identity in the process.” The purpose of a Universal Spanish in this case, therefore, would not be market your products cheaper but to enrich understanding in the Spanish speaking world.
So why not Universal French? Or Universal English?
In all my years in translation, I’ve never received a request for Universal French. We translate for Canada or Switzerland or Belgium, or perhaps into “standard French” as the French and their Académie might have us call it. But the industry doesn’t seem to have coined the term “neutral French” as it has with Spanish.
And when we translate into English, we ask “British or American?” So what’s different between Spanish and other languages with regional differences?
9 responses so far ↓
1 Jill // Jun 26, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Maybe it’s your clients, because several of my clients regularly ask for “Universal English” - whatever that is.
We have debated this ad nauseum on the ATA’s German Language Division listserv in the context of agencies frequently contacting American translators to translate into British English. We came to the conclusion that it is a bland form of English that uses z instead of s, but then again we could be wrong because no one on the listserv had the slightest clue what clients mean when they ask for International English.
Last I heard, our assistant division administer was thinking about doing a session on British English for U.S. translators or something like that, but I haven’t heard anything since then and don’t know if it will happen. It was one of the reasons I decided to attend this year’s ATA conference (that and the fact that [shameless plug] Corinne and I will be presenting a preconference seminar on How to Succeed as a Freelance Translator[/shameless plug]).
2 Glenn // Jun 26, 2008 at 5:31 pm
Jill, thanks for the insightful, if pluggy, comment. I’d like to hear the follow-up on the issue. Obviously we’re talking about artificial languages rather than something anyone speaks.
I’ve never heard gotten a request for “Universal English” at least not with a straight face. Are there requests for Universal German that takes account of the differences in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, etc.?
Thanks, as always, for reading!
3 Masked Translator // Jun 27, 2008 at 12:10 am
I get requests for “mid-Atlantic English” fairly often–where they want something that’s not too British and not too American, something halfway in the middle between the U.K. and the U.S. or “mid-Atlantic.” Obviously watching BBC shows is not enough for me to produce British English. One thing that helps “de-Americanize” me, though, is using a Language X to British English dictionary and looking up way more words than I need to. So I look up the Language X word for “trash” and low and behold it says something British sounding like “rubbish.”
4 Clint // Jun 28, 2008 at 11:32 pm
Great post. You ask what the difference is between Spanish and languages with other regional differences and while I admit I’m making this up as I go along, maybe it has to do with the number of countries where Spanish is the official language. There are 21 countries where Spanish is spoken as the primary language. In contrast, there are only 5 countries where German is spoken by the majority, and around 16 countries where French is the primary language spoken. Even with English, often recognized as the dominant international language, there are only 5 or 6 countries where it is spoken by the majority of the population.
I think another thing might be the distance between countries where the language is primarily spoken. For example, clients often know there is a difference between “Spain Spanish” and Spanish spoken in Latin America. But they don’t often know (or care) about the difference between Spanish spoken in Chile and Ecuador, for example.
English in different parts of the US can be very different, but I’m not usually asked to differentiate between West and East Coast English. This might be because of the relative “closeness” between these two regions. However, there are is a greater physical distance between the UK and the US and clients often recognize the difference in language.
Anyway, just my two cents. It’s an interesting discussion.
5 Glenn // Jun 29, 2008 at 9:40 am
Clint,
Thank you for taking the time to put your thoughts down.
First I stand corrected; Jill and Masked Translator tell us that in fact Universal English — although we don’t quite know what it is — is requested. My take on this is, if it’s industry jargon like finance or law, you better choose one
or the other, not a mix. And if it’s more general or coloquial, you can try to avoid localized terms but it would be tough to convince the Brit or the American that they are the intended audience.
You may be right about the number of countries and their proximity having an impact on Spanish needing to find some middle ground. Sometimes the middle ground is found because all dialects of a language recognize, and gravitate toward (in their written form anyway), the “pure” or “standard” version.
In the case of Universal Spanish, market forces seem to be having the biggest impact. I would like to hear more examples where these attempts by translators to find a universal language either succeeded or failed.
Thanks again for reading!
6 Chris // Jul 7, 2008 at 9:43 pm
I don’t think it’s so much of a problem in German. Although spoken forms deviate enormously not only among the various countries, but also within them, the written standard is pretty much the written standard. Sure, there are different standard word choices here and there - the standard Austrian word for “January” is different than the standard German word, the Swiss don’t use the ß, and both use the preposition “binnen” where standard German uses “innerhalb von”, but the Swiss aren’t really going to blink if they see that stuff. The Germans, however, might - so the choice is obvious.
The only time that “universal German” ever becomes an issue is when talking about food. I’ve translated a lot of menus from Swiss German to English and have been quite baffled at times. Likewise, the only time I saw Scandinavian style labeling in German was on a ketchup bottle. I think it was the word for “vinegar” - the Austrians wouldn’t have understood the German word.
7 Maria Celina // Jul 8, 2008 at 9:35 pm
Hi, I’m from Argentina and I read about this in Facebook. You asked what is the difference between Spanish and languages with other regional differences. I want to say something about the “melocotón”. For example here in Argentina if you translate peaches as”melocotón” not everybody is going to understand what that means because we don’t use that word for that fruit. The same happens with the word “coger”. In Spain it means to take something, but here it has a different meaning. That’s why there is no “neutral Spanish”, because the people that speaks Spanish do not speak the same “Spanish”.
I don’t know if this is the answer that you were looking for. But it’s an interesting topic.
8 Glenn // Jul 8, 2008 at 10:04 pm
Maria Celina,
Thank you for reading. I am not a Spanish speaker so I very much appreciate your input.
Despite the fact that there is no neutral Spanish spoken in Argentina, Spain and other countries, many translators have done their best to create a language that can be understood everywhere. I’m sure this is easier in some contexts than others and that food would be especially difficult!
Glenn
9 Germán Hurtado // Jul 10, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Dear Glenn,
Congratulations on your translation company. I wish you much success!
Universal Spanish is, in my humble opinion, an American invention. What does not cease to amaze me is how more than 400 million Spanish speakers around the globe, who are geographically disperse (i.e. Miami is much closer to Venezuela than Argentina is) still manage to understand each other and communicate perfectly despite their obvious dialectical and regional differences.
My experience dealing in multilingual communications for many years tells me that written Spanish should be as neutral as possible and create consesus among a myriad of Hispanic subcultures, geographies, socioeconomic backgrounds, etc.
When it comes to universality, the spoken word is a different and big challenge altogether. For example, one should not aim at doing voiceovers in Universal Spanish because the accents are so distinct, recognizable, and varied that the request is simply ludicrous.
¡Qué viva el español!
Germán
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