May
31
Extranjerismos 2
Those poor linguists over at Fundéu BBVA. They’re back and still tearing their hair out over the wide use of non-Spanish words in Spanish media. The last time it was over auto racing. Now it’s professional tennis. Here’s a recent sample news report from the French Open, with the offending extranjerismos in bold:
‘Nadal, tras un gran partido, ganó a Federer en el tie break. Los dos jugadores se hicieron break mutuamente antes de llegar al juego definitivo. No se definió el partido hasta el último set, en el que disputaron el tie break. Nadal sacó primero y logró un ace, contra el que nada pudo hacer Federer.
A continuación, Nadal consiguió un mini break, lo que le supuso la ventaja ante el suizo. El mallorquín dispuso de dos match point de ventaja. Desaprovechó el primero pero el segundo fue definitivo; Nadal golpeó con su drive y consiguió el punto que le dio la victoria.’
Fundéu BBVA says that there are Spanish words or phrases for practically all of those English terms. For example, they prefer manga instead of “set”; muerte súbita instead of tie break; romper de servicio instead of (service) break; saque directo instead of ace; punto de partido instead of match point. It’s also driving them nuts to hear Spanish-speaking commentators use words like “net,” “out,” and “deuce” instead of their Spanish equivalents red, fuera and iguales.
But there are some tennis terms that don’t have a short and tidy equivalent in Spanish. For example, the best Fundéu BBVA can up with to define a tennis “drive” is el golpe dado desde el lado en que el jugador sostiene la raqueta. Meanwhile their lengthy definition of a “let” is enough to stop any tennis match dead in its tracks. Here it is:
Cuando la pelota ha tocado la red y cae en la zona de saque hacia donde se sacaba y por tanto hay que repetir el punto.
Set. Match. Game over. 
Here’s the thing, if Spanish sportswriters and sports commentators did make a conscious effort to use all the Spanish equivalents all the time, would their audience still fully understand what they were saying? I may be off base but also having that much English in the mix adds to the esnob appeal of the sport in Spain, I think. It also seems to me like many of these terms are so ingrained in the language of the sport, (like saying 30-love), it would be a little jarring to have them suddenly disappear. What do you guys think?
The very word “fútbol” was borrowed from English and tennis was borrowed from French. When you start off with the names of the sports coming from other languages it’s kind of hard to keep more “loan words” from creeping into the athletic vocabulary. I tend to be somewhat of a prescriptivist purist but I fully recognize that when a word is “borrowed” from another language it is almost never returned to its owner. We still use tons of French words in our vocabulary, it seems to me that the British use even more of them. I don’t think that this is always a bad thing but I like it when a language uses its own rules to make new words.
I am a big “tenis” fan or should I say “seguidora”.
Where I live in Spain I never hear “manga” they always refer to “set” and I have had a few amusing conversations where local friends refuse to accept that “manga” refers to “set”. Personally I use “manga” simply for the amusing thought of “having a set up your sleeve”.
The main Spanish commentator does use “manga” but I agree, many of the English based tennis words are clearly more useful for quick live match commentary.
It seems clear to me that during matches most players when disputing something with the umprire will use whatever level of English they have and many players are working with coaches from different countries, so it seems probable that whilst training many will be using English.
I think this simply reflects the modern global sport of tennis.
I have noticed that there is one Spanish commentator, Thomas Carbonell , who is an excellent voice for tennis (the best I have heard in my tennis following years), who tends to use more traditional Spanish tennis expressions.
I can understand language purists getting annoyed, but as I said it seems to be just how the current world of tennis is.
@Ryan, great point about how “borrowed” words are never returned to their original languages and that it really becomes a slippery slope.
@Berti, I love tennis too but I had never heard the term “manga” in reference to a tennis set until I wrote this post. I learn something new every day.
Thanks to you both for commenting.
De nada, tomorrow is a big tennis day for me with the 2 singles semis from Paris.
If you liked “manga” listen out for “un rosco”. They use it to describe a set which finishes 6/0. Obviously a reference to the popular tarta de navidad with the hole in the middle.
And I agree with Ryan as regards language usage, in that ” behaviour breeds behavior”
There is a Spanish commentator ex professional, I think called Alex Correja (not sure on spelling), the other day he was talking about bananas instead of platanos. Only later did I read that he had been working in Paris with a British player, who gave an interview about his opinion on eating bananas during a match. Clearly his Spanish coach had enjoyed using this word and it spilled out into his Spanish commentary.
It is always interesting to see language criss cross and take new forms.