Funny things about language...

A cool, crisp autumn breeze tossed the fallen leaves to spiral and dance and the conifers to whisper a rustling orchestra as we sat ourselves down at a patio table of a local restaurant in Tandil, Argentina. There were five of us. A yanqui, a Paraguayo, two Indonesas, and one Colombiana. An eclectic group that no doubt drew some attention from passers-by.

We were visiting Tandil for only a few days, and we'd set up a tent outside of town on a small hillock, where we could have a campfire, roast our food, and gaze at the bright light of the stars, which so often disappeared in the light pollution of the city.

As we sat at the table and were getting ready to order food a woman approached us. She was of larger build, and wore a long blue and white dress. Her hair was dark brown and her small eyes and thin lips seemed tensed and aggressive. In moments she had quickly placed a piece of paper right in front of me and stood there, gazing sternly and expectantly at me. The quickness of her action and her stern gaze took me by surprise, and I was by no means in prime mental state, having stayed up until 4AM the previous night and having only slept two and a half hours at that—But hey, that's vacation :)

For nearly a minute there was an awkward silence in which the woman waited for me to speak, my friends all looked on, expecting me to say something, and me wondering what the heck was going on and looking from the woman, to my friends, back to the woman and then back to my friends repeatedly. Finally I looked down at the paper which she had placed in front of me and on it showed a photo of a boy, and in handwritten scrawl it stated the boy suffered from an illness and if I could give some money to help him.

This is a common technique used by beggars. Whether it is true or not, whether the child truly has an illness, perhaps depends on the beggar. What the beggar doesn't tell you is that the public healthcare is generally free or the fee is minimal so either the child is sick and is getting care, or the child is sick and the parent is lazy, or the person is simply trying to exploit you by placing a child's photo in front of you. Whatever the case, this strategy generally works best on tourists who don't know how the systems work and who can be exploited more easily by it.

A waitress came up and asked the woman to leave and not bother the guests but the woman responded coldly. “Espera un momento! Este rubio va a comprar algo!” "Wait a minute, this blondie is going to buy something."

In that moment I thought to myself, 'I'm going to buy something? I never said that!'

Well, my silence dragged on, and her patience thinned. Finally I choked out the words in broken spanish. “Uh, no, gracias. Estoy bien.” And I handed her the slip of paper with no money, at which she cursed me for the wasted time saying: “Sos un mono cachuzo!”

I looked to my friends sitting across from me and next to me at the table. “Mono cachuzo?” I wondered as the lady, perhaps a gypsy, huffed away holding the paper which I'd given back to her. She looked furious.

“What does mono cachuzo mean?” I asked.

Luis, the Paraguayan, shrugged his shoulders. “I don't know. I've never heard that word before. But the way you handled that situation was terrible.” He laughed.

“Long night.” I replied.

The Colombian and the Indonesians had no idea either. Cachuzo. Is it a Spanish word? An Italian word? For several months the word hung around in the back of my mind, every so often coming to the forefront when I would wonder anew at its meaning. Finally I did a google search and after perusing a few pages I found it.

Cachuzo: Cuando algo esta un poquito roto, viejo, o decrepito. When something is just a little bit broken, old or decrepit.

That gypsy woman had called me a broken monkey. It turns out, though this might not be relevant, that in Colombia people with blonde hair are called 'mono' as well. But this is not considered derogatory. It is more of an endearing term.

In learning spanish, one begins to understand that Spanish, unlike the English language, has vocabulary that is distinct to not only to countries but also to specific regions. And that to say you speak spanish doesn't necessarily mean you can hold down a conversation with Spanish speakers all around the world, because in order to do so one must learn the vocabulary specific to that locale and adapt how you speak to using local terminology. I had an Argentine student once tell me that they could hardly understand Venezuelans because of the differences in speech and vocabulary. Or that Porteños, because of the history of immigration from Italy, Spain, and other parts of Europe, use so much vocabulary, called “Lunfardo” and distinct to just Buenos Aires, that often Spanish speakers from other parts of Latin America have trouble understanding everything in a conversation, not to mention a native English speaker just trying to learn Spanish as a second language.

Below is a list of words and phrases, some from Buenos Aires, and some from other parts of the Spanish speaking world that demonstrate some of the diversity and distinct cultural characteristics that the language takes on in different countries and regions.

Colombia

Chevére: Literally means something is 'cool.' Chevére is also widely used in Central America.

Que bacáno: Also means something is 'cool.'

Bien pueda: You will be greeted with this term by service employees when you enter shops throughout Colombia. It is basically short form for saying 'welcome in. Please feel free to look around and I am available for questions if you have any.' It's much easier to just say bien pueda!

Arepera: This one is very specific to Colombia, and means both a woman who makes arepas, and also means a 'lesbian.' Here it all depends on context. Arepa is a corn tortilla that is specific to Colombia. And areperas are the women who make the arepas. But as with many words in Colombian spanish, there is usually un doble sentido— a double meaning.

Argentina:

Quilombo: Quilombo is basically a fiasco or crazy situation. It is derived from a word used in Brazil to describe the villages of escaped slaves who lived in hiding in the rainforest.

'Pedo' is a very commonly used word in the Argentine vernacular. I would consider it something of a phrasal verb, in which you pair 'pedo', which literally means “fart”, with several words to make a phrase with it's own meaning. Here is a list of the most common.

Al pedo: A waste of time or something useless.

A los pedos: To be in a hurry.

De pedo: Lucky, or happened by chance.

En pedo: Drunk.

Ni en pedo: No way.

These are just a few phrases I found using the word pedo. For a more extensive list of Argentine phrases using pedo go to the link here.

Uruguay

Tener olor de chivo: Literally means something smells fishy, suspicious, or bad.

I actually looked up the meaning of the word 'chivo' specifically. And it's meaning seems to capture the complexity of the Spanish language in Latin America. Here is the meaning of 'chivo' from country to country.Here is the link to the website where this material was sourced.

Venezuela:

'Chivo' means one who holds an influential role over others, such as a boss or manager in a business.

El Salvador:

Chivo in El Salvador means 'cool', something well made, or something fun (e.g. Football).

Peru:

Chivo means 'homosexual' or 'gay.' Be careful where you use this term :)

Argentina:

Chivo is used for someone who publishes or does something for their own personal benefit or gain. For instance a journalist who publishes information that benefits himself is called a 'chivero' or the information is called 'chivo'.

Dominican Republic:

Hacer chivo is to use materials that are not permitted to pass an exam or a test. Essentially it means to cheat.

I could not imagine trying to use this word in all of its context from country to country. And it is not as though every Spanish speaker walks around with a dictionary of each word and its multiple meanings archived in their heads. I think part of the differences in the language is that Latin America is still today highly regionalized. And the history of the different countries and regions is much more isolated than say in the United States, where families are now much more spread out around the country than in previous generations. This, along with national television and radio, is causing the language to become more generic and homogenized, with less regional distinction.

Despite its difficulty, I love the regional distinctions in Latin America. I love the way the language changes from country to country and how words can be used in so many creative ways. In short, the more you learn about Spanish, the more you come to realize how infinitely distant the road to saying you 'know' Spanish.