Reading Blog 3

Syntax slays! slaye el syntax?

Hi my loves!

Apologies for the mild delay in the blog. I learned Spanish quite passively from my parents growing up. My parents scoured the internet to make sure every book in our childhood library had a Spanish and English copy because they were determined to ensure we were bilingual. However, attending school in Canada slowly meant that I stopped prioritizing reading in Spanish. Spanish has been intuitive in structure to me as a native speaker, and it wasn’t until I took some Spanish literature classes in high school that I had to reverse engineer the whole language to understand the grammatical structures that my peers were learning (love el pretérito pluscuamperfecto). I now understand the foundations for “proper” Castilian Spanish . 

When I read the introduction to Deep Rivers, it mentioned that the original Spanish version of the book utilizes Quechua grammatical structures in Castellano. Intrigued, I decided to embark on the journey of reading the book in Spanish, which has unfortunately been a lengthier process than expected (an explanation for the delay in my blog). 

Ok so I didn’t put myself through all that grueling reading for nothing so I will share some thoughts with y’all on the translation. My visceral reaction was discomfort because I was unfamiliar with some of the words. Sometimes it was just an issue of needing to expand my vocabulary, but other times the occasional Quechification of the language made it more difficult to understand. From what I’ve learned over the past couple days, Quechua words rely on agglutination to change the meaning of words, meanwhile Spanish inflection uses a lot of different verbs to dictate who is talking, tense, and possession. Thus, a singular Spanish verb like “habla” can be conjugated like fifty times. While reading, I occasionally found a lack of specificity in the verbs used, and there wasn’t as much proposition in sentence structure that I am normally used to. 

So all this is not to complain about the writing of the text because it was an obviously intentional choice on behalf of Arguedas. To me, it was part of this larger theme of Ernesto’s existence between the Spanish class and the Indigenous people. His use of Castilian but with some Quechian influence is a way in which he appropriates the other having grown up with them. The structural language changes in the novel established Castilian as the hegemonic written word and Quechua as the oral tradition that seems into the hegemony. I think this is quite a clever way to “give voice” to indigeneity through the dominant communication channel of Castilian because particular syntax structures have a lot to do with the interpretation of language. For example, in Spanish there’s a lack of ownership to one’s actions. In English I would say “I was late to the bus stop so I missed the bus (my fault)” meanwhile the Spanish translation is “I was late to the bus stop so the bus left me (the bus’ fault).” Communication is not what you say but how you say it (according to my therapist and she’s smart so I’m sure this is peer-reviewed) and why I think the Quechification of the book speaks volumes.

Moreover, the structural change of the grammar to me mirrored the structural changes on Cusco. When the churches of Cusco were built, the Inca stone walls persisted in the visual landscape of the city. There’s a lack of harmony between the Spanish and Inca architecture, but it asserts an indigenous presence in Cusco. Similarly, the altering of the grammatical structure of Spanish inserts indigeneity into the landscape of describing Peru. The unique syntax of the book is present as the plot progresses, serving as a veiling reminder of the forced coexistion of the highlands in Peru. 

Might continue to read in Spanish if I feel inspired but thats all for now! Many more thoughts on this book (thanks Jon for a cool read) that I will get into later but to me this served as a reminder of how awesome language is, and how syntax can be so full of substance and more than just a stylistic choice.