Welcome to Gaia! ::

Topic: Terms from American Spanish

A number of Central American nations—Honduras, Guatemala, and Costa Rica, among others—declared their independence from Spain on this date in 1821. But as we speakers of American English know, asserting one's political independence does not necessarily call a halt to linguistic influences from afar. Today we're marking the anniversary of our neighbors' independence with a look at a few terms that entered American English from American Spanish . . . but which also claim linguistic kin elsewhere.

We begin with cafeteria, which comes from the American Spanish word for "coffeehouse," which itself traces back to the French café. In that same geographic and restaurant realm we come across cantina. In the southwest, a cantina can name either "a saloon" or "a bag (or pouch) at the pommel of a saddle." American Spanish borrowed cantina from the Spanish word for "canteen"; that Spanish word developed from the Italian word for "wine cellar."

Moving farther afield, we come to the American Spanish tuna. Tuna is an alteration of the Spanish atun; atun swam into Spanish from the Arabic tun.

Why so many food related terms? Probably because, like language itself, food crosses borders and cultures so very easily.

Questions or comments? Write us at wftw@aol.com Production and research support for Word for the Wise comes from Merriam-Webster, publisher of language reference books and Web sites including Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition.