Articles and Stories

March 14, 2013

Barely a couple of minutes after the new Pope Francis got selected, Facebook’s newsfeed was invaded by multiple news articles, pictures, posts and memes accompanied by the Latin line “Habemus Papam” (“We have a Pope), or “Tenemos Papa” in its Spanish equivalent. What if I told you that, “tenemos papa” could also mean “we have potato”?

So let’s imagine you are a Spanish speaker who has been so absorbed by the busyness of life that you have not kept up with the latest news at all; one day you have a moment to reconnect with the world, check Facebook and then you see a friend’s post reading “tenemos papa”. You might have thought your friend was perhaps sharing his or her excitement with the virtual community about their home-grown potatoes and probably dropped the –s for plural (let’s face it, you can’t trust Facebook when it comes to proper spelling) in an attempt to quickly make their achievement public knowledge before the glory could be taken away from them. Luckily enough, context is there to help you when you realize multiple individuals post the same comment with images of the Vatican. It couldn’t possibly be that there was a new potato growing surge among your circle of friends, so good thing you didn’t make that silly comment about how much you love them “fried”.

That confusion doesn’t exist in certain areas of Spain, where the word for ‘potato’ happens to be ‘patata’ and not ‘papa’ like in most Spanish speaking countries; but why the difference?  Some say this was due to some phonetic contamination and confusion among Spaniards between the names for the potato and the sweet potato, respectively, during colonial times. The word ‘papa’ (potato) is the actual name in Quechua where it originated, while the sweet potato was called ‘batata’. Phonetically speaking, that first -B in ‘batata’ could have evolved into a -P by analogy with the potato (both the –b and -p are ‘bilabial stop’ sounds in nature); considering the similarities between both tubers, it doesn’t seem a farfetched idea that those Spaniards not so familiar with them would mix the names and come up with a new version of their own.

However, there is also another theory that indicates that the word ‘papa’ was modified into ‘patata’ as to not offend the Pope, who Spanish speakers would refer to as ‘El Papa’. Considering the historical context of Spain at the time when the potato was first introduced in Europe, it is rather plausible this could also be enough reason to change the name.

Who would have thought that the name of such common food item would give so much to talk about? These are the little stories that make anyone realize how relevant localization is in the translation world. You might not know the origin of a word or the reasons why it came to exist, but once you do, you have a new understanding of the importance of choosing the right word depending on the country you are in. As the saying goes, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do”.