Talk:Francisco Hernández de Córdoba (discoverer of Yucatán)

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Comment by User:Vivero, the main author of the Spanish-language article, in response to my request for his sources; copied from Wikipedia talk:Spanish Translation of the Week -- Jmabel | Talk 22:57, Dec 1, 2004 (UTC)

Mainly/only... Bernal, indeed. He is the only eyewitness source, and also the most comprehensive one. In the article I also mention the letter sent by Veracruz founders to Charles V... but only to show that most contemporaries thought that Hernandez expedition started as a slavery raid. This letter is usually edited in the same book with the "Cartas de Relación" ("Report letters" could be a good translation?) of Hernan Cortes to the emperor, and is often confused with the first letter of Cortés, which unfortunately is lost. Talking about the same question, slavery raid yes or not, I also mention 20th century Cortés biographer Salvador de Madariaga, who wrote that it had nothing to do with slave traffic, and was only devoted to exploration and adventure (but Madariaga tends to be a rather "patriotic" biographer, not very neutral in my opinion). I also mention Diego de Landa's "Relación de las Cosas de Yucatán" (he was a franciscan priest, bishop of Yucatan, devoted to the conversion of the mayas), both for adding another testimony favouring the slavery hipothesis, and for doubting about the funny, but maybe uncertain, etimology Yucatan = I don´t understand you. Concerning the etimology of Yucatan, I also mention Fray Toribio de Benavente, "Motolinia" (another franciscan, but devoted to nahuatl speaking indians, not to mayas), maybe the first person that mentioned the funny story of the name of Yucatan. For writing the article I also re-read (but I didn't mention, if I remember well) my favourite teller (more than historian) of the Conquest of Mexico, the american William H. Prescott (a very interesting man. He deserves a longer biography in wikipedia; but, like Madariaga, he was a bit pro-spaniards)and the mexican biographer of Cortés (the modern one, and maybe one of the bests) Juan Miralles. I will add a.s.a.p. to the es: article the info about edition, ISBN, etc. of this sources; some of them are the same that I already added to the Cuauhtémoc biography (in spanish). Thank you for your suggestion, Jmabel, and please forgive me for my maccaronic english and for delaying the info about books and internet webs (it´s almost midnight in Spain, I have to sleep!) --Vivero 22:48, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Translation difficulties

In the section on the origin of the expedition I ran into a few phrases that gave me difficulty in translation. Vivero's prose is generally vivid, which is mostly a good thing, but as a non-native Spanish speaker he occasionally throws me for a loop.

Maybe I can help a bit with the spanish side of the problem. I add some comments after each difficulty--Vivero 00:47, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • I've consistently translated "ocupar sus personas" and "emplear sus personas" as "occupy themselves" and "employ themselves". I realize this is not literal, but "occupy their persons" and "employ their persons" seem very unnatural in English. Similarly, I've rendered "no habían hecho cosa alguna que de contar fuera" as "they hadn't done a single thing worth the telling". These are both Bernal's phrases, not Vivero's, so I'm a little uncomfortable taking liberties, but I'm more uncomfortable writing painfully stilted English.
occupy/employ themselves is perfect. Madariaga associates Bernal's expression ocupar sus personas with boring or desperation for beeing unactive, unemployed.
  • I explain hacendado on its first occurrence as "owner ... of a landed estate", but after that I use hacendado and hacienda without translating. The latter is pretty common in U.S. English. Will these be understood in the UK? (Or will people think I mean a former music venue in Manchester?) Similarly, I've explained, but repeatedly used veedor, and I've explained rather than translate quinto real.
hacienda in spanish means property in very general terms (Ministerio de Hacienda = Exchequer or Treasury Ministry)and a landed estate, or even a farm, in a more restricted meaning. Bernal don't use the word hacienda, he speaks about having or not having indians: he and his Castilla del Oro colleagues don't have indians and are waiting for them, and Hernández de Córdoba is a rich man, mainly because he have a town of indians... maybe its fine to leave hacienda in spanish, at least I have no better choice to suggest.
Veedor is old legal jargon (But still used in some countries, e.g. Colombia) for an inspector or supervisor, mainly if he or she has to travel somewhere to supervise local behaviours, or has to travel together with explorers. Oveseer or supervisor is perfect, and to leave it in spanish is also, for me, the best choice.
quinto real is perfectly explained. Just for your curiosity, there is an article about the quinto real in the es: wikipedia, here, devoted mainly to Perú.
  • When Governor Diego Velázquez is described as a familiar of Bernal Díaz, does this mean a "family member" or merely an acquaintance? The Spanish word is ambiguous.
A relative, a family member. The usual expression used in the sources is deudo, and maybe is my fault to have used 'familiar' instead of the more precise 'pariente' or 'emparentado con...'.
  • "...quien les prometió "que nos daría indios, en vacando." I'm not quite sure what to do with en vacando here. I assume it's from vacar. So is it "that he would give us Indians to make up the lack"?
Sorry, I don't understand the expresion to make up the lack... En vacando is very difficult even for an spanish speaker, but certainly the origin is the verb vacar: old spanish, maybe used today only in legal jargon, except for the noun and adjetive form vacante=available, unoccupied, vacant, something that remain unfilled. "Que nos daría indios en vacando"=that he would give us indians as soon as some indians were vacant,... available,... unoccupied" Bernal is saying that the last spaniards to arrive to Cuba had to wait for the availability or renewal of indians.
  • "...la justicia y regimiento de la Rica Villa de la Vera Cruz...": I'm not sure how best to translate.
Un justicia o alguacil of a town or city is close to the old, british, concept of sheriff: or constable: a minor (less important) justice officer in charge of a town. El regimiento of a town or city is the set of regidores (governors, managers)of a town. It was very usual to say that some letter or some command was made by "la justicia y regimiento" (the justice and executive authorities) or by "el cabildo, justicia y regimiento", or by "el concejo [o consejo], justicia y regimiento"... always meaning roughly the same: "the town justice and government authorities".
  • "... para se servir dellos, enviaron los susodichos ..." It's a quotation, it's archaic Spanish, I'm not sure how to translate, especially susodichos.
"para se servir de ellos" means simply "to obtain service from them"; it's a rather euphemistic way to say that the intention was to force them to work, to slave them. "susodichos" means "above-mentioned", and it refers to Hernández, and his financial associates, Ochoa and Morante. In the spanish version I wrote the name of this persons between brackets [], to unveil who were the missing "above-mentioned". Another solution is to substitute "susodichos" with the names.

Any help will be appreciated. And, please, someone jump in on some of the rest of this, so far this translation is not much of a collaboration. -- Jmabel | Talk 03:13, Dec 2, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] last remaining translation difficulties

I'm pretty much finished with this. Thank you, Vivero for your excellent answers above. A (very) few difficulties remain; I bet you can help with most of these, too.

Hi, Jmabel I'm Vivero. I'ts a pleasure for me to try to help. After each difficulty (but think that most items are difficult also for me!):

  • ...acaso demasiado para ser del todo cierta — se cita a menudo. I certainly get the general point, but I don't precisely understand. If you can say this in English, great, otherwise even a Spanish paraphrase would probably do it for me.
...whose surprising and amusing story -maybe too surprising and amusing to be a true story- is frequently quoted... What I wanted to say is that one must be skeptic when hearing stories that look too surprising and amusing... maybe the stories were devised with that goal, rather than truth. "se cita a menudo" is aproximately "is frequently mentioned, or quoted,.."
  • ...aclarando que al suyo le decían "tlati" Is this "clarifying that they called their own tlati", or do I misunderstand.
Yes, you are right, but I don´t know if it is understandable in English (maybe neither in Spanish!). The spaniards were talking about "their" bread, saying that it was made with yuca "nuestro pan está hecho de yuca", and the mayas were speaking about "their" bread, saying that it was called "tlati" ("aclarando que al suyo [a su pan] le llamaban tlati" --> clarifying that the name of mayan bread was "tlati"). Imagine that conversation between people speaking mutually unknown languages, speaking about many things, without understanding each other. In some moment of the conversation, the maya speaker repeats "yuca-tlati" several times, just reminding the talk about bread, and the spaniards, out of context, think that he is trying to inform about the name of his country... suddenly, a mixed caribbean-maya word is born! ... (of course, spanish bread was made of wheat... except in America, where there still was no wheat and yuca was a nice alternative)
  • Would escopetas be correctly translated as "shotguns", or did it have a different meaning at this point in history? Elsewhere there is a reference to arcabuces, which translates unproblematically as "arquebusses". Were these escopetas something different?
Yes, "escopetas" is "shotguns" according to my dictionary. Bernal Díaz del Castillo uses exactly the word "escopetas" ("y llevamos quince ballestas y diez escopetas..."), a bit surprising for me, for I used to think that "escopeta" was a modern word for a modern gun... Sorry, I have no idea about old fire arms, so I don`t know if "arcabuces" is precise. Anyway, Bernal wrote "escopetas", and for the soldiers using the weapon, "escopeteros"
  • Similarly bateles: should this be translated as "dinghies", or is that anachronistic?
Un batel is simply a small boat, according to the DRAE dictionary (by the way: the word comes from old english bat through french batel). A dinghy, according to my Merriam-Webster, is just the same, so it´s ok... Is tender another choice? Maybe tender is an older word than dinghy.
Come to think of it, "launches" is a great word to use here, since it refers to what the boats were used for, and elides any question of how they were constructed. -- Jmabel | Talk 22:03, Dec 9, 2004 (UTC)
  • ...desplazarse asidos a las bordas de las lanchas... Again, I get the approximate notion. I follow all of these words (except maybe asidos), but several of them (desplazarse, lanchas) are ambiguous enough that I can picture more than one actual scenario. Again, a paraphrase would probably help.
To save their lives, they had to quickly move (desplazarse) to the ship, almost swimming, taken root or taken hold (asidos) to the boards or edges of the boats, and therefore more vulnerable to the arrows and stones throwed by the indians. I remember that I used the word "lanchas" for formal reasons, to avoid the tiring repetition of batel and bote, but maybe is not the best word: just the same problem that you have with dinghy.
I have some other slight difficulties or doubts with the English text, but I can't explain them now. Maybe next Saturday I will ask you about, Thank you --Vivero 01:07, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

-- Jmabel | Talk 09:20, Dec 7, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Just a few more

Sorry for the delay. I try to answer after each question Vivero 23:48, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I just noticed three I missed last time:

  • prestancia y superioridad: superioridad is "superiority" (but of whom and to whom? Within one's own society or of the discoverer to the discovered? This seems very POV). I'm guessing prestancia here means "readiness" or "intent", but I wanted to check.
I have to confess that my intention when writing this was humour-oriented. I wanted to make a (very subtle) joke. A discoverer is supposed to arrive to the shore with a retinue, to plant large flags or banners in the beach, and to read a prayer and an speech to the astonished discovereds. The discovereds are always portrayed as humble, passive, indians astonished with the elegance, distinction (prestancia) and superiority (superioridad) of the discoverers. Nobody considers Robinson Crusoe as the discoverer of his island, you have to be Cook, Columbus or Balboa (prestancia y superioridad). not a shipwrecked sailor... Anyway, it was only an attempt to make a very subtle joke. What I wanted to say is that only captains of organized armies that dominate or master the discovered population are considered discoverers by History. Otherwise, the antillian indians that Columbus brought to Europe in 1942 could be considered the discoverers of Eurasia
  • tratado: Is this like "chapter" in this context? I'd never heard of a book being divided into tratados.
Yes: a "tratado" is a treatise, an agreement, but also (and in this context) any non-fiction writing focused on a certain topic, i.e., any essay (just like the latin word tractatus, see for instance [1]). The History of the New Spain Indians of Fray Toribio de Benavente, Motolinia is organized in three tratados', each containing ten to twenty chapters. Motolinia did not give a name to the tratados, they are just tratado primero, tratado segundo and tratado tercero, neither are they devoted to very differentiated topics, so I think a good translation could be "chapter 8 of the third book" or "chapter 8 of the third part"
  • ...para apuntar. "to aim"? Not sure I get this, never really seen someone use the other hand to aim while throwing, but I presume that's what you are saying, right? -- Jmabel | Talk 22:19, Dec 9, 2004 (UTC)
Yes, apuntar in this context is to prepare yoursef before shooting, in order to achieve a good shot, that will reach accurately the target. In English that's to aim, Isn't it?
Some other remarks:
Le dió a la vez la inmortalidad y la muerte... in spanish, it is just a (not very clever) pun, a play on words: mortalidad - muerte, a short way to say that Hernandez would be unknown by History if he had not organized the trip in which he died. In English the origins of immortality and of death are so different that maybe sounds a lot more as purple prose.
It's a little purple, but not excessively so. I cut a few passages that I thought were over the top in this respect. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:31, Dec 26, 2004 (UTC)
Sartas de cuentas verdes y demás baratijas preparadas al efecto" is still in spanish in the text. It means, approximately, "strings of green beads [cuentas] and other cheap goods [baratijas=triffle, cheap imitation jewellery] suited for this purpose". Since Columbus' first trip, every explorer carried cheap imitation jewellery for interchange with indians or as gifts to compliment them...
"The other was the curiosity and valor of the cleric González shoud be ...the curiosity and courage... shouldn't it? ... valor is still untranslated
"valor" is a perfectly good English word (in British English it would be "valour", but I'm a Yank), same meaning, I see no reason to change it. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:31, Dec 26, 2004 (UTC)
"algunos marineros levantiscos is translated as Some Levantine sailors. The word levantisco have two meanings: "Levantino", from levante=the east, which refers to the people of the eastern coast of Spain (Valencia, Castellón, Alicante,..) and the most common meaning of "inclined to muttiny, disobedient"; it comes from "levantar", to rise, in the sense of revolt. The text in Spanish uses the latter. So, the right translation is not "Some Levantine sailors..." but something like disobedient, revolted,...
Aha! I was unfamiliar with that meaning, I'll change it. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:31, Dec 26, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Muskets, etc

Joe, thanks for the corrections re name abbreviations. As for the identification of the Spaniards' firearm as a musket, I was relying (as with much of the rest of the updates) on J.M. Cohen's 1963 (abridged) translation of Bernal Diaz's The Conquest of New Spain, published in Penguin Classics edition. In this, he translates:

We took fifteen crossbows and ten muskets, and started to follow the road along which the Cacique was going with his great company of Indians. (p.19)

and:

But, thanks be to God, when they felt the sharp edge of our swords and the effect of our crossbows and muskets, they quickly took to their heels, leaving fifteen dead on the field. (also p.19)

Cohen's translation of this term might not necessarily be specific or technically apt, and possibly he only uses it as a generic term for an early firearm. They might actually have been technically arquebuses, the time period seems to be about right, but our wikipedia musket article also tells us that muskets were around from possibly the 14thC. as well. I'm not really au fait with the military technology of the period, would have to do some further research to find out.--cjllw | TALK 06:50, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

They wouldn't have been arquebuses: he would have used the then-common Spanish word arquebustos. At that time, escopetas may well have meant muskets. I only know its modern meaning. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:13, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
I've now asked about escopetas at that date on es:Discusión:Escopeta. Hopefully a native speaker with expertise will respond. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:26, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

As an addendum, Cohen also translates Veedor as "Inspector". Also, in the passage re the battle of Champoton, Cohen has Bernal relate:

During the fighting, the Indians shouted to one another "Al calachuni, calachuni", which means in their language, "Attack and kill the captain."

I amended the description of this accordingly.--cjllw | TALK 08:14, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

On this one, I would say that Cohen is playing a bit fast and loose with his source. After all, it's not like the Spanish even necessarily knew exactly what they heard, let alone that Bernal Díaz wrote it down correctly 50 years later. And then he extrapolates from that. Functionally, I guess that is what it meant, but there is nothing in Bernal Díaz to bear that out. "Calachuni" seems generally equivalent to cacique; the al is Spanish; there is nothing more here than "to the captain/chief". - Jmabel | Talk 23:13, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
ok thanks, hopefully our compañeros on es.wiki can help out. I agree that Bernal is not the sort of chap who would be attentively noting down their utterances in the heat of the battle- I'm sure by their subsequent actions the intentions of the attackers would have been unequivocal, whatever it was that they said. Perhaps it can be tweaked to indicate that this is only BD's later interpretation.--cjllw | TALK 01:09, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
I'll take a shot - Jmabel | Talk 06:23, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
thanks Joe, that latest amendment is a neat solution.--cjllw | TALK 08:45, 11 December 2005 (UTC)