Archaic Spanish

Spanish   Tue Jul 24, 2007 2:47 pm GMT
Please teach me some archaic or old fashioned sounding expressions, words, and grammar. But ones that would still be understandable today.
me   Tue Jul 24, 2007 6:22 pm GMT
furrykef   Tue Jul 24, 2007 9:36 pm GMT
Hmm, well, I know a couple of archaic expressions that are still used today. All three of them use the future subjunctive, which has been obsolete (except in legalese) for centuries:

* Sea lo que fuere: oddly enough, I haven't been able to pin down what this means. I've seen it translated as "be that as it may" or "whatever happens" or "whatever it is"... In modern Spanish, it's "sea lo que sea". The archaic form is still used, but it's more formal.
* Venga lo que viniere: "Come what may." Again, the modern version is "venga lo que venga", and the archaic version is more formal.
* Donde fueres, haz lo que vieres: When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Literally, "Wherever you go, do what you see." This one is always said in its archaic form.

Another thing is that the second-person pronouns used to be "tú" and "vos". Tú was used in addressing a close friend, and vos in all other cases, including addressing more than one friend. Usted, ustedes, and vosotros are more modern. The conjugations used with vos were the same as those used with vosotros today. The use of vos died out in Spain in the 1700s, but it survives today in the language of some parts of Latin America, especially Argentina, often but not always with slightly different conjugation patterns, and always as an informal singular pronoun, replacing tú. And of course vosotros is a descendant of vos, but as a informal plural pronoun only.

If you read Don Quixote, you'll find both the future subjunctive and the usage of vos. I'm not going to bother trying to read it myself, because my Spanish isn't anywhere near that good yet. ;)

- Kef
furrykef   Tue Jul 24, 2007 9:38 pm GMT
<< but as a informal plural pronoun only >>

I meant "an", of course.
Guest   Tue Jul 24, 2007 10:23 pm GMT
A Quick Guide to Old Spanish Pronunciation

http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/santiago/osppron.html

Note: I know that a lot of Mexicans use archaisms in their daily speech.

For example:
¿Mande? = instead of = ¿Dime? / ¿Dígame?
Platicar = instead of = Charlar
Alberca = instead of = Piscina
Haiga = instead of = Haya (of haber)
Fierro = instead of = Hierro
Alcancía = instead of = Hucha
etc.

Less commonly used:
Mesmo = instead of = Mismo
Asina = instead of = Así
Vide = instead of = Vi (of ver)
Truje = instead of = Traje (of traer)
Guest   Tue Jul 24, 2007 10:48 pm GMT
Addendum:

Popular archaisms in Mexican-spanish:

For example:
¿Mande? = instead of = ¿Dime? / ¿Dígame?
Platicar = instead of = Charlar
Alberca = instead of = Piscina
Haiga = instead of = Haya (of haber)
Fierro = instead of = Hierro
Maña = instead of = mala costumbre / manera / vicio
Alcancía = instead of = Hucha
Mas = instead of = Pero (usually used as 'mas no le gusta ir')

More archarisms:

http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/santiago/bercwrds.html
furrykef   Tue Jul 24, 2007 11:16 pm GMT
I thought "¿Mande?" was equivalent to "¿Qué?" or "¿Cómo?"... is "¿Dime/Dígame?" the same as those?
Sergio   Wed Jul 25, 2007 12:51 am GMT
Hi Guest,

Just a little remark: "haiga" is not seen like an archaism here in Mexico. "Haiga" is considered incorrect Spanish wherever it is heard, and most common among the less educated people.

Hi Kef,

Yes indeed, "¿mande?" is used instead of ¿qué?, ¿cómo?. Actually, it is funny but in Mexico, saying ¿qué? is almost always a signal of bad education, and saying ¿cómo? is often taken as an aggressive reaction, depending on the tone, of course.

¿Dígame?, etc., has a subtle difference insofern that it doesn't always answer the same spectrum of questions as the other two do, and the question rising tone is much less pronounced, almost as a statement.

Example:
Kef calling Sergio: ¡Sergio!
Sergio: Mande/¿Qué pasó?/Dime

But:
Kef telling Sergio something he didn't quite understand: ·$%&$%&
Sergio: ¿Mande?/¿Cómo?/¿Qué dijiste?... but not: ¿Dime?

I just want to notice that I am only speaking of Mexican Spanish here.
Guest   Wed Jul 25, 2007 3:51 am GMT
vos is not archaic
it's still used in Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, in some states of Colombia and Venezuela and in the Mexican state of Chiapas. The only only parts of Spanish speaking world lacking VOS are Portorico, Cuba, Dominicana and Peru.
furrykef   Wed Jul 25, 2007 6:59 am GMT
<< vos is not archaic >>

The way it was used in Spain is. These days, it's never used as a formal pronoun, nor is it ever used in the plural, nor is it used with the same conjugations except in a very few places.

- Kef
Rodrigo   Wed Jul 25, 2007 2:59 pm GMT
'Mande' literally means order, or command (me). Nowadays it's used as a much more respectful way of ¿qué? or ¿cómo? but in some areas it's much more common to use ¿Señor? or ¿Señora? sometimes with a qué before.
JGreco   Wed Jul 25, 2007 3:16 pm GMT
"vos is not archaic
it's still used in Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, in some states of Colombia and Venezuela and in the Mexican state of Chiapas. The only only parts of Spanish speaking world lacking VOS are Portorico, Cuba, Dominicana and Peru."



Vos is also not used in Ecuador, Peru, and Panama
Pete   Wed Jul 25, 2007 7:09 pm GMT
Hello everyone.

About "haiga", I agree with Sergio that it is CONSIDERED incorrect Spanish. It's the same here in Peru, and I'm sure it's that way in most other Spanish speaking countries. No matter how incorrect I consider it, it IS an archaism.

JGreco said:

<<Vos is also not used in Ecuador, Peru, and Panama>>

You're right about Peru. And I was quite surprised to find in a book that in Peru there is "voseo". Of course there isn't I've never heard anybody but old priests and the President and people like that ever use "vos".

But then I thought about it, and then I realised something... In Peru, we don't say "vos", BUT there's a lot of people, an 70% I'd say, that use a strange conjugation for the second person singular. Have a look:

STANDARD: Tu viste, Tu lo hiciste, Tu ganaste, tu trabajaste.

PERUVIAN ACCENT: Tu vistes, Tu lo hicistes, Tu ganastes, tu trabajastes.

For some that was even like:

BROAD PERUVIAN ACCENT: Tu vites, Tu lo hicites, tu ganates, tu trabajates.

And I thought to myself, well if in some countries in Central America they use "vos" but with the modern conjugations for "tu", and in Chile they use weird conjugations for the "vos" forms. It's perfectly possible that in Peru, they use "Tu" but with that weird and archaic forms corresponding to Vos, which possibly go back to the 18th or 19th century. I came to that conclussion after I read "coplas a la muerte de su padre" by Jorge Manrique and made comparisons between the "vos" and the correspondent conjugations used there and the conjugations that some people use in spoken Spanish here in Peru. Well that's only my theory, I'm not sure but I think it's quite possible.

I should also say that what I called BROAD PERUVIAN ACCENT, is a sort of working class accent, and related to uneducated people. And all those conjugations which are different from the standard are CONSIDERED incorrect, just like "haiga". I think you get the idea.

Regards

Pete from Peru
Paloma   Sun Aug 05, 2007 11:29 pm GMT
also en Argentina hablamos asi. The peruvian accent is used like that but some parts of argentina. Por ejemplo.. SOy rosarina...that means from Rosario. we hardly say the z's o s's in vocbulary. Like regular....do i know you? = te conozco??? but we would say it like te conoco? with the z or vos trabajaste?? like some portenos would say but i would say vos trabajate??