Spanish words, and a TransLifeline donation

[sonia]

I'm not saying much about current events because mostly they bring up a punched-in-the-gut wordless grief and dread.

Yesterday I was writing a letter to my aunt in Spanish and needed the word for congratulations, because my 42 year old cousin is pregnant and marrying her sweetie. (I grew up speaking Spanish, and it tells you a lot about my childhood, what words I have to look up. At some point I realized I didn't know the word for "faith.") ETA: I realized this might look odd in the context of the rest of the post, but as far as I can tell they are truly happy about it, and they're in Israel where they have access to full modern healthcare. /ETA

I typed "trans" into my browser address bar, headed for google translate. My browser landed me on translifeline.org instead. I paused, and went ahead and made a donation to them. My tiny yawp in the face of everything that's happening.

It also tells you something about my state of mind that it took me quite a while to remember that I was writing to my aunt, and that I needed the word for congratulations... oh, that's what happened. "Felicitaciones," in case you're wondering.

The Chilean word may be different, too. I tried to buy "guindas" at a roadside stand recently, and they didn't know what I was talking about. They call cherries "ceresas," which is much closer to the word in various Slavic languages. But here is proof that guindas means cherries, and I learned on that page that it also means "to hang", so I grew up calling cherries "those hanging things," or "danglers," which makes perfect sense to me. When there were two still tied together we would put them over our ears as earrings.

Comments

[thistleingrey]

I think both Slavic languages and Castilian had the cerise-word from Greek, via trade. Interesting to learn that a more functional term sometimes displaces it! I did that with my ears as a kid, independently, until my mother made me stop. :)

[sonia]

Ah, thank you for that linguistic connection! I was wondering. And how fun that you played with cherries the same way. I think my mother actually showed me that, which is a nice thing to remember. She wasn't usually playful like that.

[thistleingrey]

That's a lovely memory to have.

[silveradept]

Felicitaciones to those who are having a wanted child at the time and with the relationship they desire, with access to a full suite of health care in case of complications.

[sonia]

Thank you! I will send along the good wishes.