Saturday, August 23, 2014

THE divine guess

While I have many favorite words in Spanish (among them alcochofa and murcielago) , I find that there is one word that I struggle with consistently and how I struggle is in how to use the word adivinar in English. I catching my wanting to say "adevine" quite often (am I thinking in Spanish and translating into English?). 

For those who don't speak Spanish here is some help: 
Translations of "adivinar"
verb
guess
divine


See that? There is a miracle embedded into this word! English hasn't really supported that inclusion in to words like guess (or conjecture, suppose, imagine, think...) or even the idea of conjecture into the word divine (as in miracle [in the verb sense].

I have wanted to say things like "I can't "adevine" that", thus imposing a sense of magical incredulity into guesses and conjectures. But it isn't a word and my using it would cause some confusion.

I miss the magic that is embedded into the romance languages, the kind that is largely absent from English.



I grew up with mountains like this. I think they inspired my wanting to incorporate magic into life.

1 comment:

African Kelli said...

Like "to hunt" and "to marry." there is no coincidence they are linked in Spanish!