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Glossary entry

Spanish term or phrase:

palabra injerto

English translation:

portmanteau (word) / blend word

Added to glossary by Charles Davis
Mar 28, 2016 21:16
8 yrs ago
1 viewer *
Spanish term

palabra injerto

Spanish to English Art/Literary Linguistics
This is from a text about the work of a contemporary artist from Argentina. Glótica is the name of the show

Para el artista, Glótica es una palabra injerto, algo parecido al sonido gutural de un grito de placer ahogado por un borbotón de sangre.

A truncated word?
A word stuck in the throat?
Proposed translations (English)
4 +3 portmanteau (word) / blend word
3 +2 a graft word
4 onomatopoeic word
3 coinage or nonce word
3 word splice
3 a made-up word (expressing/evoking the sound of...)
Change log

Mar 30, 2016 13:05: Charles Davis Created KOG entry

Discussion

Muriel Vasconcellos Mar 29, 2016:
@ Charles Good point!
Charles Davis Mar 29, 2016:
I agree I don't think the -ótica part is onomatopoeic at all. It's purely semantic, it seems to me; it evokes the associations of the gothic (in the sense of Romantic horror fiction rather than medieval architecture, presumably), which must be where the blood comes from.
David Ronder Mar 29, 2016:
Yes I get the gl- ; it's the -ótica I can't hear. But as you say, Charles, it's subjective.
Charles Davis Mar 29, 2016:
@Adoración Thanks for the suggestion.
Charles Davis Mar 29, 2016:
Onomatopoeia How verbal sound suggests meaning to people is quite complex and, as we see here, quite subjective. It probably involves not just phonetic sound-suggestion but also the meanings of words with which certain phonemes — here, especially, /gl/ — are particularly associated, though admittedly that is ultimately a circular argument. The /g/ obviously is gutteral, and it's not too fanciful to associate /gl/ with EN "glug glug" and SP "gluglú", hence the gurgling "borbotón de sangre" (most people would probably say that the very word "gurgle" is onomatopoeic).
Adoración Bodoque Martínez Mar 29, 2016:
@ Charles I think you should submit "portmanteau" as an answer. I agree with your reasoning, and I think that is what it must mean. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but my reason for choosing a literal translation was that I thought the writer may have chosen the word "injerto" because it fitted the context; there is something slightly "gothic" or "grotesque" about the idea of "grafting" something to create something else.
David Ronder Mar 29, 2016:
I agree with Charles that 'portmanteau' would be the best option here, though I still can't see - hear - the onomatopoeia in 'glótica'. I'm afraid I don't agree with you, Neil, about not using 'nonce' in this context (if it was the best answer). That would be like not saying 'shag' at an ornithologists' conference because it's a naughty word. Context is all.
Charles Davis Mar 29, 2016:
Actually, Carroll-style portmanteaus often are or seem onomatopoeic, like the first example in "Jabberwocky", slithy (lithe and slimy), to which Humpty Dumpty originally applied the term "portmanteau". "Glótica" is really in that spirit, I think.
Charles Davis Mar 29, 2016:
Onomatopoeic nonce portmanteau "Glótica" is all these things, but the translation ought to express the one "injerto" refers to, and I think this must be portmanteau: that is, a word formed by "grafting" or "splicing" other words together. I don't see how it can mean a nonce word (though by definition portmanteaus originate as nonce words, even if they later become standard, like "smog", for example) or an onomatopoeic word. So I agree with the idea behind Adoración's and David's proposals, but I would use the term "portmanteau", which means precisely what I believe the artist means. Perhaps I should have posted it as an answer myself, but I thought Adoración had the right idea and it was just a question of expressing it differently.

As far as I know Spanish doesn't have a precise term for this phenomenon. There is "contracción", but that's too broad. The artist seems to have coined "injerto" himself, and it's quite a good way of capturing the idea. English has "portmanteau" thanks to Lewis Carroll, who was a one-off genius.
neilmac Mar 29, 2016:
My 2 cents I'm keeping out of this interesting discussion, except to mention that I'd personally avoid using "nonce" because of its strong slang connotations in the UK (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonce_(slang).
Muriel Vasconcellos Mar 29, 2016:
Apology I didn't notice the L in "glótico"- so it's all of the above, as David points out: a nonce word, a portmanteau word, and a an onomatopoeic word.
David Ronder Mar 29, 2016:
Tricky, this one, as it clearly has elements of all of the suggestions so far. It is a nonce word, invented by the artist. It is a portmanteau - 'gótica' + 'glotis' as suggested - and in my view this is closest to 'injerto'. But it also has an explicit onomatopoeic element, though I can't really see how a cry of pleasure stifled by blood bubbling up would sound like that ('glótica'). We have an onomatopoeic nonce portmanteau on our hands.

Proposed translations

+3
14 hrs
Selected

portmanteau (word) / blend word

Posted at Adoración's suggestion. This option should probably be formally on the table. The idea, to repeat what has been said in the discussion area, is that "injerto", literally a graft, is being used metaphorically to describe how the two roots, gótica and glotis have been "grafted" together, merging to form the word "glótica", with the associations of the throat and the gothic (referring to the gothic novel, macabre or horrific Romantic fiction, such as Frankenstein or Dracula, presumably). The normal English word for this is a portmanteau word, or just a portmanteau. An alternative, as I mentioned in my comment on Adoración's answer, is "blend word", a term used in linguistics, but it's not so familiar to people outside that field and might not be so well understood.

I should add that the word "glótico" does actually exist:

" glótico, ca
1. adj. Perteneciente o relativo a la glotis."
http://dle.rae.es/?id=JG8TcmH

However, I think there's no doubt that the artist intended it as a portmanteau, incorporating the idea of "gótica".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portmanteau
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blend_word
Peer comment(s):
agree MarinaM
1 hr
Thanks, Marina :)
agree Muriel Vasconcellos : You're right on this one, Charles.
8 hrs
Thanks, Muriel!
agree David Ronder
8 hrs
Thanks, David
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4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Thanks!"
49 mins

coinage or nonce word

I'd go for something simpler like a coinage or a nonce word.

Nonce Words
Nonce words are new words formed through any number of word formation processes with the resulting word meeting a lexical need that is not expected to recur. Nonce words are created for the nonce, the term for the nonce meaning "for a single occasion".
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+2
1 hr

a graft word

I think a literal translation could work. In my opinion, it refers to the fact that, in the same way as a graft is "the act of joining one thing to another by or as if by grafting" or the "union of scion and stock" (Collins), the word "glótica" is the result of the union of the words "gótica" and "glotis".
Peer comment(s):
agree Charles Davis : I wonder if it means a portmanteau word? I only thought of this when I saw your explanation. Like Lewis Carroll's "frumious" (fuming and furious). Also known as a blend word.
2 hrs
Thank you, Charles.
neutral Muriel Vasconcellos : It may be a literal translation, but I don't think it captures what the author is trying to say.
3 hrs
agree Toni Castano : http://www.barro.cc/en/exhibitions/36/glotica
11 hrs
Muchas gracias, Toni.
Something went wrong...
7 hrs

word splice

I would suggest

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 7 hrs (2016-03-29 04:46:34 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

how about: guttural word splice
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4 hrs

onomatopoeic word

While this may not be a translation of "injerto", it appears to be what the author is trying to say in this context.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onomatopoeia
... a word that phonetically imitates, resembles or suggests the source of the sound that it describes

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 10 hrs (2016-03-29 07:18:57 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

As I commented in the Discussion, I hadn't noticed the L in "glótico". So any of the answers would apply, though based on the context that follows, I still lean toward my own answer.
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23 hrs

a made-up word (expressing/evoking the sound of...)

If the artist has made this word up, why not just say so? The actual linguistic derivation is not important, it's what the artist wanted to evoke, which is spelled out. "A made up word the artist uses to evoke/convey a cry of pleasure bubbling up through blood", or something along these lines.
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