TILTING AT WINDMILLS: WHAT'S ZAPATERO SAYING?

Friday, October 23, 2009

WHAT'S ZAPATERO SAYING?

I recently wrote on Spanglish and today the theme is taken up on the Yahoo España blog.

The key interest is in Spanish politicians and their inability to communicate in English. Of course this is not a problem at home but it certainly is on the international stage where English rules albeit the US variety.

Yahoo España takes various Spanish politicians to task for their inability to converse well in English.

It quotes the Israeli president Simon Peres saying the world would be better if the English of Aznar improved.

José María Aznar could communicate with Tony Blair even though his English was poor because they both speak French. It also says that he could talk happily with George W Bush because of the Texan’s good Spanish – which is amusing to us because the US President frequently murdered his English.

I do not believe that Zapatero speaks English – the blog says he rarely uses it even with Barack Obama who hailed him – "José Luis, qué pasó". I thought he did speak French but then the blog says that when he addressed the French Parliament he received a loud, enthusiastic round of applause when he told the MPs he was switching from French to his native Spanish.

The alternative looks no brighter as Mariano Rajoy, the opposition Partido Popular leader, admits he doesn’t speak English. So maybe the world has to move on and switch from English to Spanglish!

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TILTING AT WINDMILLS

Sancho Panza is much less learned but a good deal saner than his master.

"At this point they came in sight of thirty or forty windmills that are on that plain.

"Fortune," said Don Quixote to his squire, as soon as he had seen them, "is arranging matters for us better than we could have hoped. Look there, friend Sancho Panza, where thirty or more monstrous giants rise up, all of whom I mean to engage in battle and slay, and with whose spoils we shall begin to make our fortunes. For this is righteous warfare, and it is God's good service to sweep so evil a breed from off the face of the earth."

"What giants?" said Sancho Panza.

"Those you see there," answered his master, "with the long arms, and some have them nearly two leagues long."

"Look, your worship,'' said Sancho. "What we see there are not giants but windmills, and what seem to be their arms are the vanes that turned by the wind make the millstone go."

"It is easy to see," replied Don Quixote, "that you are not used to this business of adventures. Those are giants, and if you are afraid, away with you out of here and betake yourself to prayer, while I engage them in fierce and unequal combat."”