I sent this to my Colombian in-laws and it has started an argument between them about whether it actually means “your mercy” at all.
Colombia's Special Word for "You"
11–20 of 36 posts
Re: Colombia's Special Word for "You"
#12(Person that actually uses sumercé here.)
The article is reading way too much into it, and it forgets a very important piece of information: The origin of usted is "vuestra merced". Spanish had T-V distinction, like most romance languages, but usted superceded vos as the formal 2nd person pronoun.
sumercé is a word that had the same process, just starting from "su merced" instead, since in Colombia —like in all other latin american countries— vosotros is not used.
That's it.
Re: Colombia's Special Word for "You"
#13(Person that actually uses sumercé here.) The article is reading way too much into it, and it forgets a very important piece of information: The origin of usted is "vuestra merced". Spanish had T-V distinction, like most romance languages, but usted superceded vos as the formal 2nd person pronoun. sumercé is a word that had the same process, just starting from "su merced" instead, since in Colombia —like in all other…
Wrong: Spanish usted comes from the Arabic "ʔustāḏ", a honorific title meaning something like "distinguished person"
Re: Colombia's Special Word for "You"
#14So I'll add another fading oddity from my own hometown in the south of Spain. We use ustedes (short of very archaic "vuestras mercedes" BTW) instead of vosotros . That would seem not so odd, being ustedes the plural form of formal "you" usted , if not because ustedes should match "they" in verbal forms, while in fact it match plural "you". So no "ustedes saben" but "ustedes sabéis". Even usted/ustedes is fading away,…
As a person learning Spanish, this reminded me about how regional differences with the language has led to some debate about which variations to cover in courses and textbooks.
For example, a university course I took tested for the proper conjugation of verbs with "vosotros/as" (with its typical usage in Spain). But I later read about some debate over why the usage of vosotros/as was tested, but not the usage of voseo (vos for the singular instead of tú), despite its usage being common in large parts of Latin America.
Some textbooks for language learners treat voseo by including it in the conjugation tables just for awareness, but not testing this in the exercises. Your hometown's usage of "ustedes" is quite interesting, and it would be great to see it documented in a learner's textbook somewhere, to further reflect the diversity of the language.
Re: Colombia's Special Word for "You"
#15(Person that actually uses sumercé here.) The article is reading way too much into it, and it forgets a very important piece of information: The origin of usted is "vuestra merced". Spanish had T-V distinction, like most romance languages, but usted superceded vos as the formal 2nd person pronoun. sumercé is a word that had the same process, just starting from "su merced" instead, since in Colombia —like in all other…
Wrong: Spanish usted comes from the Arabic "ʔustāḏ", a honorific title meaning something like "distinguished person"
This is wrong — an entire spectrum of early modern variants starting from _vuestra merced_ to _vuesasted_ to _vusted_ to _usted_ has been demonstrated in written and printed matter across the centuries. It helps that written Spanish has been particularly well documented from the Age of Discovery onwards.
Re: Colombia's Special Word for "You"
#16In Brazil: vossa merce -> vosmecê -> você (you).
Re: Colombia's Special Word for "You"
#17(Person that actually uses sumercé here.) The article is reading way too much into it, and it forgets a very important piece of information: The origin of usted is "vuestra merced". Spanish had T-V distinction, like most romance languages, but usted superceded vos as the formal 2nd person pronoun. sumercé is a word that had the same process, just starting from "su merced" instead, since in Colombia —like in all other…
Interesting. Portuguese (at least Brazilian, not sure how it is in Portugal) uses você for the 2nd person pronoun (and doesn't maintain a formal/informal distinction), and você came from vossa mercê. Since that's where usted, sumercé, and você came all come from, I'm guessing it must be a Latin thing?
Re: Colombia's Special Word for "You"
#18[deleted]
Re: Colombia's Special Word for "You"
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cundinamarca → https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cundinamarca_Department The Spanish page has more information → https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cundinamarca
I wish wikipedia had indicators for when a different language's article had more content. Not surprising for a geographic topic, but it happens for others. (Something I don't readily think about being anglo).
[deleted]
Re: Colombia's Special Word for "You"
#20> We are having trouble retrieving the article content.
> Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.
Should be illegal