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Posts: 35
Joined: Nov. 16 2008
From: Kemble, England
El andalu and flamenco
I would just like to pick up on an idea in the recente post regarding Cante. Obviously speaking and understanding full on andalu is extremely helpfull in understanding flamenco and flamenco culture, and speaking regular spanish is not always as helpfull as one might hope it would be. How does everyone find understanding cante lyrics with just a normal knowledge of spanish or even understanding classes by guitarists (gerardo for example ?
RE: El andalu and flamenco (in reply to asisetoca)
Depends on the singer. Its not just Andaluz but the amount of Caló added in for good measure. My Spanish isnt bad but I've met singers with accents so heavy that I can't understand a word they are talking about. Even Spanish people dont always get the letra the first time they hear it!
Posts: 907
Joined: Mar. 13 2006
From: Vancouver, Canada
RE: El andalu and flamenco (in reply to asisetoca)
I'm not a native speaker, but I'm fluent. My Spanish is a very international sort. Once I make an adjustment for accents or regional calo, I understand most things, even when I'm out of my depths.
The worst part for me is the way cantaores stretch out words beyond recognition.
I'm relatively good and divining meaning from context, and I have the resources to find the meanings of words I don't know. But it does me no good if I can't make the words out.
Posts: 35
Joined: Nov. 16 2008
From: Kemble, England
RE: El andalu and flamenco (in reply to asisetoca)
My spanish is a good level too, but also spend time on pronunciaton of andalu and calo vocabulary so that i can get cantes much more easily but even so you guys are right there are some singer with extremely thick accents which can make understanding difficult. Some of the easy ones are Camaron and the modern guys i find.
Posts: 35
Joined: Nov. 16 2008
From: Kemble, England
RE: El andalu and flamenco (in reply to asisetoca)
Hi lachi i think might come from gachi? is that possible?, meaning payo or a non gitano and the verb camelar mean the same as querer i think too. Hope that helps a bit?
Here is a good example, where you can hear the letras but it is hard to translate them. Any ideas?
Ay te quiero pero de lachi no te camelo
Suerte
Sean
Lachi probably refers to loadstone, i.e. natural magnets. It was used as a talisman to protect against steel, and also by women to excite passions. This is assuming you have the right word.
Camelar can mean various things. In calo Andalu, it generally means "to want" but in other areas it can mean "to bluff" or trick or convince (like a hard sell).
"Te quiero" literally means "I want you" but for all practical purposes it means "I love you." So the singer may be playing with words a bit. It seems like the person is saying "I love you, but I don't want you." However, lachi seems out of place, unless there are phrases I've never heard.
It would help to know if it's sung by a male or female and a few more coplas for context.
'lacha' or 'lache' apparently means 'shame' or 'disgrace', and 'camelar' is 'to (fall in) love', so maybe if it was like 'lachi' it could translate as 'Ay, I want you but for shame I won't love you'...? Gerhardo Graf-Martinez has a good glossary of flamenco terms in the back of his Flamenco Method vol 1
Posts: 907
Joined: Mar. 13 2006
From: Vancouver, Canada
RE: El andalu and flamenco (in reply to andresito)
quote:
ORIGINAL: andresito
quote:
ORIGINAL: Sean Any ideas?
Ay te quiero pero de lachi no te camelo
'lacha' or 'lache' apparently means 'shame' or 'disgrace', and 'camelar' is 'to (fall in) love', so maybe if it was like 'lachi' it could translate as 'Ay, I want you but for shame I won't love you'...? Gerhardo Graf-Martinez has a good glossary of flamenco terms in the back of his Flamenco Method vol 1
Very good. It hadn't occured to me that "te camelo" can mean the same as "te quiero." Sounds weird though.
Just, as written, there's no future tense used. So it seems funny to say "I love you, but out of shame I don't love you." What do I know? I'm not poet.
RE: El andalu and flamenco (in reply to andresito)
Well folks
Now you know how difficult it is to find an adequate translation . This letras is from the very first flamenco record I produced: Juan Silva "Por Cai" (1999). I ranslated all the letras and included a booklet with the CD in English and in Spanish. The translation was very, very difficult.
Being aware of the multiple meanings of lachi, querer and camelar I translated it as: "Ay, how much I love you but I am too timid to make advances." This seemed to make sense in the context and was done in consultation with Juan, but he was not much help!.
from what i understand, the "andalusian" dialect is so different from "castilian" that many people consider it's own language rather than a dialect.
i was thinking of getting some programs to learn spanish. but after reading that, it seems pointless as those programs will surely teach the castilian way of speaking.
from what i understand, the "andalusian" dialect is so different from "castilian" that many people consider it's own language rather than a dialect.
i was thinking of getting some programs to learn spanish. but after reading that, it seems pointless as those programs will surely teach the castilian way of speaking.
is it that much different?
If you have a knack, no, they won't seem too too different. Sometimes I understand people speaking in dialects while native Spanish speakers don't. I think partly because I'm lucky to have an ear for it. But I also think that for native speakers it can be like the "forest for the trees" scenario.
Additionally, there is much more access to learning Spanish (materials, courses), and Spanish will let you travel all over Spain and most of Latin America. They do understand and speak Castellano in Andalucia (for the most part), it's just that some/many prefer to speak Andalu...
Besides, they're sufficiently close enough (sound more simliar than different to my ear), that Spanish will make for good building blocks (grammar, conjugation &c) to build upon.
When someone says "Te quiero" it definately means I love you. Even though the word can also mean "to desire" or "want" there is no mistaking the meaning here (I speak from experience) Camelar is Caló for "to love" but its not quite the same as Amor or querer. Its slightly more carnal. Niña Pastori singing "Tu me camelas" means very roughly "You (really) fancy me"
So the letra is more like,
Ay,How I love you, But lachi (lastima) I dont want "to get jiggy with it"
Posts: 35
Joined: Nov. 16 2008
From: Kemble, England
RE: El andalu and flamenco (in reply to asisetoca)
right ok so in summary for that translation 'Te quiero' is clearly 'I love you'(just standard spanish) and lachi means lastima? Also in reference to an earlier post, the word Payo is used by gitanos to refer to anyone outside of that circle even though it may simply mean a peasant in the calo sense it actually means the opposite in calo, i believe its a bit like regular spaniards calling foreigners guiris!
ORIGINAL: Exitao No clue why you would think so. I've had GFs from Mexico, Nicaraugua, El Salvador and Columbia who all said "te quiero" to mean "I love you."
Yep, it does mean I love you, not as profoundly as 'Te amo'. Friends could say to each other 'Te quiero mucho', novios y novias could say 'Te quiero' (as well as 'te deseo', 'te adoro', 'te necesito' and 'me encantas') and married folks like me say 'Te amo' Might I also say you have good taste in novias, Ex
Posts: 907
Joined: Mar. 13 2006
From: Vancouver, Canada
RE: El andalu and flamenco (in reply to andresito)
quote:
ORIGINAL: andresito
quote:
ORIGINAL: Exitao No clue why you would think so. I've had GFs from Mexico, Nicaraugua, El Salvador and Columbia who all said "te quiero" to mean "I love you."
Yep, it does mean I love you, not as profoundly as 'Te amo'. Friends could say to each other 'Te quiero mucho', novios y novias could say 'Te quiero' (as well as 'te deseo', 'te adoro', 'te necesito' and 'me encantas') and married folks like me say 'Te amo' Might I also say you have good taste in novias, Ex
I've dated some very fair skinned European Hispanic girls (i.e. not Mestiza), with blue, or honey coloured eyes. But, something about eyes that are black and glittery as coal really wow me. And piel de canela...
Lot's of black-haired Asian girls in Vancouver, but none of them have those eyes.
I've always felt that te amo was supposed to be a more profound or romantic statement than te quiero, but not all people seem to think so (or at least, they never bother to think about it).
In Spanish cursirias (in this case, like "sweet nothings"), can be so much more over the top than in English. Sometimes I've wished all my GFs could speak Spanish. In addition to those declarations you mentioned, you can use pet names like (mi) amor, mi cielo, mi vida, (mi) corazón. Sometimes I like to mix it up and call her mi igado and if she complains I just tell her that people can live without hearts now, but everyone still dies without a liver.
Piropos (piropear o "tirar flores") are challenging if you don't want to come off as some grosero (and even many Latin men do), although, some men can be very elegant or even gracioso about it. I tend to call girls nena or muñeca, if I don't know her name and want to catch her attention.
I have learnt past weekend the meaning of "te quiero, pero de lachi no the lo peno" from a gipsy flamenco singer: it means "I love you, but I´m ashamed of it, so I´m not going to tell you".
Hope it was useful!
Greetings from an Andalusian living in Berlin.
For those who are interested: the flamenco aficionados of Berlin have a website. You may register if you want: www.entre-nosotros.de
Posts: 6447
Joined: Jul. 6 2003
From: England, living in Italy
RE: El andalu and flamenco (in reply to Germanito)
quote:
I have learnt past weekend the meaning of "te quiero, pero de lachi no the lo peno" from a gipsy flamenco singer
This is the letra of Manuel Soto's Soleá por bulería:
y que no se las llevaba el viento y que no se las lleva el viento mis palabras son tan firmes compañerita mía como los diez mandamientos
y por qué no le damos tregua al tiempo? vamos a darle tiempo al tiempo ya verás de qué manera compañerita mía tú sin mí sales perdiendo
y Dios va a mandarte a ti un castigo muy grande y eso es porque tú te lo mereces porque me vienes culpando y yo culpa no tengo que de ti hablara la gente
Posts: 1827
Joined: Jul. 8 2003
From: Living in Granada, Andalucía
RE: El andalu and flamenco (in reply to at_leo_87)
quote:
ORIGINAL: at_leo_87 i was thinking of getting some programs to learn spanish. but after reading that, it seems pointless as those programs will surely teach the castilian way of speaking.
I must have missed this thread when it started but seriously Antonio you're better off learning Spanish and then training your ear to understand Andaluz. Dont let it stop you. I am very proud of my English/Andaluz Spanish accent even if people in Barcelona laugh at me and in Madrid they think I am from some strange latin American country. I was once told in Granada that I sounded like a teenage gitana from the poligono which was hardly surprising as I was spending all my time with them.
Posts: 1827
Joined: Jul. 8 2003
From: Living in Granada, Andalucía
RE: El andalu and flamenco (in reply to Pimientito)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Pimientito
Depends on the singer. Its not just Andaluz but the amount of Caló added in for good measure. My Spanish isnt bad but I've met singers with accents so heavy that I can't understand a word they are talking about. Even Spanish people dont always get the letra the first time they hear it!
We had Jaime El Parón in the studio the other day and afterwards Harold was a bit concerned as he was hearing "Mi penne es azul" and thought it a bit odd. Juan from Eshavira had been there and he confessed he hadn't caught the lyrics. Another friend said " Es porno pitufo" which cracked us all up.
Later we quizzed Emilio about it and he said it was a play on words, a joke, and could be heard in various ways, one being "mi peine es azul". So I think with some letras there is always room for doubt, and that the audience is being made fun of a bit.
A couple that are more along the lines of entertainment/curiosity; there is a movement to use Andalú dialect, spelled phonetically, as a literary language:
Fernando Quiñones Chozas nazió en Xiclana en 1930 i murió en Cai en 1998. Curtibó aniguà la poezía, er teatro i la nobela, a lo qe zumó zu incurzión n’e l’enzayo con bariâ obrâ zobre er flamenco. Quiñones utiliza l’andalú ehcrito n’argunâ e zuh obrâ. Como cazi er totà e lô autorê qe bamô io biendo, l’utiliza pa reflehà l’abla populà d’Andaluzía, ya q’ê de zuponè, o ehtô autorê zuponen, q’er pueblo andalú no abla azín. Ehte ê er cazo der libro e relatô "Nos han dejado solos (libro de los andaluces)" i la nobela zuya "Las mil noches de Hortensia Romero", aonde la protagonihta ê una prohtituta malageña qe zegún er mihmo Quiñones zería "imposible leer que una prostituta malagueña o un pescadero gaditano, que me están hablando a su aire, digan en neto soriano o burgalés «mire uSteD, poR favoR". Curiozamente, i manqe haga eza azeberazión, lô relatô e Hortenzia Romero ehtán ehcritô en "neto soriano o burgalés" zarpicaô d’arguna q’otra palabra echcribía con lâ cararteríhticâ e la fonética andaluza, i d’argunâ ehprezionê i d’argún lézico q’è mihmo ehplica n’un anezo der libro.
Printable Version
? 
. This letras is from the very first flamenco record I produced: Juan Silva "Por Cai" (1999). I ranslated all the letras and included a booklet with the CD in English and in Spanish. The translation was very, very difficult. 
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