What is more important that the movie get worldwide attention and viewing or that there be subtitles perfect or not. This is Just racist in itself. I guess I pass on Roma.
I’m sure Cuarón is aware that there’s no other Spanish but Castilian Spanish. It’s where the language originated. Kinda like English v American English. The original and only one is the King’s English! ¡No té ofendas tan fácilmente Alfonso!
Language happens folks. I grew up in the largest collection of Spanish speakers in the Northern Hemisphere outside of Mexico City, East Los Angeles, a mile from downtown. My introduction to freshman Spanish in high school was Castilian Spanish taught by a native of Tokyo who graduated from the University of Guadalajara. Even though Spanish was my primary language at home, my El Paso, Texas parents decided "English only" when I started school. As the oldest of my generation, I could hang.
Problem was in class "He is a good guy" HAD to be "Es un muchacho muy simpatico". Either write that in a test or get an 'F'. We would say the unacceptable slang "Es un vato muy suave". I got an 'F'. Caramba.
2
For those who say, there's no need to provide subtitles to British movies/TV for American audience, are just clueless. They have not realized how the different accents can be very hard to catch (even if the actual words are the same). Is that ideal? Of course not. But that's the reality.
Netflix in this case is just trying to be helpful. And for those Spaniards who say, spanish is spanish and shouldn't need to be "translated," I would venture to say, there would likely to be far more audience who would disagree with that notion. Granted, Netflix should have done a better job vetting the translation used in subtitles.
It's not like Netflix is trying to reintroduce something from the colonial past. For those who feel slighted or offended, I'd say, chill, dude. Let's see how they feel when we STOP provide subtitles to all non-spanish movies for you, and you'll come begging.
There's much improvements to be desired, but this incident is like storm in a tea cup.
8
@tiddl
Agree with above. As an American, I have benefited from watching some British movies with subtitles (Ken Loach movies come to mind). It's not a big deal.
2
@Locho, British accent is nothing. Try Scottish accent, for a change. :) I used to have a colleague who's a Scot. For the first three months on the job, no one had any clues what she's been saying. If only we have subtitles for what she had said (!!).
13
@tiddl The complaint isn't that there are subtitles, but that the subtitles don't match the dialog. I've seen a couple of British films with subtitles, and I've turned them on on Netflix, but if they don't match the dialog they are more distracting than helpful.
6
Interesting piece. There are some notable (maybe questionable?) choices in the writing of this article, too.
Why even use the term "Castilian" in this paragraph?:
"In the film, set in Mexico City in the 1970s, the actors speak Mexican Spanish and the indigenous Mixtec language. For that Spanish, Netflix added subtitles in Castilian, Spain’s main dialect, for the release in that country. On Wednesday, Netflix removed those Castilian subtitles after Cuarón told El País, a Spanish newspaper, that they were “parochial, ignorant and offensive to Spaniards themselves.”
"Castilian" (or, in Spanish, castellano) is just another name for the "Spanish" language. Because there are many "Spanish" languages (catalan, gallego, vasco/Basque, etc.), castellano is the customarily preferred/culturally sensitive term to use *in Spain.* That doesn't apply outside Spain, however. In my experience, referring to "Spanish" as "castellano" outside Spain is far less common and does kind of smack of the imperial legacy discussed in this article.
Of course there are geographic variations across the Spanish/castellano spoken in different locations (even within Spain), but it is all the same language.
Also, the article discusses "Mexican Spanish" (fair enough, to distinguish it from Peninsular Spanish) at the beginning, but uses the hyphenated "Mexican-Spanish" at the end of the article, suggesting some kind of separate hybrid language. Why the hyphen in the second instance?
@vkt When I went to the Picasso museum in Barcleona for example, the information placards were written in English, Castillian, and Catalan. The residents of that region regard Catalan as a separate language, I believe...
4
For a majority of Spaniards, the standard (understood as the Spanish used in newscasts, for example and in media in general) is perceived as “castellano” so its use in the article is correct. Castilian Spanish is also used instead of Peninsular Spanish, maybe leaving aside the vast amount of different dialects in Spain and even within Castile. It is just easier than saying “Spanish from Spain”. Speaking about other Spanish languages, it is true that Castellano in Spain has very strong political connotations. As a Castilian myself, I prefer “español”. It also belongs to Andalucians, Canarians, Asturians and the rest of the many Spanish peoples that use it as a lingua franca and whose feelings are certainly not more important than those of a Catalan or a Basque... but not any less either. That is, however, “otra historia”.
4
An interesting parallel: On TV5, the French international television station you can get in New York, they often put French subtles on French shows from Canada, especially serials and dramas done in colloquial speech
3
The richness of our language, whether from Spain, the Caribbean, Mexico, South or Central America is evident in every different word for the same thing, in every different accent, in every different idiom or expression. Learning what not to say in one country which works perfectly well in another is the beauty of it all. We understand each other broadly (with no need for subtitles) and tweak as needed, embracing our differences and learning yet another layer of the richness we share.
11
Spanish is Spanish, there's no "Mexican" Spanish. There are different accents. I guess subtitles in Spanish might be a good thing because the Mexican accent could be hard to follow sometimes...
6
@Jgrauw
To my bilingual (and not Mexican) ears the Mexican accent is easy to follow: clearly enunciated, appropriately timed, and finely toned. It is a bit like the Midwestern US accent. Peninsular Spanish is almost painful to hear.
2
@Jgrauw There are differences beyond the accent. As Mr. Croc stated below, as the language spread through Spain’s many colonies over the centuries it evolved and adopted other influences either local or from other places and cultures, also due to the immigrant waves from Europe that arrived in those countries during the first half of the 20th. century. Most recently, other immigrant waves are taking place within Latin America that will add to the language in the hosting countries.
2
Castilian is not a dialect, it is just the original Spanish, right at the source. Like English spoken in the UK is not a dialect. As Spanish spread through Spain’s many colonies over the centuries the language evolved and adopted other influences from other local languages and cultures. Nowdays the spanish spoken i
for instance im Argentina is very different from the one spoken in Mexico, or Colombia or in many other countries. Like it has happened to other languages that spread across the world over time due to colonilism, emigration or other factors.
This certainly was a ridiculous, parochial move by Netflix. Spaniards in Europe need no subtitles to understand Roma or any other Latin American movie, even if the language spoken in those is very different , in accent, usage and many ofher ways from the one they speak. That is the richness of language, that evolves across cultures and nations and time and is kept alive by the people who use it.
Quite possibly some executive at Netflix who does not speak many languages (just English, big surprise) thought this was necessary. Like comrade big agent orsnge likes to tweet, sad...
14
@Mr.Croc well said!
2
@Mr.Croc The Spanish spoken in all the countries you mentioned is the same, the accents are different. The same case as with English spoken in the UK, USA, Australia, Kenya, etc. As a Spanish speaker that grew up in Mexico, I understand an Argentinian, a Cuban or a Colombian, no sweat...
4
Languages do not exist but as a continuum of dialects which are considered to be manifestations of the same language if they are , for example, mutually intelligible. Castilian Spanish (in its many variants) is as much a dialect of Spanish as the variant they speak in Guadalajara, Mexico. Neither above, nor below. No source, no standard and please, please, not “purer” or “better”... they are simply dialects of the same language.
5
Interesting comments; the complaints could be made extensive to the mauling of Spanish names (people, places, etc), when pronouncing clearly 'the American way', distorting the beauty of the language (Los Angeles, where the 'g' sounds like a 'y', and where Isla Morada (in Florida) looses it's meaning by the sound 'ail morad'. Spanish is such a wonderful language, it saddens us it is being trampled at will by lesser beings claiming purity in the name of ignorance...or worse, an arrogant sign of presumed superiority.
3
@manfred marcus
Native English speakers who don’t speak Spanish, or who do speak Spanish but haven’t mastered the accent, cannot prounounce all Spanish words exactly as a native Spanish speaker would. This is the same for many native Spanish speakers when they say English words. And for many native Swahili speakers when they say Japanese words. And for many native Tagalog speakers when they say words in German. We generally try to prounounce words from different languages as well as we can. Most people aren’t trying to intentionally distort the beauty of a foreign language.
Most native English speakers, when pronouncing Los Angeles in an Anglicized way, would pronounce the letter g with a juh or guh sound. It doesn’t have a y sound.
“...trampled at will by lesser beings...”, you write. “...an arrogant sign of presumed superiority.” It really sounds to me like you are the arrogant one with a presumed sense of superiority. This comes through crystal clear, no matter how you pronounce the words.
3
@Ensconced In Velvet Crystal clear is your presumption, given that my accent leaves a lot to be desired to different ears, humbly recognizing my shortcomings day in and day out; but one thing not to be denied is that I still try my best not to kill the beauty of a foreign language by educating myself in how to pronounce and spell things properly. Insofar my accent is concerned, it's a lost cause. Superiority is a 'charged' word, especially when somebody thinks is better than others jusr because of the color of his skin (Ugh!). But, if you believe the glove fits you, so be it.
totally agree with cuaron.. as a brooklyn native it would be like using subtitles for goodfellas for a texas audience
15
@raymond frederick Well, now you make me feel bad for turning on closed captioning when I'm watching The Sopranos...
4
hey no worries i've used subtitles in english for u.s. films too!
but the truth is as long as it's an option it's not a bad thing!
sometimes a heavy ny accent even for this brooklyn born
boy can be a hard accent to understand! but the politics of
castillian spanish and latin america spanish is a much more
complex thing.
2
"The only form of subtitles now available for the Spanish dialogue in Spain are closed captions — the form that benefits those who are hard of hearing or deaf."
I'm neither hard of hearing, nor deaf, but I use closed captions often. I am an Anglophile, but there are many British accents that I really have trouble understanding.
21
@Matt Olson Me also. Usually it is not the words themselves. It is the accents. As near as I can figure the closed captions are like a transcript of the sounds on the screen but not exactly translations and that is fine. Netflix, I think, has a way to turn subtitles off. So if you don't like the subtitles turn them off.
1
@Matt Olson I dare anyone from America to watch Snatch without some sort of closed captioning or subtitles turned on... Especially when Brad Pitt's character is speaking...
1
Yea! Some British accents are hard to understand, especially when mumbled!
In my opinion, this is being blown out of proportion in what seems a manufactured controversy. I am Spanish born and was able to understand the movie just fine without the help of a translation (!?) into Castilian Spanish. Based on the ones I read about, the subtitles were plain bad, but this is not the first time that the same language is subtitled into another variety. Canadian French is sometimes subtitled in Belgium and France, for example. I have seen Disney movies here in the US where the spoken Spanish and the Spanish subtitles were different.
The movie is fantastic, the best I have seen in a long time hands down. Can we all enjoy it without drama? I do not know if many Spaniards would need the subtitles (I suspect not) but I do know that bringing Spanish colonialism or speaking of "minority, nonstandard" languages to this conversation (the whole point is the translating of Mexican Spanish into Castilian Spanish... How, exactly, is Mexican Spanish "minority" and "nonstandard", Ms Sitaridou?) is falling into paroxism. Do we really need controversies at every turn?
10