Wednesday, July 27, 2016

caserio: hamlet/ small village

Following up on my last post on the translation of the Colombian term vereda (which means quite different things in other countries, including path in Spain and alley or lane in Venezuela) I noticed that in this recent useful article in NACLA about reactions to the peace process in Putumayo, Winifred Tate seems to be translating vereda as hamlet. I think this is a mistranslation and may be due to a common confusion as to the legal definition of vereda in Colombia. Though vereda sometimes gets used to refer to the rural area where a few homes are grouped together, technically a Colombian vereda is a large sprawling rural area, most of which does not have homes anywhere near each other. Inside a vereda there is generally at least one caserio, or small settlement, ie hamlet - though really, that term always sounds quaint and a bit hobbit like to me so I prefer to translate it as small village.

(photo from the Tate article: Alianza members light candles welcoming peace in Mocoa, the departmental capitol of Putumayo (Photo courtesy of Paula Fernández Seijo))