“What a shame? At what moment did I become the cause of such sadness?” I thought confused for a few seconds when they gave me that answer when requesting to open a telephone line.
Then I remembered that in Colombia and other Latin American countries, grief means shame rather than grief or painas stated by the Royal Spanish Academy and as used in Spain.
Like me, several foreigners I know were very confused when they heard the phrase for the first time.
Many of them love the expression. Such courtesy awakens tenderness in them.
Others hate her. They say that the Colombian works like a wild card to ask for all kinds of favors or offer any refusal.
And the fact is that “what a pity for you” does not always come from the best news, especially at a bureaucratic level.
“What a pity for you, Mr. Cueto, but without an immigration card” – the happy card is worth a separate note – “we cannot open a bank account for you, install internet at home or create a telephone plan for you.”
As a Cuban and a Spaniard, accustomed to more direct and blunt language, the phrase awakens kindness and impatience in me depending on the context.
As a journalist, it makes me curious to what extent it reflects part of the history and culture of Colombia.
Several linguists told me this.
A “pragmatic strategy” to communicate
Gloria Viviana Nieto, from the Caro y Cuervo Institute, a leading center for philology and linguistics in Colombia, reiterates that the meaning of shame as shame is not exclusive and that it also occurs in other Latin American countries.
“The particularity in Colombia is that the use of ‘you’ is much more markedalthough in the regions where we call each other we say ‘what a shame with you’, where we voice we say ‘what a shame with you’ and we even continue using ‘what a shame with sumercé’,” Nieto explains to BBC Mundo.
Nieto and other experts agree that it is a “pragmatic strategy” of communication that seeks several intentions.
On the one hand, “get closer, reduce tension or attract attention“, lists linguist Adriana Ortiz from the University of Antioquia for BBC Mundo.
Ortiz says that it is very common when facing a bureaucratic procedure: “When you arrive at an office, you talk to an official and say ‘young man, what a pity for you, but can you explain to me where I should deliver these documents’”?
Lirian Astrid, from the Universidad del Valle in Cali, adds that it is also used as a precedent for negative news, denying a favor, apologizing or expressing shyness.
“In short, it is used in simple and complex situations: ‘too bad for you, but I ran out of coffee’ or ‘too bad for you, but this time we didn’t pay your salary.’ It is a formula that helps us to be condescending“says Nieto.
What does it say regarding Colombians?
In a country of 50 million inhabitants distributed across mountain ranges, coasts, plains, deserts and jungles, it is impossible to provide a lecture on how a simple phrase can reflect the Colombian idiosyncrasy.
But the linguists consulted by BBC Mundo see certain unequivocal features.
“The Colombians we are especially courteous. If you notice, many times we greet with up to three sentences in the same phrase: ‘Hello. How are you? What have you done?’ It can be very strange for a foreigner and they may hesitate between which of all the questions to answer,” says Ortiz.
The expert says that this verbal courtesy can come from the great influence of the Catholic Church in Colombia.
“As a product of this tradition, from home we are insisted on manners from a young age, respecting authority, saying thank you, always saying hello when entering a place. Times change, but that polite culture remains latent.”
Another explanation, says Astrid, is a kind of servility in speech that may be inherited from the colonial period, which is reflected in other common phrases such as “I remain at your service for whatever you need.”
The expert also comments on the indigenous influence in several of these linguistic forms, which fall into the category of “mitigating expressions.”
“The indigenous influence on our Spanish has been studied a lot, especially in the use of diminutives, attenuations and linguistic detours,” says Astrid.
“And this is noticeable when we make a request, ask for a favor or apologize,” adds the expert.
“A necessity in the face of hostility”
Contrary to the also emblematic ‘sumercé’, which continues to be used in some parts of Colombia as another example of servility and respect towards the hierarchy since colonial times, defining when ‘what a pity for you’ began to be used is more complicated.
It is an oral language formula that evolved over time and lacks written references.
In the 1872 book Critical notes on the Bogota language by Rufino José Cuervo, one of the oldest on the Colombian language, there are no mentions of “what a shame with you.”
To a foreigner it may sound like an almost anachronistic phrase and it may surprise you that it continues to be used so frequently to this day.
As a Hispanic American, I am moved that in Colombia this high level of courtesy prevails when speakingin the case of ‘you’ even among close friends and family, much more marked than in my native Cuba, where the ‘you’ is only addressed to the stranger or the elderly.
The linguist Nieto launches with an interesting theory.
“I dare to affirm that we need to be verbally courteous due to the very hostile reality that we live in Colombia.”
“We are also very euphemistic. We say that a person lost his life or that they took her away from her, instead of saying that she committed suicide or was killed,” says the expert.
While the current government of Gustavo Petro negotiates with various armed groups to end the conflict that has bled Colombia for more than half a century, the Indepaz organization reported 93 massacres with 300 victims in 2023.
It is one of the many contradictions regarding Colombia that my predecessors in this correspondent warn me regarding.
A country capable of enthralling you with courtesy and shaking you with violence.
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