Comments on: Marriage and Río de la Plata

By: AC

AC — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 20:13:58 +0000

Okay, well than this isn’t as bad as what any person who speaks a moderate amount of Spanish would assume, I’ll give you that. Thanks for the explanation. However, according to Wikipedia: “A modern translation of the Spanish Río de la Plata is “Silver River”, referring not to color but to the riches of the fabled Sierra de la Plata thought to lie upstream.

I guess it should be translated according to who named the river first. I don’t know if that was the British or the Argentineans. However, since the British probably got the word “plate” from Spanish (see below), it makes much more sense to me to translate it as “silver” than as plate, both for historical purposes and for modern translation purposes. Not a single South American would translate that as anything other than “silver”.

From Merriam Webster:

[Middle English; partly from Anglo-French plate plate, bullion; partly from Old Spanish plata silver, from Vulgar Latin *platta metal plate, from feminine of plattus flat] a obsolete : a silver coin b : precious metal; especially : silver bullion

By: William

William — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 17:11:01 +0000

Thanks for the comments. I’m one of the editors at The World, and here’s why we used the term “River Plate.” It is true that, at first glance, it might appear to be a mistranslation of “Río de la Plata.” The thing is, the word plate was used by the English in centuries past to refer to silver, which they hoped to find up the Rio de la Plata. So the estuary has been known in English as River Plate or Plate River for a long time. It is also true that a strict modern translation of the Spanish “Río de la Plata” is “Silver River.” By the way, one of the top soccer teams in Argentina is named “Club Atlético River Plate.”

By: AC

AC — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 09:42:22 +0000

Eight hours later, this translation is still completely wrong!

By: thom morris

thom morris — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 02:50:38 +0000

Hi,

In today’s Geo Quiz (11/30/2009), the river “Rio de la Plata” was translated as “River Plate”. This is a common misinterpretation of the name attributed to the British. Plata means silver in Spanish; “plato” is plate. I hope this is helpful to you for future references.

By: Sherri

Sherri — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:17:28 +0000

From what I understand. the translation for plata in Rio de la Plata is NOT Plate, but silver. The translation would be River of Silver.

By: AC

AC — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:47:10 +0000

Rio de la Plata = River of Silver. Plata = Silver! A simple Google search would have prevented this pretty bad translation mistake!