Geo Quiz

Marriage and Río de la Plata

By The World ⋅ November 30, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

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The Rio de la Plata leads you right up to the doorstep of today’s Geo Quiz. The Río de la Plata or River Plate is located on the south-eastern coast of South America.

It’s a funnel-shaped estuary is formed by the confluence of two rivers: the Uruguay and the Paraná rivers. At its widest point — where it meets the Atlantic Ocean — the Rio de la Plata is more than 130 miles across.

Jacques Descloitres, MODISRapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC

Jacques Descloitres, MODISRapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC

We’re looking for a big city on the river’s south-western shore. It’s one of South America’s major cities, eclipsed in size only by São Paulo.

Residents of this city can go out and dine on asado or stay home and read stories by native son Jorge Luis Borges. Two residents plan to tie the knot there tomorrow — and make history.

We’ll tell you why — when we return with this city’s name…

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Now we’re headed to Argentina’s capital, Buenos Aires. It’s the answer to our Geo Quiz today. It’s also where two men plan to get married tomorrow. To each other.

If all goes as planned, they’ll be the first gay couple to legally wed in Argentina. Julia Kumari Drapkin recently sat down with them at a Buenos Aires hotel.

Meet Alex Freyer and Jose di Bello. Jose is an executive with the Argentine Red Cross. Alex is head of the Buenos Aires AIDS foundation. Alex says a passion for activism and human rights brought them together.

Alex Freyre, right, and Jose Maria Di Bello

Alex: “It’s not easy. If you are gay to find other gay with the same pride. And with the same idea to change the world to be better.“

That’s the reason I proposed this question: Do you want to marry me – but do you know, it’s not a romantic proposal only. It’s a political proposal.

Gay couples in Buenos Aires can have civil unions, but they can’t get married. So Alex wasn’t just asking Jose to commit to him. He was asking him to commit to a public battle.

Jose: “And I think why not? I know I want to stay Alex all my life. And I said- yes. I want.“
Getting politicians in Argentina to say yes to changing the law was another matter. Single sex marriage isn’t legal in Argentina, where the Catholic Church remains influential.

Alex: “They need to change only two words: man and woman. And replace the words by partners. It’s simple but at the same time there’s too much pressure from the church.”

But instead of waiting for lawmakers to take action, Alex and Jose decided to take a different tack. Alex says they went to a civil clerk in Buenos Aires ….

Alex: “We went to the register civil to say we want a date, for be married, and they say – no.”

The law doesn’t permit to you to obtain this right. So the couple sued the city of Buenos Aires for denying them their constitutional rights. Earlier this month, the judge ruled in their favor.

Alex: “The justice said yes. And the government say its okay. I say wow so much responsibility.”

It’s a big responsibility because Alex and Jose won’t be just the first gay couple to marry in Argentina. They’ll be the first to legally wed in Latin America.

Jose: “We are the first!”

And they plan to wed tomorrow, December 1st.

Alex: “December 1st is the global day of AIDS. It’s very important to us. Both of us are living with HIV. We are positive.”

Even though Alex and Jose plan to get married tomorrow, the judge’s decision doesn’t set a precedent for other single sex couples to wed in Argentina. But Alex says it’s still a victory.

Alex: “We win this round. We win. We can- we obtain. Now the rainbow is here. You know when we say, “somewhere over the rainbow. It’s here! It’s in Buenos Aires.”

The Buenos Aires mayor decided not to appeal, so the judge’s decision is final. The mayor told reporters… “The world is heading in this direction.”

For the world, I’m Julia Kumari Drapkin in Buenos Aires.

Discussion

6 comments for “Marriage and Río de la Plata”

  • AC

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

  • Sherri

    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.

  • thom morris

    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.

  • AC

    Eight hours later, this translation is still completely wrong!

  • William

    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.”

  • AC

    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