Seen this today thought i would throw it in here???
The following is written by award-winning Professor in Hispanic Studies at Brown University, Aldo Mazzucchelli.
I will first quote the FA document on the key point:
â90. Mr Evraâs evidence was that, in response to his question âWhy did you kick me?â, Mr Suarez replied âPorque tu eres negroâ. Mr Evra said that at the time Mr Suarez made that comment, he (Mr Evra) understood it to mean âBecause you are a ******â. He now says that he believes the words used by Mr Suarez mean âBecause you are blackâ.â
I read the whole FA report. I am a Uruguayan born in Montevideo, currently a university Literature and Language professor in the US. It is clear to me that the Spanish language reported by Evra is inconsistent with Luis SuĂĄrezâs way of speaking Spanish. I am surprised nobody (and especially, the Liverpool lawyers) raised this point. The key is that Evra makes SuĂĄrez to appear using forms of Spanish SuĂĄrez just wouldnât use. SuĂĄrez cannot speak as Evra reported him speaking. And that strongly suggests that Evra made the whole thing up.
This is, I believe, key for the case and, if acknowledged, it would destroy Evraâs credibility. The fact that the FA has not noted that SuĂĄrez would never say âporque tu eres negroâ (that is just not a way of speaking in the Rio de la Plata area), much less âporque tu es negroâ or âtues negroâ (as Comolli apparently stated), which are grammatically incorrect or just do not exist in Spanish. You donât use the verb âserâ (to be) in the Rio de la Plata area that way. Luis Suarez would have said âporque SOS negroâ. There is no possible variation or alternative to this whatsoever in our use of Spanish. And we of course donât say âpor que tu es negroâ (as supposedly Comolli reported) because this is no Spanish syntax. In that sentence âesâ is being wrongly conjugated in the third person of singular while it should have been conjugated in the second, âsosâ (and never, I repeat, âeresâ). Hence, I donât know what Comolli heard from Suarez after the match, but I am positive he got it wrongâunless we believe that Suarez cannot even speak SpanishâŠ
What follows to these is that Evraâs report on what Suarez said is unreliable, just because Evra depicts SuĂĄrez speaking in a form of Spanish SuĂĄrez just does not use.- SuĂĄrez cannot have said âporque tu eres negroâ. He would have saidâif at all he said anythingâ âporque sos negroâ. And the problem is that this is not what Evra declared. Once again: Evra reports SuĂĄrez to have told him âporque tu eres negroâ which just sound implausible. People from Montevideo or Buenos Aires just do NOT USE that verb âserâ (to be) that way. In such a case we would say âporque sos negroâ. How come Evra reports SuĂĄrez speaking as he does not speak, and the FA accepts his word? Looks like Evra is making this up.
That said, letâs pay some attention to the incredibly sloppy way the FA has managed the Spanish language in their report.
â138. Mr Comolli said in his witness statement that Mr Suarez told him nothing happened. He said that there was one incident where he said sorry to Mr Evra and Mr Evra told him âDonât touch me, South Americanâ to which Mr Comolli thought Mr Suarez said he had replied âPor que, tu eres negro?â. (âŠ) Mr Comolli confirmed under cross-examination that he believed that what he was told by Mr Suarez in this meeting was that the words he had used to Mr Evra translated as âWhy, because you are blackâ.â
âPor que, tu eres negro?ââŠ. ??!! This makes no sense. It is no Spanish. âPor quĂ©â means âwhyâ (and not âbecauseâ in this case). It is incorrectly spelled by the FA in their official report (they donât seem to give a damn about Spanish, since they treat Spanish in such a careless way all along the report). It cannot be translated in a way that makes sense. Literally, if I had to translate it, it would be something like this: âwhy, you are black?â I have no idea what that could mean.
And Mr Comolliâs version is VERY different from Suarezâs own statement. Letâs see what Suarez himself reported:
â141. Mr Suarezâs version of this conversation was as follows. He said that Mr Comolli explained to him that Sir Alex Ferguson and Mr Evra had complained to the referee that Mr Suarez had racially insulted Mr Evra five times during the game. Mr Comolli asked Mr Suarez to tell him what happened. Mr Suarez told him that Mr Evra had said to him âDonât touch me, South Americanâ. Mr Suarez had said âPor que negro?â. Mr Suarez told Mr Comolli that this was the only thing he had said.â
What Suarez stated makes perfect sense in the Spanish we speak in the Rio de la Plata area âeven though, again, it is ill transcripted by the FA. They should have written: âÂżPor quĂ©, negro?â. Then, I have no idea why, the FA believes in the incorrect Spanish of a non native speaker (Comolli), instead of crediting Suarez about his own words.
The linguistic abilities of the FA are completely under question here, and they seem to have been key in their grounding of the case. Letâs see how lousy their understanding and use of Spanish language is, by looking in detail at just another part of the reasons alleged by the FA:
â284 (âŠ) Mr Comolli said to the referee that Mr Evra first said âyou are South Americanâ to Mr Suarez who responded with âTues Negroâ which translates as âyou are blackâ.â
It is ridiculous that the FA, after careful consideration of everything, would even consider relevant whatever Mr Comolli might have understood from SuĂĄrez, when it is clear Mr Comolli can barely understands what he himself is trying to say in Spanish. I say this because âtuesâ is no Spanish word. And âtues negroâ cannot be translated at allâlet alone into what the FA says it means. Itâs simply not a Spanish expression, so it cannot be âtranslatedâ. Comolli recollection from his chat with SuĂĄrez just after the match is unreliable. A pity since it arrived to the FA jury through a Liverpool official, but the language is so ridiculously wrong it makes me laugh.
In sum: SuĂĄrez could not have even said âtu eresâ negro, which would be gramatically correct in Madrid, because in the Rio de la Plata area we would never say âtu eres negroâ, but âvos SOS negroâ. And that is a fact, not a matter of the opinion of anyone, not even the language experts consulted by the FA, of course. I am a native speaker of Montevideo, a PhD in Spanish by Stanford, and currently a professor of Spanish at Brown University, and if I was called to court on this, I would categorically deny that Suarez, who lived his adult life in Montevideoâdespite being born in Saltoâcould have said other than âvos sos negroâ. There is no way in the world he could have said to Evra, spontaneously and as a reaction to Evraâs words and attitudes, âporque tu eres negroââand much less âtues negroâ, that doesnât exist. Simply âtuesâ is no Spanish.
Despite of that, the FA makes it stand and transcribes it in their report, and substantiate their conviction on these words.
Reading Evraâs statement, I understand it could happen that Evra misunderstood SuĂĄrez at some point. When SuĂĄrez said âÂżpor quĂ©, negro?â, Evra might have assumed that as a racial insult, while SuĂĄrezâeven in the heat of a discussionâcould perfectly have said that as a way of normally expressing himself (not exactly to calm Evra down, but just because he normally would talk like that without thinking about it). This point is where the cultural clash seems more important, and it is working against SuĂĄrez because nobody in the jury (let alone the Daily Mail kind of media) seems to even start understanding the common way we use the term ânegroâ in the Rio de la Plata area. They heard their experts, and their experts explained the different options of our use of the word depending on different contexts and intentions. Then, the jury just decided that the whole thing was an equally aggressive clash by both sides, and because of that, they concluded SuĂĄrez could have not use the ânegroâ word to Evra in a descriptive way. Why? Their interpretation is not clear to me and doesnât seem to be the only one possible. âÂżPor quĂ©, negro?â (after Evra said âDonât touch me you South Americanâ) is not offensive, but a question, and a very common one indeed, where ânegroâ is a DESCRIPTIVE noun, not an adjective loaded with a negative connotation. I completely understand why a British or an American might start not understanding the tone or the intention from SuĂĄrez. But I myself can clearly understand the account SuĂĄrez does and it seems consistent to me. I hear it more as a common (unmarked and uncharged) addressing to Evra.
Finally, the whole verdict seems to be grounded on 3 elements:
1) The FA tends to believe Evra is more reliable than Suarez (a purely subjective element)
2) The FA does not seem to have understood the Spanish language allegedly used âeven though they grounded the verdict on their own interpretation of that very Spanish language.
3) They believe the word ânegroâ cannot be used just in a descriptive way in the context of a discussionâwhich means they donât really understand how we do use it in the Rio de la Plata area. This made them feel Suarez was unreliable and probably aggravated them.
A pity. The most important thing here has to do with proportion. SuĂĄrezâs name has been destroyed and now the FA has shown there is NO EVIDENCE whatsoever of Suarez saying any of the things Evra attributes to him, exception made of Evraâs own statement.
Evra convinced the FA. And I wonder how much of racial prejudice (against the âwild animalsâ South Americans are supposed to be after Alf Ramseyâs famous remark) there is at play on the FA and media heads.
Logged
