Post-Revolutionary Cuban Spanish

A Glossary of Social, Political, and Common Terms (Glosario de Terminos Socio-Politicos y Autoctonos de Actualidad)

Because the first socialist revolution in the Americas took place in Cuba, this country has also seen the rise of new terms and the introduction of new, very specific meanings for old terms, adopted as required to express new realities. How can these neologisms be rendered in English, when no English-speaking country has as yet carried out a Marxist-Leninist social revolution and, therefore, no ready-made equivalents are available? This situation has been a poser not only for translators but also for language teachers and other professionals whose work required frequent contact with English. The present glossary should be exceptionally useful to all of them. From the author: "A revolution triumphed in Cuba in 1959, making it the first socialist country in the Americas. The Cuban Revolution sprang from the need to make thoroughgoing political and economic transformations - which, in turn, created a need for new terms to express them. Cuba's growing international prestige and new diplomatic, trade and cultural relations led us to look for new equivalents in foreign languages so we could communicate with the rest of the world."