Linguistic intricacies in the Costa Brava

The linguistic mine planted by Christopher Columbus upon the discovery of America — calling the Native peoples he encountered "Indians" under the assumption that he had, indeed, found India — has implications both for the English and the Spanish languages. No one has bothered to correct Columbus's mistake since then, adding to the linguistic confusion in many situations.

In Spanish, both residents of India and the Natives of the Americas are referred to as indio. This confusion persists in English as well, even though the term Indian is a largely unacceptable substitute for the term "Aboriginal" or "Native". Hindú, a common way to bring up people hailing from India, does not offer sufficient clarity either since it has clear religious undertones and may refer to anyone practicing Hinduism, in India or elsewhere.

So imagine mastering the ability to interpret contextual clues and figure out who is meant by indio in Spanish, only to encounter a description of the Costa Brava seaside town Begur and its casas indianas, while Begur has neither a significant Indian population nor any records of Native culture.

The Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) explains that indiano has very little to do with either. In Spain, indianos are the Spaniards who had immigrated to Latin America during various crises of the 18th and the 19th centuries, made their fortunes abroad and returned, triumphant and fabulously wealthy, to settle again in their homeland. Lacking any sort of humility, they had built outrageously expensive houses in Begur to showcase their wealth, now known as casas indianas.

Why refer to this very specific demographic using an adjective with an already sufficiently confusing root? The problem is exacerbated in English, which is spoken in Begur often during the summer months (the town is very popular among the British tourists). Numerous guidebooks and travel publications resort to leaving the term without translation — "the Indiano houses" — or opt for discussing the colonial era to explain its origins.

But of course, none of this would have concerned Christopher Columbus. Will there ever be clarity? We can only hope!