In the Spanish language, the words for “to wait” and “to hope” are one in the same: “esperar.” I think this might explain a lot of the cultural differences found here.

‘Esperar’ comes from the Latin “sperāre” which means “hope” and has no mention of waiting. In English, ‘wait’ and ‘hope’ are drastically different. While hoping usually involves waiting, its implications are much more grandiose: we ‘hope’ for a miracle, we ‘wait’ for the bus. The first instance of ‘wait’ shows up in the English language c.1200, while the temporal origins of ‘hope’ are not as well known, which implies it came earlier. It is known, however, that both words come from Germanic roots.

The time frame here seems to be important. In 1200, the English- and German-speaking worlds started to do a lot of hoping. In the heart of the crusades, it was important to draw a distinction between the waiting of every day, natural life and the hope of eternal redemption. There was nothing much to wait for in the life of the crusader or crusadee, in fact, life on earth was rather painful, and was purposely construed as such by the church. But there was plenty to hope for, as any of us at all familiar with Christianity (as I barely am) know. Eternal happiness, harmony, absence of hope. Nothing to hope for, it’s all at your fingertips (of which you have none you intangible angel, you). So it was necessary to describe the way in which, even though there was nothing to ‘wait’ for, your life totally sucked, there was much to ‘hope’ for.

In Spain at this time, the situation was slightly yet importantly different. The Spanish, fighting their own battles of Reconquista (Reconquest) were more concerned with reclaiming land ruled by the Islamic Moors. Spain, with a history containing a milder Christian zeal, was fighting a land battle rather than angrily attempting to impose a particular religiosity. So the Spanish language never found it necessary to draw a distinction between ‘waiting’ and ‘hoping.’ Though the Spanish were not pleasant people at this time, it was at least never an assumption that there was nothing to wait for. The idea of life on Earth was never completely rejected as a pointless step toward salvation. You could wait while hoping, for something to happen in your current life, or in the world around you.

So here I am, an English-speaker in a Spanish-speaking country, and I seem to be the only one who is distinguishing these two terms (besides the other gringos or otherwise Westerners). I am 10 minutes early to class, I arrive exactly at or slightly later than the agreed upon time, when waiting for the bus I get jittery and constantly look for it to round the corner. It’s because I am the only one waiting. Everybody else is both waiting and hoping, a miracle of simultaneity that my brain can’t figure out.

In the US, perhaps in the “West,” we consider ‘waiting’ to be an empty, bland place to stand around until some predictable, particular event occurs. The notion of waiting implies that we know what we are waiting for. The bus, the mail, class, to exhale. This is a big flaw in our culture, as I see it. The idea that point A leads directly to point B and all empty spaces are automatically filled with this empty waiting, empty anticipation of points B/C/D/Etc. But here, in the world of waiting/hoping, the empty spaces are not boring hindrances of our plans. They are places of possibility. Here, point A seems to lead directly to point B, but the empty spaces are always filled with, in addition to waiting, the underlying hope we might be sent flying to point ! or point ↓ or to a land where points no longer exist.

Words say a lot about cultures. It is my sense that there is something important to be gained from this difference in language use. I have been trying to interpret moments of waiting, which normally frustrate me, as moments of possibility, of hope. I have been trying to find a happy medium between the boredom of waiting and the impossible grandiosity of hope. With this distinction intact, it is hard for me to discover things anew. It is hard to understand that empty spaces in time can be filled with exploration rather than anticipation.

I hope you have enjoyed this. Hope a minute to take it all in and… hope for it, BAM! Maybe it didn’t work. If this doesn’t make me famous, I’ll just become a hoper. I hear they make good tips.