Karine has long been proud to call herself a "guiri". Proud to shout it on the fly. She got the word from a gaditano in Puerta de Tierra, the new town. And if Karine was proud at first, it's because she heard the word the way she wanted to be seen: as a foreigner living in Cadiz, an expat. Better still, as a girl whom Cadiz had adopted.
In fact, the word "guiri", used throughout Spain, refers to the tourist, the person who takes a tour of the city and leaves... never to return.
A family story
The word " guiri" first appeared in the 19th century, during the civil wars between the Carlists - supporters of Don Carlos - and those of Queen Maria Cristina of Bourbon, known as the "Cristinos".
It's a family story that ended with the defeat of the Carlists, and whose language bears the scars:
- The word "cristinos", pronounced in Basque by the Carlist forces in the north, first became "guiristinos".
- With the last two syllables removed, "guiristinos" became "guiri".
For a while, the abbreviated word stuck to the opposition parties and also designated the police under the boot of the dictator Franco.
A familiar word
The word has entered the dictionary as "colloquial", the language spoken between members of the same tribe.
An untranslatable word, like many words shaped by the soul of a country, taken as it is, as are the words "duende" - the spirit of flamenco - or "fiesta" - that festival which has no calendar occasion to be.
In the language of Cadiz, to be a "guiri" is to come from elsewhere. No matter how long you've lived in the city. A bit like the Greek "othneioi" - foreigners - as opposed to "oikeioi", members of the same household.
The English Wikipedia considers the word pejorative. Let's just say that we hear it according to our desire to be welcomed and assimilated, and according to the look, gesture, intonation and body language of the speaker.
Guiritana
In Cadiz, you can come from San Fernando, the first town off the Cortadura beach, and be called a "guiri". This is because, in the Gaditan language, Cadiz - pronounced /Ka'ï/ - refers first and foremost to the ancient city, Cadiz norte, the "casco antiguo". In Parisian terms, Cadiz intramuros. When the casco was prosperous, its inhabitants were called "las tirillas", as opposed to "los beduinos", the guiris of Cadiz Sur, Puerta de Tierra, Cadiz extramuros.
In the not-too-distant past, a girl from Puerta de Tierra marrying a guy from the casco was a bit like a Capulet marrying a Montague.
Since then, Karine, the "guiri" from Paris, has given the word back its two truncated syllables to become a "guiritana", a mix of "guiri" and "gaditana", the gaditane. Her aim is to express as closely as possible how she feels in Cadiz: elsewhere, but also here.
