Montes, montañas and bosques

This post will probably only be of interest to Janet and anyone else who is curious about the semantic nuances of the Spanish language.

A few days ago, I wrote that I was walking through the “montes“ of Burgos. And that my understanding was that these montes were somewhere in between hills and mountains, with the villages nearby having been ceded the rights to determine permitted uses. Janet wrote that she thought that the term meant “forest.” I didn’t give it much thought, but today as I walked over what was clearly one singular hill/mountain/monte, I noticed that at several different points along the way there were signs indicating that I was going from the monte of one village to the monte of another village. But yet I was still on the same hill/mountain.

I ran into a couple who were out for the morning walk and decided to hear it from “the locals.” After the usual pleasantries, which always involve convincing others that I am not in mortal danger walking alone, I asked them what the word monte meant to them. And they said well it is where we are right now — we are up out of the village, there’s forest, there’s some cattle, lots of hardwood trees. And no, a monte is not as big as a montaña. The señora explained that since there were several villages in different spots on this particular monte, each village got a certain designated area that is in their jurisdiction. They can decide to preserve it, to use it, to cut the timber, to earn a few euros by allowing ranchers to graze cattle on it. It just depends on the village. With some ultimate superior authority located in someplace unknown to her but probably in the capital.

So, I asked, does the word Monte refer to the ground or to what’s growing on it. That question did not make a lot of sense to her and she said– in this monte there are many montes. Meaning, I think, that the word monte refers to all of the things that Janet and I had thought.

She also told me that sometimes bitter conflicts arise when villagers don’t agree. She told of one village whose residents were split over whether to earn revenue from cutting down the timber, and then opening up the deforested land for cattle grazing.

The Señora thought these conflicts were very sad and unnecessary, and told me she was very glad her village of 11 people had decided to leave these beautiful trees alone. They do get a little revenue from grazing rights for the few cattle that I saw as I was walking, but they don’t interfere with the trees. She also told me I would have to come back in a few weeks because the montes would be blazing yellow.

Who thought that one word could be so interesting and the source of such a nice conversation!Read more