As a child of the 80’s, I watched and enjoyed the TV sitcom called “Mr. Belvedere” about a stodgy English butler who comes to live with an American family. Until recently, I’d always associated the word “belvedere” with that English butler, but then I came upon this passage in Calvino Italo’s masterpiece, “If on a winter’s night a traveler:”

Today I reached the belvedere from which you can glimpse, down below, a little stretch of beach, deserted, facing the gray sea.

As soon as I saw the word, I understood its true meaning because I recognized the Italian in it in ways that I wouldn’t have recognized as a teenage viewer of that sitcom all those years ago. Even without any Italian knowledge, though, a reader can understand what a “belvedere” is by the masterful way in which Calvino used the word in the above sentence.

belvedere — a structure designed to command a view

belvedere — the Italian and Spanish cognates (the French word is the same, too, but with additional accent marks and a difference pronunciation, of course)

We took this word from Italian where it was created from the beginning of the word for “beautiful” and the verb “vedere” which means “to view” or “to see.” Thus, the word literally means “beautiful view” or even “beauty to see.”

If you live somewhere, like atop a mountain or along a lovely coast, you might build a gazebo on the edge of a cliff or position your house in such a way to command the best view possible of the majestic landscape. That structure would be your “belvedere.”

As an adult, I so enjoy coming upon passages in books where the author has such a command of language and where I can either learn a new word or understand a lesser-used one quite easily because of its connection to either Spanish or Italian. In the above example, Italo’s book was translated from Italian, but the word “belvedere” didn’t need to be translated because it’s the same word in English because we took it from Italian.

This isn’t really an example of a cognate, but rather of word borrowing from one language to another, but it is an example of how knowing a language, in this case Italian, can help you understand what an English word means because you already know the components of the word — “bel” and “vedere” in Italian. The more you study one of the languages that has heavily influenced the English lexicon, the more words you’ll understand when you stumble upon them while reading a great book.

That lexical knowledge is a metaphorical “belvedere” that allows you to see far and wide, and what a view it provides.

Until next time. Consider upgrading to paid, so you won’t miss the rest of the weekly posts for February.

Tammy Marshall

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