How do you say "caucus" in Spanish?
Trying to translate materials about attending precinct caucuses.
8 Answers
My English definition, is a gathering of people of a political party voting on how they are going to vote. The Spanish translation is what Chileno has stated.
Welcome to the forum. Can you put your level of Spanish and English on your profile? Anything more is your choice but if you are going to ask or answer questions your language level helps. Have you tried looking these words up on the internet? Wiki is helpful as you can switch to another language and see what is written.
To me it is a very American phrase and has no doubt been used in news reporting. I believe caucus is the word also used in Spanish as it is used primarily in American elections and precinct is used for the electoral area - distrito electoral.
Add to your question what you think it is and no doubt someone will agree or disagree. As a
Brit I had to look up the English to find out what it meant.
asamblea partidista Could you explain, this site is very international and I've never heard of these things. Google suggests it is a meeting of selected political candidates in Switzerland? Doing what? Google does not say, or maybe I just got tired.. And what is the correct plural, in English? Cauci? Or is it a dish you can eat, some healthy type of cooking? Produced in shopping precincts?
"Caucus" made its appearance, in connection with politics, in the revolutionary period of America. It meant a private meeting of political party leaders, where they would decide on candidates, issues, etc. It has been broadened to include almost any political party meeting. It has also been used to describe a smaller part of a political party with perhaps more similar concerns among its members than the larger party. There's a "Black Caucus" in the US Congress, for example.
The most likely origin is the Algonquin (native-American tribe) word "cau-cau-a-su" which means "counselor, elder, or adviser."
(That's my story and I'm sticking to it!!)
Addition to original post: Another similar word - The Caucasus or Caucasia is a region at the border of Europe and Asia, situated between the Black and the Caspian seas. It's where the word "Caucasian" comes from.
In medieval Latin the word caucus" means a drinking vessel.
How about "cumbre". When the G8/10/12? met in Los Cabos several years ago the word they used to refer to the meetings was cumbre. It may be only used to mean summit meeting. Just a guess.
While it's true that Brits of today have not heard of a caucus. Rev. Charles Dodgson, or Lewis Carroll as he is better known, had a humorous bit in Alice in Wonderland about a "caucus race" (which was the first time I heard the term, though I was a little American girl) which was obviously a political satire of some kind. Here in Minnesota, and In Iowa, and several other states, instead of having a primary election to determine the candidates in the major parties (and this doesn't only apply to president, but to all partisan races) we have a system of precinct caucuses which meet all at the exact same time all over the state. They elect delegates to a convention at the next level and so it goes up to the national convention that TV news viewers may be familiar with. So it's a sort of a cross between an open committee-of-the-whole meeting and an election, but not really either. It's a caucus! And then, yes, political parties also call internal interest groups The X Caucus - can be racial/ethnic, point of view, or issue-based. For instance the state Democratic Party in MN has a Progressive Caucus, a Feminist Caucus and a Stonewall (queer, etc.) Caucus. The US Congress has a Black Caucus.
you can say it like this la junta ejecutive or like this la camarilla política
junta electoral
