National Hispanic Heritage Month is observed from September 15 through October 15. Friends of the Inyo is celebrating with our community by sharing the meanings of just a few Spanish-language words in the nature and conservation arena that have made their way into English. Today’s word is mesa, which in English means an isolated relatively flat-topped natural elevation usually more extensive than a butte and less extensive than a plateau, according to Merriam-Webster Online. It is a geological term that comes from the Spanish word for table. An English word sometimes also used for mesa is tableland. An example of a…
Spanish Media/Outreach
A Nahuatl Word Hispanicized National Hispanic Heritage Month is observed from September 15 through October 15. Friends of the Inyo would like to celebrate with our community by sharing the meanings of just a few Spanish-language words that have made their way into English. Today’s word is coyote. This word comes from the Nahuatl, which belongs to the Uto-Aztecan family of languages. Nahuatl is believed to have developed in Central Mexico and spread northward to the Southwestern United States, and Southward to Central America. “Coyotl” is what the Nahua people called this animal, which is considered a “trickster” by various…
National Hispanic Heritage Month is observed from September 15 through October 15. Friends of the Inyo would like to celebrate with our community by sharing the original meanings of just a few nature or conservation terms that have made their way from Spanish into English. Caldera is the Spanish word for cauldron or boiler. It has been adopted into English as a geological term that, according to the National Geographic Online Resource Library (nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia), means a large depression formed when a volcano erupts and collapses. The main difference between a caldera and a crater is twofold: Craters are formed by…
Inland or not, a “playa” needs two things: water and sand. National Hispanic Heritage Month is observed from September 15 through October 15. Friends of the Inyo would like to celebrate with our community by sharing the meanings of just a few Spanish-language words that have made their way into English. Playa is one such word. In Spanish, it usually means beach. But according to the Royal Spanish Academy’s website, rae.es, in some South American countries, playa can also mean a flat, wide and clear space intended for specific uses in towns and large-area industries: e.g., playa de estacionamiento means…
Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month! National Hispanic Heritage Month is observed from September 15 through October 15. Friends of the Inyo would like to celebrate with our community by sharing the meanings of just a few Spanish-language words that have made their way into English. We begin with a word that defines the place we call home: Sierra. In Spanish it means both “saw” and “mountain range,” most likely because the peaks of a mountain range resemble the teeth on a saw blade. It is easy to see the relation between sierra and the English word serrated, which means notched or…
In case you missed our Communications Director Lou Medina’s interview with KMMT FM Arts, Culture & Entertainment (ACE) Show Host John DeMaria on September 3, please use our media player to listen to the full interview. You’ll get an update on our backcountry stewardship work done in early August in the Cottonwood Creek Wilderness; learn about volunteering events and outings coming up in September and October; find out about the upcoming issue of our Jeffrey Pine Journal celebrating FOI’s 35th Anniversary, and how you can receive it by becoming an FOI supporting member; hear about our Spanish-language outreach and more….
Our outreach to Inyo and Mono County’s Spanish-speaking community continues, thanks to our partnership with the Eastern Sierra’s sole Spanish weekly newspaper, El Sol de la Sierra. In this week’s issue, read Friends of the Inyo’s Communications Director Louis Medina’s monthly column, which now has a name, “Amigos de Nuestras Tierras” (“Friends of Our Lands”); in it, he explains the different types of public lands that exist in the U.S., how they are managed by various national and state agencies, and how you can access public lands in Inyo and Mono for FREE by signing up to attend a Friends…
Thanks to a budding partnership with El Sol de la Sierra, the Eastern Sierra’s only Spanish-language weekly newspaper, Friends of the Inyo’s Louis Medina will contribute a monthly column on an ongoing basis, to educate the Spanish-speaking public about FOI’s work, as well as conservation issues in general. This is very much a part of our new Diversity, Equity and Inclusion effort, as we want to engage the entire Eastern Sierra community in the protection and care of our public lands. This month, Louis’ column appears on page 7 of the August 12 issue. Please read and share.