I was reading some Spanish grammar stuff, and it mentioned the word "cuyo" as basically meaning "whose". I've literally never heard of this word before, and I've studied Spanish since middle school and even spoken it with people conversationally, so I'm very confused.
It seems like this would be a really common word, but I swear I've never encountered it before. Is it regional, or rarely used, or have I just managed to overlook it for years?
As a native spanish speaker, i rarely use it in normal conversation, but it is pretty common in more academic/formal writing. Where i'm from, if someone's using it it's mostly for emphasis or to make a point by being ironically pedantic. I think most native speakers don't even register when they use it or hear it though. If anything, the only use in which it overrides "que" is when you want to be as unambiguous as possible.
So if you're trying to figure out whom an object belongs to, would you ask ¿Cuyo es este? or ¿De quién es este?
"¿De quién es este?" works better, "¿De quién es esto?" works best because esto is the word you use to mean an object you're directly referring to in general while este is more for when there are multiple objects and you want to refer to an individual one. There might be a better way to explain the grammar behind it but that's the general rule for conversations.
you would ask ¿esto de quién es?, to remember the order remember how you would you respond. "Esto es de él" o "Esto es suyo"
It’s not very common, it’d be like hearing someone say “whom” in a conversation in English.
In portuguese it's "cujo", and I guess it's not used often in conversation, but it appears in text more I think. I think it's more common to phrase things differently idk
Yeah, most of the time you'd just use que, in my experience at least. I mean not as a 1 for 1 substitute, you have to structure the sentence a little different, but you know what I mean.
Yeah. I also don't think whose comes up that often in English either. You wouldn't say "the person whose shirt is white" but rather "the person with a white shirt" for example. I think it's the same in Spanish and Portuguese
Well it looks like your question has been answered already, however, while I'm here, Cuyo is also a region in Argentina:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuyo_(Argentina)
The more you know!
I've never used that word and thinking about it I don't think I've ever heard anyone I know use it either.
It could also be used in some countries more than others.
Yeah it's pretty common in writing, I've seen it a lot in a few novels that I've read in Spanish.
Edit: here, I've got Cien Años de Soledad in front of me and opened it to a random page, here's an example sentence: "Trataban de aplazar con esa precaución la necesidad de seguir comiendo guacamayas, cuya carne azul tenía un áspero sabor de almizcle."
Here's another one:"De ese cuarto pasaba a otro exactemente igual, cuya puerta abría para pasar a otro exactemente igual, y luego a otro exactemente igual, hasta el infinito."
As you can see from the examples, it is basically "whose" but it works for things and objects, not just for people.
Interesting. Also, you've given me the idea to try reading cien años in It's original spanish, could be a fun undertaking.
I intend to read it again before the Netflix miniseries comes out, I'm cautiously optimistic for that adaptation.
It is! It's honestly such beautiful prose. And reading with a dictionary (or smartphone) by your side is a great way to pick up new vocab!
I have never heard of this before
Then again, most of my Spanish learning was very informal and very, very Puerto Rican
Hey, I'm Puerto Rican and I hear it all the time, don't put that on us!
All I'm saying is my parents have never once used cuyo around me
And that's with my mom and dad being mainly Spanish speakers too
Yeah it would probably be pretty rare in just a home environment, kind of like whom I guess. But it's not uncommon in daily conversations and lectures.
It's used a quite a bit for dependent clauses. Things like "Este es el señor, cuya hermana es ingeniera"/"This is the man whose sister is an engineer". It's not very frequently used, but it's not particular to any region.
I instinctively understand it as related to mío and tuyo, and usually connected to a subordinate clause. Like a mix of "su-io" and "qué-io".
It might be descended from "quam" in Latin, idk.
