sumercé

What it means

1. 1.

   A second-person pronoun and form of address used in Boyacá, Cundinamarca and parts of Bogotá. It is simultaneously deferential and affectionate, which has no English equivalent.

2. 2.

   Crucially, it runs in both directions: grandparents say it to grandchildren and spouses say it to each other. Reading it as pure deference misses the point.

Literally: Your mercy — from su merced.

Examples with translations

• ¿Sumercé ya almorzó?

  Have you had lunch?

• Venga, sumercé, siéntese acá.

  Come here, dear, sit down.

  Note: An older woman to a child — affection, not respect.

Where it comes from

A worn-down su merced, the colonial-era honorific that also produced usted. It survived in the Andean highlands after dying out elsewhere. Its association with rural Boyacá means urban speakers sometimes use it jokingly, which rural speakers notice.

First attested: colonial period

Other forms

Spellings and variants:

su mercé, sumercecita