A Venta?

Page 1, Civil Code of the Philippines, Annotated, Volume V, 2013 Edition by Paras:

I would have glossed over this passage except that I found it queer that Paras would say that "the French refer to the contract as a venta,  while the Spaniards call it a venta."

The contract referred to by Paras is the contract of sale mentioned in Art. 1458 thusly:

Article 1458. By the contract of sale one of the contracting parties obligates himself to transfer the ownership of and to deliver a determinate thing, and the other to pay therefore a price certain in money or its equivalent.

[In a previous post I discussed the provenance of the term "price certain" in Art. 1458 which can be seen here.]

Why not say that both the French and the Spanish term for contract of sale is venta? Because it is not. The French for venta is vente.  Notice that I did not write a venta (Spanish) or a vente (French).

Paras, or the editors of the book, should have left out the italicized word a or at least not italicized it. Un-italicized it would be the English indefinite article. In italics it would refer to the Spanish preposition a and would change the meaning of the term. I am not familiar with French prepositions.

Paras said that Art. 1458 of the Philippine Civil Code is taken from Art. 1445 of the Spanish Civil Code. Here's Art. 1445 of the Codigo Civil.

Articulo 1445. Por el contrato de compra y venta uno de los contratantes se obliga a entregar una cosa determinada y el otro a pagar por ella un precio cierto, en dinero o signo que lo represent.

Notice how the Spanish preposition a is translated into English in Article 1458.  There are other equivalent words in English. Using google translate, a venta would be for sale in English.

In my next post I'll have something to say about the word avenditio as used by Paras.