English plus Spanish Equals Spanglish
Spanish and English are two different languages yet the fusion of two diverse languages makes Spanglish understandable to many people that speak both languages. The same happens also with Michif (mixture of French and Cree) and Cappadocian Greek (mostly Greek with many grammatical endings), Spanglish is considered one of the mixed or hybrid languages.
As we mentioned before, Spanglish is a combination of English and Spanish articulated by speakers in many regions of the United States near the boundaries with Mexico. Despite the fact that there are indeed speakers of Spanglish, various locations in Spain and Latin America take serious opposition on the cultural mixing between English and Spanish.
Bear in mind that there is a distinction of Spanish language in Spain and Latin America, and Spanglish is neither one of them. It is not even a dialect or a pidgin language. Spanglish is mostly related with Latin American Spanish, spoken by the immigrants living in the US. It is basically a mixture of a word or group of words from Spanish language added with English.
Also, Spanglish is often used by English native speakers to spice up their sentences with Spanish words. This is generally observed in children who had just migrated to the US and are adjusting to the change of speaking English. They intend to familiarize the country’s native tongue but usually end up mixing it with their own language, thus hearing themselves speaking Spanglish instead. One example would be: “Te veo ahorita, me voy de shopping “, which means “See you later, I’m going shopping” You can see that they include English words in Spanish phrases, but also sometimes English words are changed to sound more Spanish, such as in this example: Parquear is used instead of the correct Spanish estacionar, it derives from the English verb ‘to park’ (eg. park the car).
Based on the article that discusses what Spanglish is, some language purists have condemned this kind of mixed language, “arguing that it weakens both Spanish and English and that it sounds ridiculous or is a sign of poor education.” On the other hand, other people state that “Spanish and English are living languages, and the blend of both is simply one more facet in their evolution. This blend of English and Spanish has also allowed people to bridge cultural and linguistic gaps, especially in border communities, and this is a notable accomplishment.” Do you agree with this? Feel free to comment.
April 13th, 2010 at 7:05 pm
Language is part of a culture and as you say Spanglish is breaking barriers but also allowing people to identify with a social group, unfortunately many mexican immigrants in the United States loses their sense of belonging. They are nether Mexican, nor are Americans. To find the middle ground they have to find people similar to themselves.
April 14th, 2010 at 9:57 am
Hi Tulum, thank you for your comment.
I think it is harder for people living outside the environment where Spanglish is spoken to accept it. And they think that it is damaging both languages and erasing the cultural background or identity of that language. But the truth is that people adapt to their surroundings and circumstances and as you say, people want to belong and be accepted by its society.
April 14th, 2010 at 8:55 pm
The linguist Ricardo Otheguy, with the City University of New York Graduate Center, has done some fascinating work on Spanish-English bilinguals and language contact in New York. The example you give above (with “shopping”) is a case of code switching, but there are also apparent syntactic and phonological effects of these two languages in contact. (Relative dropping or use of pronouns, the pronoun “ellos” used like non-specific “they” in English, etc.) Check out some of his articles:
http://web.gc.cuny.edu/Linguistics/people/ricardo/index.html
April 18th, 2010 at 2:45 am
This may be quite subjective but as far as Spanglish I’m very particular as to execution. Speaking Spanish for a complete sentence and then switching to English for a complete sentence sounds fine to me in bilingual environments.
I neither have any problem with people who have a less than full grasp of the two languages filling in words from the L1 to increase fluidity and not waste time searching for esoteric words and phrases, like in “Necesito que tu llenes los expense reports”.
What I don’t like, is people who switch between English and Spanish across phrases within one sentence. “Yo voy a pay my bills porque I don’t want que me saquen del apartment.” I’m sure it’s not causative but on a correlative level it is almost undereducated people bad attitudes choosing this third variety of Spanglish.
Perhaps I’m wrong here?
August 27th, 2010 at 6:28 am
Hi, how are you? Hola.
I have been learning spanis but it is not at all easy to start speaking spanglish. That is because we are third language speakers. In order to speak spanglish, I suppose you need to allow it to happen that a foreign language to mix with a mother tongue. Naturally mother tongue is the most comfortable language to communicate with. And there are always times when you just can;t find the English equivalent to a word you know best described in your mother tongue.