Goleta English
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Goleta" English ("Inglés goleta" in Spanish, sometimes called "Jíbaro English") is a (sometimes humorous) slang term used in Puerto Rican communities (both in the Puerto Rican archipelago and elsewhere) that describes English spoken with a Puerto Rican accent and pronounced with Puerto Rican Spanish language phonemes. The result may be incomprehensible to native English listeners when the speaker also incorporates Spanish grammar elements to his or her English, or when words that are similary written in both languages but do not translate into like terms are mistakenly translated from Spanish to English.
The origin of the term is unknown. "Goleta" translates into schooner, and therefore, the phrase evokes the vague meaning of "English that is good enough to get by". In a sense, this is similar to one of the various interpretations for the term "Pidgin English". However, Goleta English is technically a code switch, and not a pidgin. There is a difference between Spanglish and Goleta English, however: the latter attempts to be (or pass for) English, while the former simply mixes both languages, but with Spanish as its usual basis.
Contents |
[edit] Phonetics and grammar
Goleta English is defined by each individual's level of proficiency in English. However, some trends tend to be common among many Puerto Ricans:
-
- Pronouncing the occasional vowel 'i' as "eye", particularly if it is an initial i, e.g.: "Italian" as "Eye-talian". This comes from the confusion between the name of the vowel and the different phonemes associated with the letter.
- Having trouble with consonant combinations such as "rl" (the classic example is the phrase "Walt Disney World, which inevitably ends up pronounced as "Word"). This usually happens because the "r" sound in English is not trilled, as it is often the case in Spanish, and the "r" sound as pronounced in English is unknown in Spanish.
- Adding "-tion" as a suffix to a Spanish or Spanglish word. "Open the puertation" (instead of "Open the door"). This is usually done in jest, although it is likely for serious speakers to lapse into this practice occasionally.
- Pronouncing (or writing) the name of the consonant 's' when it is the initial letter in a word; e.g.: "especialist" for "specialist".
- Scrambling the pronunciation of some English words and phrases. A common example is the Goleta term for "Son of a bitch": "Saramambich" (which is also the title of a novel by Puerto Rican writer Jorge Ruscalleda).
[edit] Impact in Puerto Rican culture
Goleta English is, of course, a creature of chance. It was not "designed" to happen, but it did occur with Puerto Rican migrations to the United States (particularly to New York City) that started in the late 1890s and increased in various waves during the 20th century.
When Puerto Rico reached a critical point in its transformation from an agrarian to an industrialized country in the early 1960s, the governor responsible for it, Luis Muñoz Marín, complained about an undesired side effect: the transculturation of Puerto Rico, whereas native Puerto Rican cultural traits were being replaced (or at least transformed) by influences from the United States. Although this phenomenon is not unknown elsewhere, Muñoz established its uniqueness as it related to Puerto Rico by illustrating it with an example (hilarious to some): the stereotypical bar owner who chose to name its establishment "Agapito's Place." He stated that commercial signs attempted to mix both English and Spanish (with English as the predominant language), sometimes using poor grammar or spelling. Mexican comedian Roberto Gómez Bolaños noticed the same tendency in successive visits to Puerto Rico.
Since as many as 71.9% of Puerto Ricans in Puerto Rico claim to have a "less than very good" command of the English language, (according to the United States Census for the year 2000), Goleta English may be the only way for many Puerto Ricans to communicate in English.
The concept of Goleta English was stretched to its limits by newspaper reporter and writer Eddie López, in various humorous columns written in the late 1960s. It was later expanded by Ernesto Ruiz Méndez in his 2003 book "Cartas in Jíbaro English", Its current "promoter" is Alexis Sebastián Méndez, an Industrial Engineer turned playwright who also writes a weekly column in San Juan's daily newspaper, Primera Hora. Obviously these examples are exaggerations of the concept, but in some isolated instances (the occasional paragraph or two), they do not veer too far from actual use.
