Spanglish

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Spanglish — also called espanglish, espaninglish,el spanish broken, inglañol, espan'glés, or espanolo, a blend of the English-language words for "Spanish" and "English" — is a name used to refer to a range of language-contact phenomena, primarily in the speech of the Hispanic population of the United States, which is exposed to both Spanish and English. These phenomena are a product of close border contacts or large bilingual communities, such as along the United States-Mexico border and throughout Southern California, northern New Mexico, Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico, and in New York City. It is also quite common in Panama, where the 96-year (1903-1999) U.S. control of the Panama Canal has influenced many aspects of society, especially among the former residents of the Panama Canal Zone, commonly referred to as "Zonians."

Spanglish is sometimes known by a regional name; for example, within Texas it may be called "Tex-Mex" (as distinct from the regional cuisine by the same name).

The term Spanglish was reportedly coined by Puerto Rican linguist Salvador Tió in the late 1940s. Tió also coined the term inglañol, a converse phenomenon in which English is affected by Spanish; the latter term did not become as popular as the former.

There is another dialect, known as Llanito, that arose in British-controlled Gibraltar and is not a part of the "Spanglish" phenomenon.

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[edit] Linguistic critique of the term "Spanglish"

The word Spanglish is a popular name for these phenomena, but not a technical one. Linguists refer to the various phenomena involved in Spanglish by a variety of terms: code mixing, code switching, loanwords, language contact, and more generally, bilingualism. Linguists don't find the term Spanglish to be useful in discussing these phenomena, because it groups together linguistic phenonema that don't necessarily belong together. Linguistically speaking, many things that get commonly labeled as "Spanglish" are very different from each other.

For example, the speech of a fully bilingual Spanish/English speaker in the USA, who switches between Spanish and English phrases spontaneously in the middle of a sentence, is linguistically something very different from the speech of a Spanish monolingual in Puerto Rico whose native vocabulary has many words and expressions that come from English.

[edit] Examples of Spanglish

Spanish and English have interpenetrated in any number of ways. For example, a bilingual fluent speaker speaking to another bilingual speaker may indulge in code switching and utter a sentence such as: "I'm sorry I cannot attend next week's meeting porque tengo una obligación de negocios en Boston, pero espero que (because I have a business obligation in Boston, but I hope that) I'll be back for the meeting the week after." Often, Spanglish phrases will use shorter words from both languages as in, "yo me voy a get up" (as opposed to "yo me voy a levantar" or "I'm just about to get up."). A rather common code switch in Puerto Rican Spanglish is the use of the English word "so" (as in "therefore"): "Tengo clase, so me voy" ("I have (a) class, therefore, I'm leaving").

More common than that are word borrowings from English into Spanish, using false cognates with their English sense, or calquing idiomatic English expressions. Some examples:

  1. The word carpeta exists in the Spanish language, meaning either "folder" or "desk." In some Spanglish it has also come to mean "carpet" changed its original meaning from "folder"/"desk" to carpet (which was replaced by a heavily Hispanicized pronunciation of "folder").
  2. Another example of word borrowing is chequear that indeed comes from the English verb "to check", and replaces the Spanish verbs "verificar" or "comprobar". Chequear is now an accepted Spanish word. It should be mentioned that this word, while retaining its meaning, has been reworked, in some areas, as checar.
  3. In Spanish aplicación means "application" in the sense of usage; the word has been used for a job or a school application, where instead the word solicitud ("request") would be used in standard Spanish. By extension, the verb aplicar has also been used in this way. The Spanish word aplicación and English "application" are false friends. Importing the meaning of a false friend is another form of Spanglish. Suceso ("event") has been used to mean "success", leading to expressions such as "fue todo un suceso", meaning that something succeeded thoroughly; the Spanish word for this kind of success is éxito (which is itself often confused with "exit", which translates to salida).
  4. Accesar is derived from "access" and is used (mostly in relation to computer systems) instead of acceder, which is the accepted form. This redundant anglicism is often denounced.
  5. "Push" and empujar are true cognates. In Spanglish, "puchar" is sometimes used to the same effect.
  6. The expression llamar para atrás is calqued literally from English "call back"; compare standard Spanish devolver la llamada ("return the call"). This is an example of calquing an idiomatic English phrase into Spanish, and somewhat common in people from Puerto Rico.
  7. The verbs janguear and vacunar come from the English verbs "to hang out" and "to vacuum", respectively. However, Vacunar is also Spanish for vaccinate.
  8. The verb platicar means "to chat", to make small-talk. However, to have an on-line conversation by means of IRC is chatear.

Some other examples of borrowings include emailiar (to email),nerdio (nerd), and laptopa (laptop computer) [1]. Additional Spanglish words can be found at http://www.courtinterpreter.net/node/29

Calques from Spanish to English also occur. The following examples are from northern New Mexico:

  1. Many verbs are given indirect objects that don't have them in standard English. A notable example is "put": "She puts him breakfast on the couch!" or "Put it the juice" (turn on the power). This corresponds to the use of Spanish poner and meter with the indirect object pronoun le(s), indicating the action was done on another's behalf.
  2. One can "get down" from a car instead of "getting out" of it. This translates in Spanish to bajarse, to descend, to dismount, to get out of a vehicle.
  3. In Mexico and the southwestern U.S., people who speak Spanglish are called pochos (rotten). "Broken" Spanish, heavily influenced by English, is called mocho, which literally means "mutilated" or "amputated". It is to note that many people in America and Spanish speaking countries say the verb fiestar, meaning to party, which corresponds with fiesta, which is a party. "Festejarse" is a real Spanish verb, but it means "to have fun", rather than "to party", although it is occasionally used to mean "to party," opting to use "divertirse" to mean "to have fun."

A short errored Spanglish conversation:

  • Teacher: Por que ya no puedes conducir?
  • Student: Porque no tiene my license anymore.

A short Spanglish conversation:

  • Anita: "Hola, good morning, cómo estás?"
  • Mark: "Well, y tú?"
  • Anita: "Todo bien. Pero tuve problemas parqueando mi carro this morning."
  • Mark: "Sí, I know. Siempre hay problemas parqueando in el área at this time".

Translation to English:

  • Anita: "Hello, good morning, how are you?"
  • Mark: "Well, and you?"
  • Anita: "Everything's fine, but I had problems parking my car this morning."
  • Mark: "Yeah, I know. There are always problems parking in this area at this time".

Translation to Spanish:

  • Anita: "Hola, buenos días, ¿cómo estás?"
  • Mark: "Bien, ¿y tú?"
  • Anita: "Todo bien. Pero tuve problemas aparcando mi coche esta mañana."
  • Mark: "Sí, ya lo sé. Siempre hay problemas de aparcamiento en esta zona a esta hora".
English Spanish Spanglish
See you! Hasta luego Te veo
appointment cita apointment
meeting reunión mitin
to park a car estacionar//aparcar un coche//carro//auto parquear el carro
pick-up truck camioneta troca
to deliver the groceries mandar las compras de comida deliverear las grocerías
market mercado marqueta
vacuum cleaner aspiradora vacun cliner
I call you back te vuelvo a llamar te llamo para atrás
the roof of the building el techo del edificio el rufo del bildin
brakes los frenos las brekas
to do shopping ir de compras chopin
forehead frente el mombuey
to enjoy divertirse enjoyar
watchman vigilante guachimán
play it cool tomárselo con calma jugársela frío
tough duro tofe

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] References

English Pseudo-dialects
v • d • e
Pseudo-dialects:

Englog | Engrish | Euro-English | Globish | Greeklish | Franglais | Internet slang | Leet | Serblish | Swenglish | Spanglish | Valspeak
Mixed languages: Chinglish | Czenglish | Denglisch | Finglish | Hinglish | Inglés de escalerilla | Konglish | Llanito | Namlish | Poglish | Runglish | Taglish | Tinglish | Yeshivish | Yinglish | Portinglês
Chicano languages

Chicano Spanish · Nahuatl language · Spanish language · Chicano Caló words and expressions · Chicano English · New Mexican Spanish · Spanish in the United States · Ladino · Spanish profanity · Spanglish
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