It’s Spanish, no English... or is it Spanglish?

Written By Susana Huerta
Courier Staff
and Translated By Luis Oviedo
Contributing Writer

Hey como estas?

I’m good.

Vas a la store.

Que time?

Watchale when you cross la calle?

Okay pues…Te veo,

Bye.

Many who walk the streets of Latino neighborhoods will hear conversations like the one at the top of the article. This is a phenomenon that is increasingly growing in the Latin American community here in the states. It is called Spanglish in English and in Spanish this phenomena is called Espangles. But when did it start? Why is it so popular?

Many people have many theories about this. Many people believe that it started along the Mexican-American border and the bilingual experience on the border. Others feel that this phenomenon is a growing due to globalization and the growth of English as the world language.

The next question is why this is so popular and who speaks this way? This is a way of speaking that is dominated among the younger generations of the Latin American community. It stems from a bi-cultural identity. People in the Latin American community do not see themselves as all American or all Latin. The view is that they are bi-cultural and that in that comes from a different identity, a different culture and a different past. There are many who try and say that Spanglish does not exist and that it is a gross degradation to the Spanish language.

Mucha gente que vive en los vecindarios latinos de los Estados Unidos habla de una forma diferente, pues hablan el Ingles mezclado con el Español. Esta forma de hablar se le llama Espangles , Pero cuando comenzó? Porque es tan popular?

Mucha gente piensa diferentes cosas acerca de este tema, pero la mayoría piensa que empezó

en la frontera mexicana. Otros, piensan que este fenómeno esta creciendo con la globalización actual y la popularización del idioma Ingles.

La siguiente pregunta es, Porque es tan popular y que tipo de personas hablan de esta manera? Esta forma de hablar la practican los menores de edad en la comunidad Latina. Es una forma bi-cultural de la gente latina, pues ellos no se aceptan como americanos o latinos totalmente.

Hay mucha gente que no considera este tipo de lenguaje como algo que realmente exista en nuestra sociedad, pues el Espangles se considera como una forma de despreciar al Español.

There are two variations that I myself have come across two ways of communication in the Spanglish form. The first is what I call multilingual use. This is when you use both languages at the same time. Like the first four lines of the conversation. The second that is the growing “problem” is what I call word redefinition. This is when words are connected with Spanish sounds and Spanish endings or prefixes but have English roots. An example is “Watchale.” The root of the word is watch. The word means look out for or watch out for. However , if you say this to someone who does not live in this bilingual culture, he will not understand what is being said.

The second example of redefinition is when a Spanish word is used but the meeting gets changed. One example is “Carpeta.” In Spanish, the word for rug is alfombra. In English the word is carpet. In Spanglish they use the word Carpeta. The reason is that it sounds like the English word the problem is that the word Carpeta means folder in Spanish. These little things can cause great problems in trying to communicate to other who do not know what these words mean.

No matter what you think about it, it is here and with our new ideologies about people and language in this country this is just another thing that is going to alter the fabric of American norms and ideologies