Tuesday, August 11, 2015

LANGUAGE MATTERS: Does Espanglish or Spanglish have a future?




LANGUAGE MATTERS - THE SPANGLISH
 
Hoy no vamos a lonchar en el rufo porque está frisando (Spanglish)
Hoy no vamos a almorzar en el tejado (arriba) porque está helando (Spanish)
Today we are not going to have lunch in the roof because it is freezing (English)
 
Los vecinos janguean en la marqueta con el peligro de un jolope.

Hay un liqueo en la boila que me está dañando la furnitura (Spanglish)
Hay un escape en el calentador de agua que me está dañando los muebles (Spanish)
There is a lick on the boiler who is damaging the furniture (English)


The Facebook Page of El Muro de los Idiomas, which I follow, asks its readers, how do you react reading these sentences in Spanglish?

 I react badly, I can't help it. I feel it is a total lack of disrespect and also that it makes a total mockery of the English and Spanish languages. This 'new' pseudo-language called Spanglish is spoken in some states of the US where a great concentration of Spanish-speakers who migrated from Central America live. You need to understand both English and Spanish to understand Spanglish so I think that if it is taught to children, we are, in fact, dealing with a potential 'new language'.

This brings this to mind: I have recently spent some time in Tarragona, in Catalonia, Spain, a city who was for some centuries a city of great relevance to the Roman Empire. The Romans spoke Latin and brought the language to Spain (the Roman Hispania) as well as to other countries they colonised.  We all know what happened: when the locals had to speak in Latin what they did was not much different to what is happening with Spanglish now in The States. Purists do not want to hear this: that the beautiful modern languages that we all so adore Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese, Galician, French etc are just the product of an evolution and a bastardisation of Latin.

So, despite my reservations I think that you can't stop change happening and that a language will always evolve, or die. How do you stop people using it? Humans need to communicate and sometimes the way they do it is the best way they can manage or they know. Academics have books and have time and have knowledge. They do not do manual or menial jobs in a language they have not had time or ability to learn. 

Languages are always evolving and will continue to do so. I am afraid I am too old to see how this matter will be in 50 or 100 years time, I can say that with some reservations for those careless or lazy with language I think that Spanglish may become a language in the future. And how about Portuñol? Brazil and Latin American countries are being quiet about this one. Topic for another day.
Some words in Spanglish:

lonchar: to have lunch (from to lunch)
el rufo; the roof
está frisando = it's freezing
la marqueta = the maket
un liqueo = a leak
la furnitura = the furniture


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