Spanglish Language - Spanglish Words

Spanglish is not only a plague to the Americas but also to Spain where, more and more, words and phrases from the English lexis seem to be replacing the Spanish ones. Whilst writing on that increasingly popular theme of Spanglish, recent discourse immediately swings the readers’ mind across to the Puerto Ricans of New York; Maria, Bernardo, and the rest of the Sharks. Really speaking, the Spanish influence in the United States is a presence that far outweighs its population of Hispanic descent. With the Spanish claim to the first landing on the continent 500 years ago and still holding on to several notably Spanish place names (Florida, San Francisco and more) there is an undeniably Spanish current running through all things American. Taking this into consideration and in the light of the relatively recent flux of migrants to the USA for various reasons, it is unsurprising and even almost expected that out of this coarse cultural clash should be created such a phenomenon. And this phenomenon, Spanglish, is that form of speech which merges the close contact Spanish and English in the USA into a universally understood tongue.

Now, whilst there is a verily acceptable explanation for the forming of Spanglish in the USA regardless of whether it be looked upon favourably or unfavourably, the concept of Spanglish in Spain seemingly lacks good reason – and yet, it exists. As such, Spanglish in Spain often conjures up the forceful arguments of the adamantly patriotic and the like who refer to the new dialect as the devaluation of Spanish. Globalisation, Europeanization, and then finally, perhaps even just Americanisation are surely the first suggestions made in an attempt to explain the aforementioned phenomenon. At least one of the three explains why across Europe the 'email' is referred to as the 'email' instead of 'correo electrónico', for example. However, what remains unexplained is why la corsa (Italian), course à pied (French), or jogging in English is known as hacer footing in Spanish. Spainish language has become prone to a different sort of Anglicisation: Anglicisation for the sake of it. According to popularised chain mail on the topic, marketing, tupper-ware and business are just some of those typically English words which we now share with the Spanish.

Thinking over the matter again, I am forced to question how much of a phenomenon this really is. It has long been commonplace for the Englishman of reasonable social standing to ostentatiously parade his good education with uninvited French-isms seamlessly dropped into his speech. I wonder whether what is being referred to as Spanish Spanglish is in fact just the increasingly-language-learned Spanish peoples using the English phrase wherever possible. Seldom in English do we hear jogging referred to as anything but jogging, but then many would much rather ask for a serviette than a napkin, talk of a brunette rather than a dark-haired girl, and often do we hear the slightly forced use of à propos, cause célèbre, or find ourselves stumbling over the pronunciation of foie gras and other dishes of haute cuisine. Brunette and serviette are examples of words which are now as much a part of the English lexis as they are of the French, but undoubtedly they are loan words. With regards to the Spanish variety of Spanglish, it is surely not the devaluation of a language but rather another result of the slightly belated forming of the Spanish middle-classes.