Espanglish.

By Gonzalo López Martí / LMMIAMI.COM

• Whether we like it or not, espanglish is the language we speak (Latinos and, increasingly, Anglos too).
• Some purists whine about it.
• You probably heard that line that goes “When I came to this country, I spoke one language. Now I speak none.”
• I beg to differ.
• A language is alive when it mutates and adapts.
• There’s no such thing as purity in language.
• It is not a dog breed.
• A language has to be shamelessly promiscuous if it pretends to survive.
• I know many Latinos (and Latinas) who have the annoying habit of correcting gringos who try to speak Spanish.
• It is kind of pathetic: they go through life looking for the slightest misuse or mispronunciation and duly proceed to lecture the culprit with uncalled for Spanish lessons.
• Methinks it is a little form of vengeance, a minor retaliation that bares a seething inferiority complex, a chip on the shoulder.
• Get over it, folks: for gringos, Colombia will always be Columbia.
• End of story, no offense, its just a minor phonetic mishap, no need to make a big fuzz about it.
• Forgive me for stating the obvious but English is essentially a phonetic language.
• English-speakers tend to learn it by the sound of it, not necessarily by the way words are actually written.
• E.g. Houston, route, either, etc etc.
• As opposed to Spanish, in the English language spelling is sorta arbitrary, malleable and beside the point, an afterthought.
• I couldn’t agree more.
• In Spanish, we never stop bickering over silly minutiae.
• While we are at it, English, warts and all, is and will be for a long time the language of business, science and technology.
• Spanish is the language of what?
• Love?
• Boleros?
• We should be grateful that some gringos go to such great lengths as to try and learn the language of Cervantes.
• C’mon folks.
• We Latinos butcher the English language to a pulp.
• We chop it to pieces and we drag it along the mud.
• Tied to a rope from the fender of our trocas.
• We are unable to pronounce “chow” and “show” properly, for God’s friggin’ sake.
• As in “the chow must go on”.
• LOL
• Gringos are magnanimous enough to witness this travesty stoically in respectful silence.
• I’ve been 17 years in this country.
• I have a thick accent and my command of the English language is, to put it mildly, limited.
• Still, no gringo has ever corrected or lectured me.
• Never ever.
• Gringos make enormous efforts to understand me, they smile gracefully and contort their faces trying to read my lips while I reinvent the English grammar with reckless abandon.
• Let’s remember y’all, at a risk of sounding a bit harsh, that the language of Cervantes here in America tends to be the dialect of gardeners, housekeeping, farm laborers, short order cooks and contractors sans license or insurance.
• My heart goes out to them gringos who try to learn Spanish.
• Thank you for the effort.
• In any case, y’know who are the worst at the annoying lecturing habit?
• Spaniards.
• LOL
• Spain being a country whose sons and daughters show an inexplicable inability or lack of interest when it comes to speaking foreign languages (in certain circles this might include, say, Catalan and Basque).
• Spaniards have the hardest of times blending in among Latin Americans and US Hispanics.
• Their accent is too distinct.
• Voice over talent from Spain working this side of the pond is rare, almost non existent.
• For a number of reasons, subconscious arrogance possibly being one of them, they simply can’t seem to nail the “neutral Spanish” inflection.
• See, in English there are lots of scholars and organizations tracking the evolution of the language but no one has the last word (pun intended).
• English is self admittedly an ever-evolving body.
• Spanish, on the other hand, has an official body of notables who dictate what’s right and what’s wrong: the so-called Real Academia de la Lengua (conveniently based in Madrid and hijacked by Spaniards, naturally).
• And we ask ourselves why our Latin Catholic culture is so prone to fascism and caudillos.
• Whatev.
• For practical purposes in the US Hispanic media industry, there’s this rule of thumb that Colombians (particularly “cachacos” from Bogotá) speak the most polished form of Spanish.
• When we cast, say, voice over talent for a radio or TV spot, the mantra is “When in doubt, go Colombian.”
• Tru dat.
• However, the most populous country in the Spanish-speaking world is México.
• Moreover, México is the number one producer of cultural content in the Spanish-speaking world.
• Most English language TV shows and movies for Latin American markets are dubbed in México.
• The majority of Hispanics in the US are Mexican or have Mexican heritage.
• Hence, there’s a strong case to make about changing the motto to “When in doubt, go Mexican.”
• Yeah, it’s minefield.
• It begs for highly perceptive cultural antennae.
• Last but not least, it irks me when various Spanish speakers express a certain contempt for the way Puerto Ricans speak Spanish with a heavy dose of espanglish.
• A quite unfair and quite ignorant POV.
• People tend to forget that, when the island became a US colony after the Spanish American War of 1898, for close to five decades the Spanish language was virtually suppressed from Puerto Rican schools.
• Still, the language survived at home.
• Finally, around 1948, the clamor of Puerto Ricans was heard and Spanish became again the de facto official language of the island’s education and public life.
• Kudos to the Boricua nation for latching on to their culture.