# Not for the purists



## heidita

> * his translation into Spanglish of the first few pages of Cervantes's “Don Quixote”. It begins: “*_*In un placete de la Mancha of which nombre no quiero remembrearme, vivía, not so long ago, uno de esos gentlemen who always tienen una lanza in the rack, una buckler antigua, a skinny caballo y un grayhound para el chase.*”_




I have come across this very interesting article. I found it hard to believe that this version of "the Quixote" might be understandable.

Why do people speak _spanglish_? 

I am a purist, I might say. Either we speak Spanish or English , not this weird mixture of the two languages, which in my opinion is a poor form of disgracing the language. 

A student of mine though stated that to her it seemed like a kind of protest as they will always be considered foreigners and this way have at least "their own language".

The author though states that Yiddish started like that. 

What do you think?

_Yo creo que es importante no mezclar los idiomas. O español o inglés, en mi opinion el spanglish empobrece tanto el idioma como al que lo habla, ya que ni habla su idioma propio ni aprende bien el idioma del lugar donde vive. _
_¿Se debe celebrar el nacimiento de esto como un "nuevo idioma" o descartarlo como un "acto de ataque salvaje" a ambos idiomas? ¿Se puede considerar el spanglish un equivalente al yiddish? _

_Don't miss the link, very funny. *And not for the purists! Something else has ocurred to me: Can an English speaker understand this mixture easily?*_



http://www.economist.com/books/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2155284


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## MadGato

Hola Heidita:
Desde siempre ha habido grupos de personas que han gustado de inventar su propio idioma con el que crean un juego de complicidades y un medio de autodeterminación. Así encontramos a los Cockneys londinenses, las germanías (palabras de uso entre grupos de delincuentes ), etc.
Y ahora el spanglish, formado por personas que juntan palabras maternas con palabras del país de adopción. ¿Será el spanglish una nueva lengua?. Pues dependerá del grado de uso y su expansión geográfica y en última instancia del grado de aceptación social y política que se le desee dar. De este modo, si en algún momento y para dar gusto a su electorado, algún gobierno decidiera crear una gramática del spanglish y una academia que la limpie, fije y dé esplendor, pues habrá nacido una nueva lengua, como nació el castellano a partir del siglo XV a partir del latín (no olvidemos que la primera gramática del castellano fue publicada en 1492 y que la Real Academia de la Lengua no fue fundada hasta el siglo XVIII, siguiendo el modelo francés). ¿Qué se hablaba en Castilla antes de 1492? Pues castellano, sólo que no había tenido aún su reconocimiento oficial.


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## LV4-26

The translation of Don Quijote is hilarious.
I'm all for Spanglish the same way I'm for newly created codes, dialects and slangs. Just as long as Spanglish doesn't claim to be either English or Spanish, as long as the speakers are aware they're speaking a different language, I can see  no harm. I like it when language is creative.
Now I admit I'd feel concerned if it were to be spoken in earnest. It must remain fun. But please don't deny me the right to play with language!


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## RIU

Hola Heidita, 

A esto yo no lo llamaría _spanglish_, sino más bien una sátira del inglés.

Referente al _spanglish_ en sí mismo, creo que cada uno habla _como puede_ en función de sus conocimientos, influencias familiares, del entorno, etc. ¿Es la evolución de un idioma? No lo se, pero ¿por que no? 

Vemos tambien que día a día se va separando el español de Europa con el de América y nadie se pone las manos en la cabeza. Asumo gratuitamente que no estas en contra de los neologismos que hay que aceptar en cada idioma. Así y todo, ¿crees que es posible proteger el habla diaria de una lengua de estas influencias?


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## heidita

LV4-26 said:


> Now I admit I'd feel concerned if it were to be spoken in earnest. It must remain fun. But please don't deny me the right to play with language!


 
Oh, yes, that's of course my thought, too! As long as it remains fun! But don't people who use this "language" that is is getting to be a language in itself? The author of this book has published a dictionary. Strange.


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## Etcetera

LV4-26 said:


> I'm all for Spanglish the same way I'm for newly created codes, dialects and slangs. Just as long as Spanglish doesn't claim to be either English or Spanish, as long as the speakers are aware they're speaking a different language, I can see no harm. I like it when language is creative.
> Now I admit I'd feel concerned if it were to be spoken in earnest. It must remain fun. But please don't deny me the right to play with language!


Let me agree with you, LV4-26.
I'm rather a purist - I don't like slang words, incorrect forms, and so on, but mixtures of languages are really funny and interesting.


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## moura

Sorry, Heidita, but I didn't quite understood. This D. Quixote quoted text was in the origine some kind of joke? Or really published in a "serious" way?


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## LV4-26

heidita said:


> The author of this book has published a dictionary. Strange.


Mr Stavan's dictionary must be of the same vein as his translation of Cervantes or as this :


> Beware: Se habla el espanglés everywhere these days!


I can't believe the above to be serious. It has to be intended as a joke. Well, at least, it makes *me* laugh. 
Maybe he's the kind of man who doesn't know himself whether he's being serious or joking. Such things do happen, you know.


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## Layzie

There is nothing wrong with Spanglish. The people in this forum may work hard to learn a language from scratch, but I myself have two native tongues and was raised bilingual, and have many friends that were raised bilingual as well. When we speak spanglish it's a consolidation of both the world's we live in, the home Spanish-speaking world and the English-speaking world for everything else. I grew out of it and dont do it anymore, but I did up until I was 15 or so. It also takes a higher degree of fluency to switch languages one or more times per sentence.


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## fenixpollo

RIU said:


> A esto yo no lo llamaría _spanglish_, sino más bien una sátira del inglés.


 No, no es una sátira, y tampoco es Spanglish. Es una forma de hablar que es común entre personas bilingues que viven entre dos culturas.

Your example is not Spanglish, heidita.  Spanglish words are English words that have been "hispanicized", such as _remembrear_ instead of _recordar_.   Although your example has one Spanglish word, it is actually an example of *code-switching*.  This phenomena was *discussed previously* in this forum.  It is a speech pattern that is common among bilingual people who live between two cultures. 

Other foreros have made the same mistake as you, and have opened *threads* about code-switching, calling it "Spanglish".  The merits of Spanglish have also been discussed in *other threads*.

Even though you're probably going to have my head for this, I'm still going to say that the goal of language is communication; and as long as the message is communicated, it doesn't matter if language is following "rules".  If I code-switch, and another code-switcher understands me, then code-switching is good.

The author of your text is apparently trying to explore a particular code-switching culture, to analyze it, celebrate it and (in your example) satirize it in a playful and friendly way.


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## Fernando

Entiendo casi todo, pero ¿por qué tiene don Quijote una cerveza antigua y un autobús para cazar?


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## Namakemono

Yo me opongo por completo al spanglish. En vez de aprovechar la ventaja de nacer en un entorno bilingüe y aprender dos lenguas, no hablan ni una ni otra. No hay dos hablantes de spanglish que hablen igual, lo que en un futuro próximo podrá ser su debacle. Rezo al cielo para que así sea.


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## french4beth

LV4-26 said:


> The translation of Don Quijote is hilarious.
> I'm all for Spanglish the same way I'm for newly created codes, dialects and slangs. Just as long as Spanglish doesn't claim to be either English or Spanish, as long as the speakers are aware they're speaking a different language, I can see no harm. I like it when language is creative.
> Now I admit I'd feel concerned if it were to be spoken in earnest. It must remain fun. But please don't deny me the right to play with language!


I agree with Jean-Michel, as long as it's for amusement. And yes, I was able to understand a good deal of the passage, even though I don't speak Spanish!


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## heidita

Layzie said:


> There is nothing wrong with Spanglish. The people in this forum may work hard to learn a language from scratch, but I myself have two native tongues and was raised bilingual, and have many friends that were raised bilingual as well. When we speak spanglish it's a consolidation of both the world's we live in, the home Spanish-speaking world and the English-speaking world for everything else. I grew out of it and dont do it anymore, but I did up until I was 15 or so. It also takes a higher degree of fluency to switch languages one or more times per sentence.


Do you think then it is that sort of thing which is acceptable among young people but not so much for older ones?
Why not use it any more then?



fenixpollo said:


> Your example is not Spanglish, heidita.


 
Fenix, this is not MY example. I quoted from the link. In the link you can find many more examples. : vacuumear, remembrear


> Even though you're probably going to have my head for this,


...of course I am... 



> I'm still going to say that the goal of language is communication;


I do not think this is the way. Another handicap of this "language" is the lack to comunicate to everybody. You need to understand both Spanish and English to communicate in this mixture. 


Namakemono said:


> Yo me opongo por completo al spanglish. En vez de aprovechar la ventaja de nacer en un entorno bilingüe y aprender dos lenguas, no hablan ni una ni otra. No hay dos hablantes de spanglish que hablen igual, lo que en un futuro próximo podrá ser su debacle. Rezo al cielo para que así sea.


Yo también, no me parece que se aprovecha la ventaja de vivir en un ambiente bilingue. ¡¡Lo que nos hemos matado otros para aprender un idioma bien!!

Y para muestra un boton:

Esta pieza de _arte spanglish /code switching _de un amigo:

"Once upon a time
There was a little mariposita
Ella iba flying, flying en el garden
And, de repente
Zas! She azoted! 
Ah, jijo! She dijo
I forgot to open my alitas!"


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## Frank06

HI,

Of course languages need to remain pure. Of course we should get rid of all the foreign influences. I suggest we start with Latin, French, Greek influences in... English. 

IMHO, language 'purists' most often use double standards. 
First of all, 'purity' of a language is a tenacious fiction, far removed from reality, and born out of a very narrow-minded view upon (sorry!) and perception of language. Imagine English without French/Latin influences, Persian without Arabic influences. 
Why would we find these historical examples of language mixing interesting, but condemn if exactly the same process happens while we are alive? IMHO, language purists also ignore the obviously simple fact that borrowing, mixing, blending is as much part of a language, as a beating heart is to a human.

Groetjes,

Frank


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## Tsoman

Where I live, there are so many Dominicans. Everyday I hear them speaking spanglish on their cellphones

It's really interesting and funny.

Sometimes when I'm alone, I try speaking spanglish to myself.


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## fenixpollo

heidita said:


> Fenix, this is not MY example. I quoted from the link.


 But you are subscribing to that author's definition of "Spanglish": 





			
				the Economist said:
			
		

> Spanglish, the chaotic collision between the two most widely spoken western languages, is in part an “intra-ethnic” dialect designed to allow its users to communicate with each other in a sometimes hostile dominant culture. In that sense, as Ilan Stavans points out in this engaging book, Spanglish is akin to Yiddish, the mixture of Hebrew and German that evolved into the tongue of eastern European Jewry.


 I reject the author's argument. I do not agree with the idea of defining the practice of code-switching as its own dialect. Yes, there are some hard-to-codify, loose guidelines to its use, but the specific vocabulary and structures are not universal enough to consider it a dialect. Code-switching is neither Spanish, nor English... and it's definitely not "Spanglish" (even though it incorporates a lot of Spanglish vocabulary). 





heidita said:


> I do not think this is the way. Another handicap of this "language" is the lack to comunicate to everybody. You need to understand both Spanish and English to communicate in this mixture.


 You can't communicate with everybody, because everybody speaks different languages. Again, just because you don't understand what the code-switchers are saying, doesn't mean that there is no communication. They are communicating with the segment of the population that code-switches... just as you are only speaking right now with the segment of this forum that speaks English.


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## Namakemono

Frank06 said:


> IMHO, language 'purists' most often use double standards.
> First of all, 'purity' of a language is a tenacious fiction, far removed from reality, and born out of a very narrow-minded view upon (sorry!) and perception of language.


Spanglish is not about borrowing words, it's about switching (mostly at random) between two languages. When I'm speaking a foreign language and I don't remember how to say something, I try to rephrase it or explain it. That's one of the reasons why I don't like Spanglish.


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## fenixpollo

Namakemono said:


> Spanglish is not about borrowing words, it's about switching (mostly at random) between two languages. When I'm speaking a foreign language and I don't remember how to say something, I try to rephrase it or explain it. That's one of the reasons why I don't like Spanglish.


 No, it's the opposite: Spanglish is borrowing words, not switching between two languages.


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## Namakemono

Well, that's not correct either. When you alternate between full grammar structures from two languages, you can definitely talk about code-switching.


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## fenixpollo

The example that heidita gave is an example of switching between "full grammar structures" of English and Spanish, with one exception (remembrear). You can say that there are examples of Spanglish vocabulary within her example, but it's misleading to call the act of code-switching "Spanglish".


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## Namakemono

I'm not saying it's entirely code-switching, but it is code-switching what distinguishes it from other linguistic phenomena.


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## heidita

fenixpollo said:


> The example that heidita gave is an example of switching between "full grammar structures" of English and Spanish, with one exception (remembrear). You can say that there are examples of Spanglish vocabulary within her example, but it's misleading to call the act of code-switching "Spanglish".


 
I would like to point out here that he example given was just one from the link I have included. There are many and numerous examples of spanglish, which I refuse to capitalize, as I do not consider it a language.



> Latinos, depending where they are in the United States, may *vaquiumear or vacunear* the carpet in the _*utiliti*_, before going out to* hanguear at the *_*mol* _where they might buy some* blueyins* to boost their _*sexapil* _before _*buquiando*_ a show attended by the _*butifulpeepo*_, unless it was already _*overbukiado*_. To finance all this, they might *aplicar for a partain* to get more _*moni*_.


 
I would also like to pick up on this:



> You can't communicate with everybody, because everybody speaks different languages.


 
Both code -switchers (is this term accepted as such?) and spanglish speakers actually *HAVE *a language. They have no need at all to invent a means of communication, as they already *HAVE *a means of communication. Either English or Spanish is understood by these speakers.

I have found this on code-switching.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-switching


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## RIU

fenixpollo said:


> No, it's the opposite: Spanglish is borrowing words, not switching between two languages.



Correcto, los dos ejemplos de Spanglish que han aparecido no tienen nada que ver con la realidad. La estructura de este "idioma" -toma ya!- es la lengua española con el uso exagerado de anglicismos.

Lo mismo ocurre, a menor nivel, claro, con las IT. ¿Cuantos neologismos utilizamos sólo con el PC? 

Y la verdad es que te partes de risa escuchandolo. Una de mis preferidas la oí un día en un programa de radio, (sic) "chico, abre la window para que la mosca fly" 

En mi opinion, la pureza lingüística es una utopia, las lenguas se influyen entre sí y todas las lenguas cambian constantemente. El hecho de que convivan dos lenguas tan distintas en tan poco espacio -relativamente hablando, claro- conlleva la mezcla de las mismas. Y la creatividad humana llega hasta donde llega, lo cual no es poco.

Otro ejemplo de mezcla de lenguas lo podemos tener entre el español y el catalán -llamado "catañol"- en la que la estructura del catalán se ve salpicada de castellanismos. Claro que al ser las dos lenguas con un origen común, los barbarismos son menos acentuados. (nota: barbarisme es como se dice en catalán a las palabras foráneas) Y, como no, también te ries un montón al escucharlo.


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## mjscott

Culture is carried in language. Culture changes, just as language changes. Please, if you are a purist, tell me that _all_ of the words you use in English or Spanish are _not borrowed_ from another language--then I might get on your band wagon.

When I am teaching in Spanish, I want correct, pure Spanish (even if my pillow is Arabic). When I am teaching in English, I want correct, pure English....
....But as far as _communicating_--well, let the communicating happen! If I touch the heart of someone by speaking Spanish, English, or if my _body language_ speaks my heart and someone else _gets it_--I am not going to be a purist!

I agree with the above post that linguistic purity is a utopia--it will never exist on this earth as long as minds see things differently and interpret things differently. That's what life is all about!


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