I think a point worth clarifying regarding the original "Spanglish" posting is that while the primary function of language is to communicate meaning, - which in this case the Spanglish does, especially for a Spanish speaker residing in souther California for example - it is disheartening to see these speach patterns accepted as normal, legitimate Spanish amongst 'native speakers' in this particular region.

In other words, these 2nd and 3rd generation spanish speakers use verbs like 'arivó' and expressions like 'pagar el bil' believing they are speaking perfect Spanish, and there are no attempts to educate them to the purer form of the language.

Furthermore, it is often noted by high school and college level Spanish teachers that it is extremely difficult and frustrating to 'correct' or 'unlearn' (if you will) such tendencies amongst the speakers of this form of Spanish, especially if the instructor is a non-native speaker, due to the issue of a lack of credibility. "What do you know anyway; I've been speaking it this way all my life in my community. You learned in school and have a funny accent, etc."

This is one negative aspect of teaching (not to mention long hours and low pay) that has kept me from pursuing a teaching career here in Los Angeles. I could always teach French though

Don't forget that were it not for the degradation and mixing of languages, there would be no Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, Catalan, or English for that matter. It would all be classical latin. Languages evolve and change despite the strongest conservative efforts to slow it's constant development.

True, and wouldn't that be better?

I couldn't resist posting this. I found this on an ebay store description run by an American "native Spanish" speaker. Spanglish at its best?

Well, that is called by experts "Linear translation of a concept". That is, someone who speaks (and thinks) in english, literally translating it into spanish. It is understandable, it is even gramaticly correct (except obviously that "libra" instead of "libre"), though no spanish-speaker would say it that way (to my knowledge).

I think that spanglish would go one step further, by mixing english and spanish words (and even some invented ones).

Fernando

It’s hard to overcome the influence of English when you are a Spanish-speaker raised in the U.S. My experience with the “natural” i.e., unschooled, American Hispanics is that they are generally curious about and eager to learn, the correct expressions (particularly the older ones). Even though Spanglish doesn’t bother me, it would be nice to see the pendulum swing back and hear people speak standard Spanish, if in fact they really ever did. I think the spread of Spanish television has helped a lot of southwestern Hispanics learn to use a lot of different words that weren’t in their vocabulary before (never mind that a lot of it comes from telenovelas, which isn’t exactly Borges or Cela). I was always amused to hear my father-in-law use expressions such as
“Es un canalla” or “La chica es una cualquiera”, knowing full well that neither “canalla”, nor “chica”, nor “una cualquiera” were expressions that he had ever used before in his life until he started watching telenovelas after Spanish televisión broadcasting came to New Mexico and Colorado 12 to 15 years ago. Just the other night, as a matter of fact, my 85-year old mother-in-law asked me what a “manantial” was. I knew immediately that she had gleaned that particular word from a telenovela which has that word in its title. Now that she knows what it is, I suspect she is just dying for an occasion to try out her new word on somebody.
And the beat goes on….

Apparently the Spanglish phenomena is alive and well in Spain, too! Or is it Engspan? Actually, our friend and resident expert, La Maestra tells me it is called "Code-Switching" it sounds like it hurts!

El Castellano realmente EXCELENTE

Este es el texto que una señora de Madrid, Ana María, envió a Radio Nacional de España para que lo leyera en uno de sus programas:

Antaño los niños leían tebeos en vez de comics, los estudiantes pegaban posters creyendo que eran carteles, los empresarios hacían negocios en vez de business, y los obreros, tan ordinarios ellos, sacaban la fiambrera al mediodía en vez del tupper-ware.

Yo, en el colegio, hice aerobic muchas veces, pero, tonta de mí, creía que hacía gimnasia. Nadie es realmente moderno si no dice cada día cien palabras en inglés. Las cosas, en otro idioma, nos suenan mucho mejor. Evidentemente, no es lo mismo decir bacon que panceta, aunque tengan la misma grasa, ni vestíbulo que hall ni inconveniente que handicap.

Desde ese punto de vista, los españoles somos modernísimos. Ya no decimos bizcocho, sino plum-cake, ni tenemos sentimientos, sino feelings. Sacamos tickets, compramos compacts, comemos sandwiches, vamos al pub, practicamos el rappel y el raffting , en lugar de acampar hacemos camping y, cuando vienen los fríos, nos limpiamos los mocos con kleenex.

Esos cambios de lenguaje han influido en nuestras costumbres y han mejorado mucho nuestro aspecto. Las mujeres no usan medias, sino panties y los hombres no utilizan calzoncillos, sino slips, y después de afeitarse se echan after shave, que deja la cara mucho mas fresca que el tónico.

El español moderno ya no corre, porque correr es de cobardes, pero hace footing; no estudia, pero hace masters y nunca consigue aparcar pero siempre encuentra un parking. El mercado ahora es el marketing; el autoservicio, el self-service; el escalafón, el ranking y el representante, el manager. Los importantes son vips, los auriculares walkman, los puestos de venta stands, los ejecutivos yuppies; las niñeras baby-sitters, y hasta nannies, cuando el hablante moderno es, además, un pijo irredento. En la oficina, el jefe esta siempre en meetings o brain storms, casi siempre con la public-relations, mientras la asistant envía mailings y organiza trainings; luego se irá al gimnasio a hacer gim-jazz, y se encontrará con todas las de la jet, que vienen de hacerse liftings, y con alguna top-model amante del yoghurt light y el body-fitness.

El arcaico aperitivo ha dado paso a los cocktails, donde se jartan a bitter y a roast-beef que, aunque parezca lo mismo, engorda mucho menos que la carne.

Ustedes, sin ir más lejos trabajan en un magazine, no en un programa. En la tele, cuando el presentador dice varias veces la palabra O.K. y baila como un trompo por escenario la cosa se llama show, bien distinto, como saben ustedes, del anticuado espectáculo; si el show es heavy es que contiene carnaza y si es reality parece el difunto diario El Caso, pero en moderno. Entre medias, por supuesto, ya no ponen anuncios, sino spots que, aparte de ser mejores, te permiten hacer zapping. Estas cosas enriquecen mucho.

Para ser ricos del todo, y quitarnos el complejo tercermundista que tuvimos en otros tiempos, solo nos queda decir con acento americano la única palabra que el español ha exportado al mundo: la palabra SIESTA."

Espero que os haya gustado.

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Globalism at work, Hooray for Manuel Castells!

I had read it before. It's a sarcastic comment about the unnecessary terms that we take form English.

It's obvious that words like football (futbol) have became part of the Spanish language, and it's allright because they define something new (and football was new 100 years ago when the word futbol became popular), although I would habve preferred balompié, same as basketball is called baloncesto (but for in Cataluña, where they call it "basket".

There are other words, like "sandwhich" that also define a very particular kind of bocadillo, it's not just any bocadillo, but an "american style bocadillo. Spanish bocadillos are made with "una barra de pan", or what you would call french bread, and in the old times with a torta.

A "sandwich", in spanish from Spain doen's mean at all one of these traditional bocadillos, but the American one. Two loafs of Bimbo-like (if you know the make) bread with something inside. I would have preferred it to be called bocadillo americano, same as a "café" with a 500% more water than usual is not alled "coffee" but café americano.

Footing is an expression that became popular here (and it's wrong, because the right word would be jogging) for running, yes; however, jogging/footing usually includes some exercises along the route that are not just running. At least, I think so.

So, as you see, there are many words that we took from English that had a special meaning that difference them from Spanish and, so, there is a reason for them, because they add new definitions to the dicitonary.

There are also the Computer Science unfortunate costume to import unnecessary words from English, like driver (=controlador) "enviar un copy" (por "enviar una copia/ una captura, de pantalla"), some scarce words in technical jergon "marketing" (instead of "estudio de mercados" or "mercadeo"), ...

But most of these words are pretty uncommon in the streets but for the said computing environment and people at the street who want to sound "cool", with a despective special mention to "pijos", some of which really believe themselves superior by using English as much as possible.

For example: roast-beef is not a usual expression in Spain. It's pretty uncommon, same as it "spanized" variety "rosbif".

The only people who call certain programs "magazines" are the very newspaper people. people don't.

People just don't speak of manager for gerente, or baby sitters and nannies at all. This lady is exagerating quite a bit, just to support her point (which, BTW, I support too), preserve the language from all unnnecesary new words (which mean the same that older ones, but sound cooler).

However, the comparison with spanglish is like saying a mantis religiosa is the same as the "Alien" monster.

Why do I get the feeling you are talking about me? :p

How do you say "typiar", in proper spanish? Is it mecanographiar???? I find this hilarious!

I guess you maybe speaking of "type". That would be mecanografiar.

Perhaps you could share the joke, because I can not see it.

Mecano (greek) - Machine

-grafiar (from grafos, latin, and greek first) - written.