Word: spanglish
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Students also talk about--and in--their common regional lingos. Southern Californians, for instance, say they miss their native "Spanglish...
...minority. In my Texas border town, Hispanics of predominantly Mexican descent represent more than 75 percent of the population officially; unofficially the number is probably closer to 90 percent with the illegal migrant population. The student body of my high school was 99 percent Hispanic. Spanish, or Spanglish, was more common than English in my neighborhood. In the United States, Hispanics account for approximately 20 percent of the population. At the College, Hispanics account for approximately 6 percent of the undergraduate population...
Major advertisers, eager to tap the estimated $134 billion in spending power wielded by Spanish-speaking Americans, have ventured into Spanglish to promote their products. In some cases, attempts to sprinkle Spanish through commercials have produced embarrassing gaffes. A Braniff airlines ad that sought to tell Spanish-speaking audiences they could settle back en (in) luxuriant cuero (leather) seats, for example, inadvertently said they could fly without clothes (encuero). A fractured translation of the Miller Lite slogan told readers the beer was "Filling, and less delicious." Similar blunders are often made by Anglos trying to impress Spanish-speaking pals...
Among Latinos, Spanglish conversations often flow easily from Spanish into several sentences of English and back again. "It is done unconsciously," explains Carmen Silva-Corvalan, a Chilean-born associate professor of linguistics at the University of Southern California, who speaks Spanglish with relatives and neighbors. "I couldn't even tell you minutes later if I said something in Spanish or in English...
...Spanglish is a sort of code for Latinos: the speakers know Spanish, but their hybrid language reflects the American culture in which they live. Many lean to shorter, clipped phrases in place of the longer, more graceful expressions their parents used. Says Leonel de la Cuesta, an assistant professor of modern languages at Florida International University in Miami: "In the U.S., time is money, and that is showing up in Spanglish as an economy of language." Conversational examples: taipiar (type) and winshi- wiper (windshield wiper) replace escribir a maquina and limpiaparabrisas...