subject: When Spanglish Become Mainstream [print this page] Like any other language in the world, Spanish has been dealing for years with new words created as a result of new technologies. Those eventually become mainstreamed and the Real Academia Espaola accepts them into its dictionary, which is the governing body of the Spanish language.
According to Wikipedia, Spanglish refers to the code-switching of English and Spanish, in the speech of people who speak parts of two languages, or whose normal language is different from that of the country where they live. For example, the Hispanic population of the United States and the British population in Argentina use varieties of Spanglish. Sometimes the Creole spoken in Spanish holiday resorts which are exposed to both Spanish and English is called Spanglish. The similar code switching used in Gibraltar is called Llanito. Spanglish may also be known by a regional name. Some people tend to believe that the "Tex-Mex" spoken in Texas, is also Spanglish, which is not the case; neither is the case of the "Ladino" spoken in New Mexico, because both are language varieties of Mexican Spanish.
However in reality, Spanglish is the way that we, native Spanish speakers, have come to communicate in the United States. It happens so naturally that we dont even know we are doing it. We create Spanglish words naturally as we try to speak fast in English or in Spanish and the right Spanish translation of an English word doesnt come to our minds. It is so much easier to Spanishize the English word. Weve all been there, mixing English words while we are speaking Spanish to friends or family or colleagues. The right Spanish word doesnt pop in our heads, but the English word does, so we say the English word and somehow we change it slightly so that it sounds like a Spanish word.
Spanglish is a living language, created from the necessity to communicate a thought quickly.
How many of the words we used today in English had their origins in Latin? We all know that romance languages evolved from the Vulgar Latin but even though English is not a romance language, a lot of English words have their roots in Latin. the similarities are very much like those of what we today call Spanglish.
We have to realize that as a living language usage rules and, eventually, some Spanglish becomes accepted by the RAE and entered in the dictionary.
Will there be a need for translators in the future or will this globalization result in a common language that we dont even speak today? If that were the case, translators will become obsolete.
But, we are not obsolete today and the subject of Spanglish brings translation to the forefront. Do we use Spanglish in our translations? If we dont, how do we handle words that dont have another way of being expressed but embracing Spanglish? We dont work in a vacuum so we have to adapt. I believe that we are all adapting very well to the demands of an increasing vocabulary that cannot be found in dictionaries but can be found in urban usage. Is urban so wrong that we have to ignore it and continue being purists?
My answer to all that is that we do what we think is right at the time and what fits the particular situation. If we are translating highly sophisticated scholarly articles, we all know what we have to doproduce a high-end translation that is as professional and stilted as the English source. But if we are translating for the masses and the only way to say chatting on the Internet is using the verb chatear, although the RAE doesnt recognize it, we should be able to use chatear without thinking twice. Plain and simple. Our goal as translators is to communicate. If we try to explain what to chat is, and many of our colleagues take that approach, are we really communicating, or are we ignoring the way people talk? Remember that parquear and aparcar were frowned upon decades ago and today they are accepted. So, lets take the initiative as linguists and be modern and adventurous and forget the purism we are trying so hard to preserve.
We will be doing a disservice to the reader of our translations, and to our clients, if we dont use terms that they can understand and we opt instead for terms that will be confusing to the readers.
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