Will 'Spanglish' Make Spanish And English Obsolete?

"Spanglish," a hybrid of Spanish and English, is not likely to overtake either language in the United States in the coming years. But it will become more common as the nation's Spanish-speaking population continues to grow, according to author, scholar and cultural commentator Ilan Stavans. 

Stavans discussed the origins and future of Spanglish during his Oct. 14 keynote address at The Ohio State University's Hispanic Heritage Month celebration. His presentation took place in Saxbe Auditorium at Drinko Hall on Ohio State's  main Columbus campus.

Ilan Stavans teaches a course on Spanglish
at Amherst College in Massachusetts.

 

Even people who speak only one language are "multilingual" in a sense, Stavans noted: "We speak with our parents in a different way... than we speak with our pals on Facebook."

A professor at Amherst College in Massachusetts, Stavans actually teaches a course on Spanglish.

"It is not only the way we talk, but the way we dress, the way we relate to one another," he said.

 

Stavans, who is of Jewish descent and grew up in Mexico before moving to the United States, began teaching the Spanglish course at the suggestion of a Latino student. But Stavans was initially reluctant to formalize the study of Spanglish.

He said his original though process was that "Spanglish has no grammar, no syntax. You can only teach a language in a classroom that has both."'

However, Stavans eventually came to realize that Spanglish is a fast-growing language, especially as the Latino population in the U.S. continues to increase. There are
60 million Latinos in the U.S., comprising 16 percent of the population, he noted.

 

"If all of us Latinos moved to Canada, we would double the population and make up two-thirds of the country," he said.

 

However,  he added in a poetic turn of phrase, while there are tens of millions of Latinos, "there are no Latinos in the United States, and that is becaue the term 'Latino' is so elusive ."

 

 

Just as there are many different dialects of English not only in different parts of the world but across the United States, Spanglish takes many different forms, Stavans said. 

 

"If you think that the English spoken in England and the English spoken in the United States is the same, you're wrong," he said. "As playwright George Bernard Shaw said, England and the United States are separated by a common language."

Stavans emphasized that the presence of Latinos in the United States is not new - nor is Spanglish. He compared it to Yiddish and other hybrid languages.

 

"There is no one Spanglish," he said. "There are many different Spanglishes. There is such a thing as 'Cub-onics,' which is the combination of English and Cuban Spanish."

The backlash against Spanish in certain parts of the country is misguided, Stavans said, since the language and its Spanglish spinoff is not going away any time soon.

 

"Spanish is the largest language after English. And in some places, it's more important," he said. "Go to Miami. Spanish comes first."

 

Stavans illustrated this point with an anecdote about when he was visiting New York City and lost his cell phone and had to call information from a public payphone. He was greeted by an automated response system that initially spoke in Spanish before switching to English.

"The automated voice said, if you want to dial in English, press two," Stavans said.

That moment proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that "an important change has happened."

Just as there is an "English only" movement in certain parts of the United States, there are those who fear Spanglish will dilute formal Spanish and rob Latino immigrants of their culture, Stavans said.

But he pointed out that the prevalence of Spanish in Latin America is itself a result of colonialism, since European settlers imposed Spanish on the indigenous people of various countries. 

"I always find it interesting when people want to protect Spanish from English," Stavans said. "Spanish itself is an imperial language. It pushed all these other languages aside." 

Spanglish is unlikely to replace either formal Spanish or standard English in the USA - at least not in the near future, Stavans said. Spanglish will, however, continue to coexist alongside both languages, just as American slang is commonly spoken among English speakers, he added. 

"There are no pure languages. All languages bring words in and out," he said. "Shakespeare would be appalled by your English. You will be appalled by the language of your children."

Spanglish is like an improvisational form of music and adapts to suit each speaker's purposes, Stavans said.

"It's very jazzy and open," he said.

Spanglish alternates between more Spanish words and phrases and more English words and phrases, depending on what region of the country it's spoken in, Stavans said.

 

"If you're in Columbus, Ohio [where Ohio State's main campus is located], you'll hear more English spiced with the Tabasco sauce of Spanglish," he said.

Spanglish may be perceived by scholars and linguists as an informal practice that shouldn't be taken seriously, but the lingo is quickly becoming part of the mainstream just as other uniquely American inventions have, Stavans said.

"What comes from the margins of the culture eventually comes to the center," he said, "and that center gives it gravity."