Varieties of Spanish in the United States:

3. Spanish, English, or . . . Spanglish?

38 3 Spanish, English, or . . . Spanglish? Introduction When referring to racial and ethnic minorities in the United States, a number of words and expressions once used frequently and insensitively have fallen out of favor, and they are now shunned in favor of more accurate designations . Words once openly spoken in reference to African Americans, Jews, Italians, Asians, Native Americans, Latinos, and those with mental and physical disabilities, and found in radio and television programs, popular literature , films, and public discourse in general, are now socially and politically unacceptable. One particular subset of these terms refers to racially or ethnically mixed individuals or groups, generally included in ersatz cover terms such as half-breed. Of the racial/ethnic terms that have survived the enhanced focus on civil rights and social conscience, only one refers simultaneously to language use and—by inference rather than by direct indication—to specific ethnic groups: Spanglish. An obvious blend of English and Spanish, this word has become the less transparent espanglish in the Spanish-speaking world. Although Spanglish has at times been used to refer to a wide variety of phenomena (see Lipski 2004b for a representative survey), in the vast majority of instances Spanglish targets the language usage of Latinos born or residing in the United States. In a few instances Spanglish is a strictly neutral term, and some U.S. Latino political and social activists have even adopted Spanglish as a positive affirmation of ethnolinguistic identity. In the usual circumstances, however, Spanglish is used derogatorily, to marginalize U.S. Latino Spanish speakers and to create the impression—not supported by objective research—that varieties of Spanish used in or transplanted to the United States become so hopelessly entangled with English as to constitute a “third language” substantially different from Spanish and English. This “third language” in turn is seen as gradually displacing Spanish in the United States, thereby placing U.S. Latino Spanish speakers at a disadvantage vis-à-vis their compatriots in Spanishspeaking countries and, ultimately, causing the deterioration of the Spanish language. Within the United States the designation Spanglish is most commonly used by non-Latinos (or by Latinos who are openly critical of nonstandard language usage), in reference to the speech patterns of resident Latino communities. The most frequent targets are the nation’s two oldest Hispanophone communities: those of Mexican and Puerto Rican origin. In the southwestern United States, Tex-Mex is often used (by non-Latinos) as a synonym of Spanglish, as is pocho among Mexican Americans. Spanglish is occasionally used to refer to the language spoken by Cuban Americans and increasingly by resident Dominicans; rarely if ever does one hear Spanglish used in conjunction with expatriates from Spain or Southern Cone nations, whose population is perceived as “white,” thus suggesting an element of racism coupled with the xenophobia that deplores any sort of linguistic and cultural hybridity. Despite the lack of empirical evidence, the view that Spanglish constitutes a specific type of language is widespread; one can find dictionaries, grammar sketches, greeting cards, t-shirts, bumper stickers, and an enormous number of editorial comments and references in popular culture, all suggesting that Spanglish has a life of its own.1 One common thread that runs through most accounts of Spanglish is the idea that Latinos in the United States—and perhaps in Puerto Rico and border areas of Mexico—speak this “language” rather than “real” Spanish. Given that upwards of 50 million speakers are at stake, the matter is definitely of more than passing interest. The ambivalence and ambiguity that shrouds all things Spanglish is nowhere better illustrated than in definitions found in two of the most widely used and presumably authoritative dictionaries of the English language. The American Heritage Dictionary gives the generic and neutral definition “Spanish characterized by numerous borrowings from English.” On the other hand, the prestigious and etymologically well-researched Oxford English Dictionary defines Spanglish as “a type of Spanish contaminated by English words and forms of expression, spoken in Latin America.” Thus, from the outset, we are confronted with the ever-shifting and potentially insidious manipulation SPANISH, ENGLISH, OR . . . SPANGLISH? 39 of hybrid terms designed to undermine the credibility and human capital of internally colonized groups. In Search of the Origins of Spanglish A transparent linguistic blend such as Spanglish is likely to arise spontaneously whenever contacts between English and Spanish are under discussion, and...