Spanglish

A portmanteau of “Spanish” and “English,” Spanglish refers to the hybridized linguistic practice of code switching between these two languages while communicating. Spanglish also entails the blending and interchanging of phonological and grammatical elements of Spanish and English in the formation of words, phrases, and questions. Linguists consider Spanglish to be neither a creolized language nor a pidgin, as Spanglish operates simply as an informal linguistic practice that relies on transitioning between English and Spanish during the course of communication. Spanglish lacks set or standardized rules that govern the syntax of formal languages. As such, Spanglish represents a style of communication rather than a formal, specific language in and of itself.

Although language purists sometimes attempt to dismiss Spanglish as a “broken language” unworthy of scholarly analysis, such a description is inaccurate and reflects the prescriptive bias that dominated language study throughout much of the 20th century. Anthropologists and sociolinguists use a descriptive approach to the study of language, noting that language is a malleable and fluid creation of human ingenuity and that social and linguistic contact between cultural groups has taken place since the dawn of humanity, resulting in the development of new linguistic practices. Spanglish has begun to generate considerable academic study in recent years, although it has been spoken in the United States for many decades. Today, Spanglish can be seen and heard in many cities throughout the nation with large Latino populations, such as New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, San Antonio, Houston, and Phoenix.

A singular uniform or standardized form of Spanglish does not exist, in large part because many different ethno-national dialects of Spanish are spoken throughout the United States. These various dialects of Spanish are largely geographically concentrated, with Puerto Rican and Dominican dialects spoken predominantly in the urban northeast, Cuban-style Spanish concentrated largely in southern Florida, and Mexican dialects of Spanish heavily concentrated in the southwestern border states.

These contrasting dialects of Spanish are marked by their own idiosyncrasies, such as distinct vocabulary, phonology, and differing cadences and rhythms that mark the speech process, all of which, in turn, shape the style of Spanglish spoken by persons of a particular Latino ethnic background or in a particular region of the United States. In the southwest, for example, many urbanized Mexican Americans speak a highly stylized Spanish-English hybrid known as caló, a linguistic form that has gained notoriety through Chicano films such as Stand and Deliver (1988) and My Family/Mi Familia (1995) and the comedy routines of George Lopez. In Florida, where Cuban Americans constitute the largest Spanish-speaking community, the predominant local style of Spanglish is sometimes referred to as Cubonics (a portmanteau of “Cuban” and “Ebonics”).

Communication in Spanglish merely requires one to code switch (alternate) between Spanish and English when producing speech or writing; however, there are no standardized rules that dictate this process of code switching. For example, one could potentially construct the phrase “Juanita is my younger brother's girlfriend” in Spanglish several different ways, including “Juanita es mi younger brother's novia”, “Juanita es mi hermanito's girlfriend,” or Juanita es la novia de mi younger brother.” As a result, Spanglish is a highly creative linguistic style whose originality lies with the discretion of its speakers.

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