Monday, March 7, 2011

Our español is dying


Yes we're in the U.S.A. where English is the primary language to get anywhere in life. However, being bilingual is as equally important since our culture is changing. However, do you ever think Spaniglish is probably never appropriate? More and more I hear people correct each other and say some of the most crazy garbage Spanish. What's worse is when the younger (younger) generation don't even know how to speak Spanish.

Not knowing Spanish does not make you any less Latino than anyone else, however, it is destroying our language. In order to retain our culture, we should know how to speak it. Then there are those who make up words. FoxNewsLatino recently published a story about battling Spanglish. The story says:
  • We talk a lot about the value of being bilingual, but then the first thing we do is cut the Spanish programs," says Selmira Carvajal, who has been teaching Spanish in Dade schools since 1986 and attended the workshop.
So do you think Spanglish is acceptable? I think there's a difference when making up words like "parquiar" and when adding English and Spanglish together to make a sentence. My definition of Spanglish comes from combining English y español; not making up words. However, when teaching our youth, somehow we manage to develop these words in the U.S. What can we do stop this every growing end to our language?

1 comment:

Alma Campos said...

Hi.

I think this is a good topic, but I don't necessarily agree with you. Although I don't praise or advocate for Spanglish, I don't think it's 'destroying' our culture. For instance, if we look at the English language we will see that the English we know today, comes from varying languages in Europe.

Language evolves the way people evolve. All living languages change all the time.

English speakers struggle to understand, Chaucer or Shakespeare for instance--even though it's 'English.' (That's one example). Language is ebbing and flowing...but neither progressing or decaying.