![]() ![]() There are novels being published in Spanglish, collections of poems, plays in Spanglish today, operas, but we're kind of at the beginning of that process. "It's not quite what the Jews were doing with Yiddish in the early half of the 20th century, obviously, because by then Yiddish was a fully developed literary language, and we are just a bit on the outskirts of that process," says Stavans: ![]() Spanglish is newer than Yiddish, and is still predominately a spoken form of slang rather than a written language. In addition to their similarities, Spanglish and Yiddish have several differences. I would say that Yiddish, because of its behavior, its patterns, it allows us to see and understand a lot of how hybrid languages end up shaping up. When those immigrants came to the United States at the end of the 19th century, and up until just the beginning of the second World War.whatever kind of Yiddish they were using got mixed with English, and there was something that emerged that I've called Yinglish, that is a mixing of Yiddish and English, that is very similar to Spanglish, or could be very similar to Franglais, the mixing of French and English, or the mixing of Portuguese and English, whatever language immigrants use when they come to this country. is the Yiddish that immigrants ended up using when arriving to the new world. There was a Yiddish spoken by Polish Jews, and within Poland, different types of accents, different types of cadences…in the Ukraine another type of Yiddish. īut Yiddish was never a unified, monolithic way of communication. ![]() In 1978, Isaac Bashevis Singer even won the Nobel Prize in Literature for his writing in Yiddish. By the middle of the 20th century and the Holocaust, it had become a full language with its own works of literature. It became a written language in the 16th century. Like Spanglish, Yiddish started as a dialect spoken by people who had migrated away from their homes. The words kvetch, nosh, mishmash, spiel and chutzpah all come from Yiddish, although some have different spellings or connotations. Other languages, like Hebrew and Slavic languages, have influenced it over hundreds of years. It got its start in the 13th century as a German dialect spoken mostly by Jews. Yiddish uses Hebrew characters and its own grammatical structure, but much of its vocabulary has German roots. Ilan StavansĪ good way to understand how Spanglish evolved and continues to grow is to look at a similar linguistic hybrid - Yiddish. Image by Sam Masinter / used courtesy Dr. We'll look at how it compares to a similar hybrid language - Yiddish - in the next section. Spanglish isn't the first hybrid to have gained this kind of prevalence or to have become part of a community identity. ![]() At the same time, it may function as one step in the process of learning English. Spanglish also has some of the earmarks of an internal tongue, a language or dialect that an ethnic group uses to differentiate itself from other groups. Many pidgins start out as lingua francas, or trade languages that speakers of different languages use to communicate with one another. Some linguists refer to it as a pidgin - a language with a simplified grammar and syntax that people without a common language can use. In spite of its prevalence in many Hispanic communities, Spanglish isn't really a language or a dialect. The different styles of Spanglish can also vary in different age groups, with younger speakers using different terms than older speakers. People in San Antonio or in Houston, or Mexicans in New York or Chicago will use different patterns, depending on the contact they have with.the other minorities and the larger mainstream society," Stavans says. In addition, "The Mexican American community doesn't speak one type of Spanglish. They also have their own names, such as Cubonics for the Spanglish spoken by Cuban Americans or Nuyorican for the Spanglish spoken by Puerto Ricans living in New York. Each of these Spanglishes has its own patterns, its own idiosyncrasies. is different form the Spanglish spoken by Cuban Americans in Miami or the Spanglish spoken by Puerto Ricans in New York. The Spanglish spoken by Mexican Americans in, say, L.A. After years.of thinking and studying and discussing Spanglish, I have come to the conclusion that there is no one Spanglish, but a variety of Spanglishes that are alive and well in this country and that are defined by geographical location and country of origin. ![]()
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