Articles and Stories

June 21, 2013

With the immigration problem being debated as I write this, it is time to revisit the evolution of Spanish as spoken by many Hispanics in the U.S.A. A good example is this picture of a great Spanish translation recently published by the Huffington Post.

I studied and learned Spanish in Europe and know how to communicate in Spanish. When I moved to Atlanta, I was thrilled to hear so much Spanish and I used every opportunity to practice it. To my surprise, there were many instances where I thought I understood what was being said, but the words were new to me. First, I thought it must be me as I am used to a different dialect and pronunciation, but then after questioning what was being said, I realized that English words were used with Spanish endings.

Two great examples:

English: yard
Spanish: jardín
U.S. Spanish: yarda

English: truck
Spanish: camión
U.S. Spanish: troca

Having lived now in the United States for over 20 years, I admit that I also speak a mixture of English and my native language. I take an English word and add my own ending to it, making it my own and integrating it into our family language.  You only realize what you are doing when a family member repeats it during a conversation.

I call this ‘gringonizing’ a language. I trust that all foreigners are guilty of such ‘gringonizing’ and that the picture above is a perfect translation for Hispanics in the U.S.A.