The Spanglish

The Latin American culture had a lot presence in the

USA for a long time. The hispanic influence in the
country created a mixture between English and
Spanish and the "Spanglish" was born. Its
importance was then extended from the daily lives of
the people to the media and the rest of the world.

Its Birth
There were two important reasons for the birth of this
hybrid language. The first one is related to the
situation in the country in the colonial times, where
the Spanish had conquered the actual states of
California, Texas, New Mexico and Nevada. After
that, the US obtained those territories from Mexico in
the 1840s . Through out the years, these lands were
inhabited by hispanic people.
In the other hand, the other important event that
contributed to the appearence of the Spanglish is the
migration. For a long time, lots of people have
migrated to the US in order to improve their economy
and the most part came from Mexico and other
Spanish-speaking countries, such as Puerto Rico,
Cuba and other caribbean states. The number of
hispanic population in the US has reached 35 million
people, which is equal to the 15 percent of the
American population. The Spanish then became the
second most used language without being an official

one.

Grammar
The Spanglish is becoming a dialect which is based
on the mixture of both languages. This one doesn't
have ortographic rules, as it is mainly used
informally and in the streets. Generally, it consists in
sentences made of well written words of both
languages, but sometimes words from the English are
taken and changed in order to fit an Spanish style.
The most common are verbs in English that are used
with an Spanish infinitive. For example, "to hang
out" used as "hangear" or "to check" used as
"checar". This dialect is most commonly used when
an inmigrant cannot communicate and tend to use his
own language to fill his expressions.

The role of the Media

Its expansion to the world was possible thanks to the
media like the radio or television. One of the first
users of Spanglish in media was the radio
broadcaster Ed. Gmez during the 80s in New
Mexico. He made many Spanglish expressions
popular and he used to finish his programme with
"Hasta soon". Also a lot of musicians started to use
Spanglish and use them nowadays, like the mexican
band "Molotov" or even the American singer "Beck".
The usage of mixed expressions also affect the way
the Americans speak and words like "amigo",

"macho", "hombre" or "patio" are commonly used

within the Americans. For example, the frase "Hasta
la vista, baby" was very popular through the
"Terminator" movie.
There are certain groups of people that are against the
dialect and they want to eliminate it with movements
like "English only" that want to make people speak
only English. On the other hand, there are many that
support its growing, as well.