DR Spanish and globalisation

[Chirimoya]

Yesterday, when I was paying the phone bill by credit card the clerk told me that 'la maquinita no esta printeando el recibo'.

It made me smile, and then I remembered that in my hometown the 'correct' way of saying this would have been "el machine no esta haciendo printing el receipt".

Makes the Dominican spanglish sound like Cervantes by comparison, ¿no?

[Lesley D]

Chiri,

No surprise to me. That is a perfect example of how "globalization and techology" has impacted Spanish. Aquí en la oficina donde trabajo la gente dice:

El "printer" no trabaja (s/b "funciona") and I always say to them:

Do you mean "¿la impresora no funciona?" and then they laugh at their own Spanish.


-Lesley D-

Originally Posted by Chirimoya

Yesterday, when I was paying the phone bill by credit card the clerk told me that 'la maquinita no esta printeando el recibo'.

It made me smile, and then I remembered that in my hometown the 'correct' way of saying this would have been "el machine no esta haciendo printing el receipt".

Makes the Dominican spanglish sound like Cervantes by comparison, ¿no?

[Gimabella]

Originally Posted by Lesley D

Gimabella,

Here's a little history so you can understand why Spanglish and the effects of globilization is a concern.....


I have expressed my concerns and the problems associated with DR Spanish & globalization, Spanish in general, and Spanglish throughout this thread. It's wonderful that everyone has an opinion but when it comes to language "speculation" does not hold ground for very long. Not only do I strongly feel that the effect of globalization is a threat to the survival of both languages English and Spanish but for those of you who know the history this issue of purity of the Spanish language was a concern in the nineteenth century.

Long before I studied Latin American Literature I was opposed to the mixing of the two languages but I would like to share a little bit of history with you to validate my concerns. Thanks to Andrés Bello and La Real Academia the purity of Spanish was maintained for decades until this modern wave of "neology". Its impact on the Spanish language has predominantly been in the last decade of the 20thC and definitely is a force to be reckoned with in the 21stC.

Andrés Bello was a Venezuelan philologist (among many other careers) and a grammar revolutionary. His most famous work is La gramática castellana published in 1847. Andrés Bello believed that the Spanish language (el idioma español) was the unifying element among Latin Americans and therefore should not be destroyed or infiltrated by other languages. According to Bello, neologisms (a new word, usage, or expression) lead to the destruction of the language and in fact this happened with Latin, which eventually was divided into the Romance languages (French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese). Bello believed that a universal grammar does not exist meaning grammar rules in one language do not apply to another (in this case Eng ≠ Span). The purpose of Bello's book was to preserve the purity of Spanish among Latin Americans. One of the key chapters of his book emphasized the need for unity among Latin Americans via Spanish ("el idioma español").

Along with his infamous La gramática castellana he published a special edition grammar book in 1851 and the key points include the following:

► es importante preservar la pureza del idioma de sus antepasados como modo de comunicarse y como herramienta de fraternidad entre las varias naciones de ascendencia española en dos continentes;

► un peor vicio es dar un significado nuevo a palabras y frases vigentes de esta manera causando más ambigüedad;

► Sin embargo, el peor de lo peor es la entrada de neologismos que según Bello puede acabar con la unidad es decir «una lengua común». Los neologismos corrompen y alteran la estructura del idioma y suele convertirla en dialectos primitivos que representan el comienzo de futuros idiomas.

Bello was truly worried and dedicated to the survival of Spanish in Latin America thus created a life long grammatical reference that thoroughly explained Spanish grammar. Experts considered this reference better than La Real Academia's published around the same time.

With this minimal historical summary of Andres Bello's La Gramática castellana and creation of a governing body La Real Academia (founded in the 18thC) it is clear that if a language is not preserved, slowly mixed and fusioned with another it will eventually be lost. That is what happened with Latin, which eventually became four separate languages.

Source: Andrés Bello, Caldera, Rafael. 1977.

BTW a copy of this legendary grammar book La gramática castellana is still on the market although difficult to ascertain. Good language and resource libraries usually have one or two.



-Lesley D-

wow Lesley..i am so convinced know, Spanish is difficult you know something, until this thread i never really payed attention to the spanish languange, i would just speak it and go on, but know i tend to catch my self before speaking or saying anyting that may have been converted to English form Spanish and vice versa..

honestly i think something should be done about promoting proper language use, the spanglish idea just affects in a negative way both languages and it's not fair nor appropiate, and it does not sound at all enticing..

i have many young cousins and when they get 2-gether all you hear is some horrible english street english but good accents and horrible spanish and always spanglish,,i'll see what i can do with them..

i had them try to speak just English last night for 3 hours and it was horrible they prefered not talking than to stick to English only or Spanish only, it is very difficult trying to stick to one language throughout a whole conversation when you are used to speaking spanglish throughout the whole conversation, i never really payed attention until last night and these teenagers were almost crying they felt useless

it's sad not being able to control ones tounge in adjusting to two diffent languages and keeping them apart

Gima..

[hugoke01]

I don't want to get in deep discussions with "ingüists" but would just like to give a few comments :
Am not English ( as you probably have noticed )nor Spanish (as you must have noticed ) ...and I believe that a forum like this is indeed interesting as long as it doen't go into to deep "linguistic " details ..
My comments are following :

- Language is mobile ..it's something that moves and lives
- Pure grammatically correct language will stay with some values people no longer understand or no longer use ...
- Latin is the origin of also CATALAN and " Rumano "
- The first Romans or the first Spanish people conquering respectively Spain or Latin America were soldiers ...and not language teachers .. that's why Latin
the origin of all these languages got mis- pronounced and the "casos " disappeared as soldiers won't use them ..
- You can speak about influences from English over Spanish or vice-versa but believe that not a lot of people really care except maybe the French who years ago try to banish (desechar ) all non- french words out of France ..
as an example : week-end was officially replaced by "Fin de semaine "
don't know for sure whether week-end is no longer used in France but think it still is
- within Spain itself (Spanish is the official language ) we do have other but similar languages (like the languages - or dialects - from Valencia and Galicia ) ..nobody is going to fight these ..
- The dominicans in general tend to easily understand the people from Andalucia or the Canarian islands ..(e.g. never pronounce the "S" at the end of a word like a lot of Dominicans do ; they would sometimes not even write it ) . Why is that ..too lazy or too much sun

That's why I believe that a spoken language will move .. and will live ...not as Latin or Greek (and I studied both rather intesively at highschool ...6 hours a week Latin -during 6 years and 5 years of old Greek 5 hours a week ) ...and I'm so happy that I don't have to speak them

Originally Posted by Hillbilly

I would be much more concerned with phonetic variations imposed by massive publicity.
One such case-to me at least-is super evident. VERIZON

In Spanish, this should be seen and pronounced: ver EEE zon, or ver eee ZON.

Nevertheless, the radio and television ads follow the English pronunciation and we get: Ver AY zon.

The phonetic conflict is that Spanish speakers are looking at what should be an EEE sound and saying AY.

That is what I would call "contamination."

Just 2¢ from

HB

[Lesley D]

In today’s el Listin Diario there is a very good article on Spanglish and technology and I must admit it is one of the best newspaper articles that I have read on the subject matter since this thread began.

Those who have been following the discussion know my stance on Spanglish therefore no need to reiterate my aversion. However, this article presents a new concept or dialect called “ciberspanglish” which is well explained in the article. Due to its length and lack of time I provided a gist translation of the main points of the article (see post below) and attached the link for those who wish to read it in its entirety.


http://www.listin.com.do/cuerpos/vida/vid1.htm


LDG

[Lesley D]

La tecnología abre las puertas al spanglish- El Listin Diario
ALEXéI TELLERíAS

Con la llegada de Internet se produjo la explosión de un fenómeno que venía desarrollándose silenciosamente en la población hispanoparlante: La ‘‘barbarización’’ del idioma español.

Internet slowly and silently produced the explosion of a phenomenon that has been developing in the Spanish speaking population known as "la barbarización" of the Spanish language.

Y es que la acepción de palabras en otros idiomas para definir términos nuevos fruto de la tecnología, es un tema que no parece admitir puntos medios: o se está a favor o en contra.

The acceptance of words in other languages to define technological terms is a topic that does not allow for any middle of the road (point of view): either one is in favor of it or against it. (I fully agree with this statement).

Clasificación (Classification)
Xosé Castro, lingüista español, ha dividido el spanglish, de manera poco rigurosa, en tres grupos: formal, informal y el ciberspanglish.

Xosé Castro, a Spanish linguist has divided Spanglish into three groups in a not so rigorous manner: formal, informal and "ciberspanglish" ( See article for explanation of each classification)

Ejemplos de ‘‘hacer un exit’’ y ‘‘printear’’, por ‘‘salir’’ e ‘‘imprimir’’.

Examples of Ciberspanglish include: ‘‘hacer un exit’’ y ‘‘printear’’, for ‘‘salir’’ e ‘‘imprimir’’.

¿Por qué nace?
Xosé Castro sostiene que el spanglish tiene una lógica forma de ser y un origen explicable y comprensible. ‘‘Su función es claramente comunicadora, pero sólo puede darse cuando existe una carencia de vocabulario en alguna de las dos partes que forman un diálogo. Cuando existe alguna duda o algo que obstaculice la comprensión, se echa mano de la versión inglesa, idioma que ambos interlocutores comprenden, y la comunicación, por fin, se completa’’.

According to Xosé Castro there is logic to Spanglish and its origin is explainable and understandable. "Clearly its purpose is to communicate but only when there is a lack of vocabulary in either of the two languages being spoken (or that form part of the dialogue). When there is a doubt or something that impedes comprehension, one resorts to the English version, which both speakers understand and the communication (dialogue) is completed".

Sin embargo, este dialecto no deja de manifestar un criterio de marginalidad, puesto que excluye al hispano que no entiende inglés, y al angloparlante que no entiende español. ‘‘Se restringe, por tanto, a una reducidad comunidad de hablantes. Debemos tener en cuenta que el espanglish de Nueva York poco tiene que ver con el de Los Ángeles. Así que, en realidad, no estamos hablando de una lengua sino de un conjunto de dialectos tan variados como sus comunidades de hablantes’’.

"However, this dialect manifests a standard for exclusion since it excludes a Spanish speaker who does not speak English and English speaker who does not speak Spanish. As well it's limited to reduced group (community) of speakers. We must remember that Spanglish spoken in New York has little to do with Spanglish spoken in Los Angeles. Therefore, in fact we are not speaking about a language but a group of dialects as varied as its community of speakers"

La tecnología y el español:
un matrimonio forzado
Con la presencia en los últimos siete años de palabras en otros idiomas, sumado al hecho de que el idioma empleado en las nuevas tecnologías no es el español, el cuestionamiento sobre qué tanto puede afectar o beneficiar al idioma se mantiene sobre "el tapete en los distintos espacios sociales que debaten el tema".

With the presence of other languages in the past seven years and in addition to the fact the languages used in new technology are not Spanish, the issue of how much it could benefit or affect the language remains "a topic of debate among distinct social circles in which it is discussed".

Escasez de equivalentes (Shortage of equivalents)
En la última década el español ha sufrido en las comunicaciones y la electrónica más que en cualquier otra área. Palabras como fax, módem, software, hardware no encuentran su equivalente en español.

"In the last decade Spanish has suffered in "communications and electronics" more than in any other area. Words like fax, modem, software, hardware do not have equivalents in Spanish".

El ‘‘spanglish’’
Si con la llegada de las computadoras y la tecnología se introdujeron en nuestra lengua múltiples términos informáticos anglosajones de difícil traducción, con la expansión de Internet el español pierde aún más terreno ante el ‘‘spanglish’’, una suerte de español con influencias del inglés o viceversa.

If with the arrival of computers and technology multiple technical English terms have entered into our language, with the expansion of the Internet Spanish loses even more ground to Spanglish, a type (class) of Spanish with English influences or viceversa.

La tarea de poner de acuerdo a todos los usuarios hispanohablantes sobre la terminología de las redes de comunicación es ardua y ello hace que se usen traducciones literales o que se opte por los términos ingleses.

The task of reaching a consensus among all Spanish speakers for terminology in the network of communication is difficult and because of that one opts for literal translations or for English terms.

Sin embargo, Xosé Castro critica este pensamiento:- “Pretender que verbos tan españoles como salir, borrar o imprimir dejen de usarse sólo por estar relacionados con una computadora es, en mi opinión, actuar contra la unidad y la corrección del idioma’’.

However, Xosé Castro critiques this thought (opinion): - "attempting to eliminate the usage of very Spanish verbs like "salir, borrar o imprimir" just because they have to do with computers -‘‘printear’’, in my opinion is to act against the unity and correctness of the language"

I fully agree with the statement above by Xosé Castro.

===========

-Lesley D-