Customer Reviews

Spanglish: The Making of a New American Language

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

From its title and the author's academic background, I expected this book would be a more scholarly work. I wish that Prof. Stavan had paid more attention to defining and describing Spanglish and less attention to defending it against attack. After all, Spanish and English have been in contact for several centuries, and not even the most extreme purists deny that some cross-language influences are at least a linguistic reality, if not, as this author insists, a linguistic necessity. But just what is and what is not Spanglish? Stavan says (p.3) that it is the "tongue of the uneducated." In Puerto Rico, many highly educated bilinguals mix the two languages on occasion, sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously. I recall a Puerto Rican colleague in my university bragging about his son who had just graduated from what sounded like "jail" (Yale). My own native English is peppered with useful words like "tapón" (=traffic jam), "rejas" (=iron grillwork), and "tostones" (=fried plantains). The English-speaking operator for Banco Popular's Pay-by-Phone service asks you if you want your payment to take effect on "the next labor day." In the 70's, former Governor Ferre started one of his campaign speeches with "¿Cuáles son los issues?"

Prof. Stavans, an immigrant from Mexico, is himself is a good example of such an educated bilingual. In describing his early days in New York, he writes (p.2) "I regularly made my shopping..." where the monolingual English speaker would say "did my shopping" (Spanish hacer has multiple English equivalents). I counted no less than six cases in which he used "voice" (instead of "word"), presumably as a translation of Spanish "vox", as in (p.60) "Voices from the English used in Spain and the Americas..." Are these examples also Spanglish? If not, why not, and if so, is the uneducated condition really a requirement? The author gives us no clue as to where to draw the line.

The extensive Spanglish lexicon occupies 188 pages of the 274-page book, and it poses yet more puzzling questions. The author states (p. 55) "[Spanglish] is an oral vehicle of communication," then follows this with (p. 56) "The spelling I have in every entry is the one most commonly used in popular culture." If Spanglish is oral, where did those bizarre spellings come from (e.g., "benkenpura" = baking powder)? Unfortunately, no specific sources are given for the written forms, so we do not know if they actually occurred, or were concocted for this list.

In addition to such phonetic spellings of badly-pronounced English words, the lexicon also has a great many "Spanglish" items that are perfectly good Spanish words, according to my 1973 Simon & Shuster dictionary. Just among the words beginning with letter a are these: absentismo, académico, apelación, adobe, agente, apartamento, archivar, armada, asistir. Furthermore, several assimilated English loanwords (e.g. parquear, aparcar `to park') were accepted by the Spanish Academy decades ago. Exactly what is Spanglish about them?

Despite these unanswered questions and contradictions, I found the book entertaining, especially the author's recounting of his exposure to multicultural New York and his tongue-in-cheek Spanglish translation of Don Quixote, which demonstrates just how clever the bilingual mind can be.

You see, I read a description of the book that described it as a serious look at the phenomenon of "Spanglish." It does have that (and it is quite good) - but 2/3 of the book is a Spanglish to English dictionary. While interesting, it was not what I had planned on reading when I had requested it from my local library. I just wanted you perspective buyers to know ahead of time.

Also, if you don't have a decent command of Spanish, this book will be pretty hard for you to read. If you have a hard time following the jokes in a George Lopez stand-up routine, you'll have just as hard of a time reading this book because he fills it full of Spanglish. While entertaining to us bilinguals, I wanted warn you before you bought it.

Half the book reads like some kind of ranting reciprocal bigotry. The author jumps all over the linguisists at the RAE while revealing a lack of linguistic awareness on his own part. He actually puts forth the assertion that Basques and Catalunyians prefer to speek Euskera and Catalan over Spanish because they felt alienated by Felipe Gonzalez, the late President of Spain. ---Duuhhh! Why do you think they prefer what they do? Get a clue! Also, not relevant to so called "spanglish" anyway - just a politically motivated chip on the shoulder.

Furthermore, the book doesn't present a plausible analysis of unintelligibility between the dialects of the language.
Look, the biggest obstacle to mutual intelligibility is with respect to semantics and syntax, hispanicized english words are a lesser issue. Many american hispanics actually think in english and then speak as if giving literal translations into spanish rather than speaking combinations of words that have meaning in spanish. For example, when the drain got blocked in my bathroom sink in my apartment in Madrid, I reported it to the manager as a direct translation of " the drain is blocked". Well, I got nothing but a blank stare and fumbled an explanation for five minutes until I finally hit on the right combination of words that could be understood --"the bathroom sink is clogged".
Now she knew to send the plumber up with the snake. Many american hispanics would make the same error I did - this is why in Spain, they offer courses called "spanish for native spanish speakers" for little or no cost to immigrants. The tendency is to think in english even though they can't really speak english( as a peculiar anecdote, all the mexican restaurants in Madrid have placards in the window that read " mexican spoken here" and believe it or not, the placards are actually written in english -I've met a number of mexicans in Spain and as I said, they don't speak a lick of english). This is a bizzare aspect of american dialects that the author doesn't seem to observe, least of all to analyze. Similar issues exist in terms of syntax, like saying "to have an orgasm" as in english, when in spanish it's properly said "to achieve orgasm".

The second half of the book, is presented as a "spanglish" lexicon although many of the words listed have neither a derivation in english nor spanish, they're simply words that immigrants from different hispanic countries made up when they got to the US. Perfectly legitimate, but perhaps not aptly titled "spanglish", perhaps it should be called "HispanUSA" instead.
Lastly, the lexicon section only has so called "spanglish" words and their english translations. If the proper castillian usage was also listed, at least it might help speakers of different spanish dialects understand each other better, making the book considerably more useful. It is, after all, not just about Mexico, Spain and Puerto Rico. There is lots of geography and are hundreds of dialects. Better luck with the revised edition.

Often provocative but always fascinating, Ilan Stavans offers his take on the encounter between English and Spanish in "Spanglish." Stavans, who in addition to speaking English and Hebrew (he is a Jew who was born in Mexico), he also speaks Spanish and Yiddish. In his intriguing introduction to this short dictionary of Spanglish words and phrases, he tracks not only the history of Spanish and English dictionaries, but also the political riff between Spain and English speaking countries such as Britain and the United States. He also touchingly recounts his head-on encounter with one of his students who told Stavans that she was dropping out and returning to her barrio; she spoke very freely in Spanglish knowing that Stavans would understand what she was saying. Though he was not able to convince her to stay, the conversation sparked something in Stavans that eventually led to the creation of this book. Stavans admits that purists consider the very concept of a hybrid such as Spanglish repugnant and even a threat to learning proper Spanish and English, pero Spanglish vive whether we like it or not. We can hide our collective head in the sand or acknowledge the fact that many people do speak it. And writers who grew up hearing this blend of languages should feel free to use it in their fiction, poetry and other creative writing because it reflects reality. Because Stavans es gran escritor y un intelectual verdadero, this book is not only engaging, it is an important step to understanding how languages evolve whether you agree with its premise or not. I suspect that language scholars will eventually consider "Spanglish" one of the first and most important books on the subject.

Ilan Stavans has produced a treat for all language fans in his excellent book Spanglish: The Making Of A New American Language. The book contains both Stavans' excellent opening essay - La Jerga Loca - and the lexicon of Spanglish words and phrases that he has compiled over the last decade or so. As a bonus, Stavans includes his Spanglish translation of the first chapter of Don Quixote De La Mancha in the appendix. The lexicon alone makes the book worth owning, but the essay is the frosting on this treat. Although referred to as the introduction, the opening essay is preface, introduction, acknowledgments, and much more all rolled into one. Towards the end of the essay, Stavans addresses concerns over shining a spotlight on Spanglish, which some consider a destruction of Spanish or a come down for people who should be learning English. He correctly notes that their shouldn't be a problem with studying a phenomenon - Stavans is a professor of Latino and Latin American culture! - especially if it helps people learn more about themselves as a culture. I teach students for who English is a second language and I always encourage them to improve their English, but I'm also fascinated by the conversations in English, Spanish, and Spanglish that swirl around me every day. Spanglish by Ilan Stavans should appeal to all those interested in language, especially the evolution of language, and Latino culture. I found it to be an excellent book and highly recommend it.

The author compares Spanglish -- the hybrid "language" part way between Spanish and English -- with Yiddish, a mixture of Hebrew and German that evolved into the mother language for Jews in Eastern Europe. But I see it closer to Ebonics, an effort to put an acceptable face on something that should not be acceptable, an excuse for speaking badly.

Now, that is not a criticism of the book as much as it is of the concept (or the phenomenon) the book is based on. But to the extent that author Ilan Stavans promotes this lowering of the language bar, I cannot help but take issue with this slim volume.

Spanglish (the book, not the "language") is much more a reference resource than it is something one would read from cover to cover, with most of the pages taken up by a 4500-word Spanglish dictionary (just writing that phrase made my heart sink). But the introductory essay -- called the "Jerga Loca," or Crazy Slang -- gives Mr. Stavans' take on the issue of Spanglish, which he seems to see as a fully mature idiom. This is something that may or may not be true, but which gives me heartburn just to think about.

Take, for example, the wonderful opening line of Don Quixote: "En un lugar de la Mancha, de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme...." (In English: "In a certain corner of la Mancha, the name of which I do not choose to remember ...."). Mr. Stavans cheapens it to: "In un placete de la Mancha, of which the nombre no quiero remembrearme...." It makes my skin crawl.

I cannot deny Mr. Stavans' point that language is dynamic and evolving. Simply comparing the writings of William Shakespeare with those of Charles Dickens with those of John Updike is enough to prove that. Glance even at Miguel Cervantes, who spelled the same of his protagonist "Don Quijote" in the original. But this is a process that happens naturally and without encouragement, and it is certainly not served by lowering expectations to the lowest common denominator.

I do not give the book a lower rating simply because it must be judged -- at least for the most part -- for what it is, and on those terms I find it well researched and effectively written. It might even serve as an effective primer for "gringos" unfamiliar with Latin American culture and who want to learn to understand certain unfortunate Hispanic Americans. But I select three stars while holding my nose, because while the spread of Spanglish cannot be denied, I think that anything that promotes it just stinks.

Don't know what I was expecting, but the book didn't meet my expectations, which is not to say that it shouldn't be read. It includes a lot of the issues surrounding the development and use of this language, or however you choose to define it. I wish, considering his background as a professor, that he had included more ideas about why this language was created, and what purpose it serves.
My only real complaint is his use of Spanish in the book; I know not everyone who reads this book will speak both languages, but I found his incessant repetition of phrases in both languages annoying. What was even worse to me was that there were many phrases that most people with no Spanish skills could probably understand, yet he provides translations anyway (absolutamente nada), but then he includes entire Spanish phrases that most people wouldn't understand without providing translations (pero no habia vuelta de hoja).

I must clarify that I have only read a bit of the book, but I must say I'm disillusioned that a particular kind of "Spanglish" was not mentioned in this tome. I'm talking about the one spoken by the Mexican middle-class. Unlike the Chicano version, MMC Spanglish recognize English and Spanish grammar rules and only creates a hybrid word when there is not a convenient one in the original language. Thus, an MMCS speaker would say "bajar" instead of "downloadiar" and would take care to say "forwardear", not "forwardiar", as Spanish grammar demands.

MMC Spanglish represents, for Mexican society, an equivalent of what Franglais represents to the U.S. Northeast. It is a pity that it has been overshadowed by the popular, degenerated version.

The justification to speak bad Spanish for the lazy people who does not want to make more effort to learn and want everything in the easiest way.

The introduction of the book is interesting but I totally disagree with the author. Spanglish is not a new language, it is just the incomplete Spanish filling the gaps with English in Spanish. It is not consistent to create a dictionary, every community and almost every individual creates its own "words" based on the deficiencies of their own vocabulary. The dictionary may be useful in one area of USA and totally useless in another.
My advise is: learn the real thing and not waste your time learning a transitory vocabulary that is going to change from person to person.

Stavans is offering a new way of understanding language in the United States. His book on Spanglish shows how fluid words are, no matter the historical time. They keep on changing all the time. He says that only dead languages are static, which is true. He also proves how racist the "puristas" are when they suggest that people that speak Spanglish are "half-lingual" and that their train of thought is "broken."
I read this book from beginning to end in a few hours and loved it. It's worth every cent I paid. After thinking about what Stavans says, I'll never think of Spanish, English, and Spanish in the same way.