Martha Gutierrez needed a "cuara" to "parquear" her "troca" before going to the "marqueta" and the "mol." Or rather, she needed a quarter to park her truck before going to the supermarket and the mall. Gutierrez, along with many others in the growing Latino communities in Salt Lake City, uses these words and others like them to communicate, creating a Spanish/English mix, informally known as Spanglish.
Millions of Hispanic-Americans across the country have combined American English with their native tongue. A Hispanic carpet-layer will call his product "carpeta" rather than the Spanish word "alfombra." People might water their lawn with their "esprinkos," calling them such instead of "irrigadores." Local observers note that Hispanic-Americans embrace new Spanglish words every day.
"It's kind of like Wikipedia, where anyone can define something and people take it for a definition," said Sabrina Green, director of the McKee Language School, a Spanish immersion school for preschoolers.
Some Spanglish verbs, such as "cliquear" — to click — leave even native speakers without knowing the correct Spanish word.
"I don't know what it is," said Isabelle Kiss, an ESL and science teacher at Northwest Middle School, where 60 percent of the student body is Hispanic. "I use (cliquear) myself."
Spanglish speakers not only crunch English and Spanish words into one but also stick English words into a Spanish sentence and vice versa. Experts refer to this as code-switching. The reasons for speaking this way are as mixed as the language itself.
"In part it's done to show you're a member of both communities," said Marianna Di Paolo, associate professor of linguistics at the University of Utah. "In part it's done because one language has a better way of saying something than the other; it's artful."
Words such as "stress" and "cash" don't have qualified replacements in Spanish. Spanish and Spanglish speakers also embrace technical terms that originated in English, such as "Internet" and "e-mail."
On the other hand, words such as "enchiladas," "patio" and "rodeo" make most Americans Spanglish speakers, not to mention "amigos," "hasta la vista" and "el fuego."
Another reason for code-switching is because "it's easier," according to Gutierrez, a fluent speaker of Spanglish. Saying "so," for example, is much easier and faster than saying "entonces." This process requires a knowledge of both languages.
"To be efficient code-switchers you have to understand both languages very well," said Di Paolo. "It's very intricate and complicated. (Code-switching) is a very important thing for the community."
Others, such as Kiss, have a different opinion.
"It's not advantageous to speak it," she said. "It's learning something in a mediocre way."
Some young people living in a Spanish-speaking household within an American community have developed Spanglish for certain phrases.
"'Mommy, pero, I don't want to' is one I say a lot," said Melissa Gutierrez, daughter of Martha Gutierrez. "My mouth just spits out stuff that kind of confuses the languages."
Some communities in the country speak Spanglish regularly. Gutierrez witnessed this while living in California.
"In suburbs surrounding Portersville, it's pure Spanglish," Martha Gutierrez said. "You can't say that it's English or Spanish. The translation done for my nephew's graduation was done in Spanglish."
There is proof enough to support Gutierrez:
- California linguist Susana Chavez-Silverman has written a book incorporating both Spanish and English, "Killer Cronicas: Bilingual Memories/ Memorias Bilingues."
A Spanglish dictionary has been published and a Spanglish course is taught at Amherst University in Massachusetts.
An Adam Sandler film titled "Spanglish" was released in 2004, and Spanglish advertisements have been broadcast over national television. Dora, a popular TV show and doll, makes companies millions by speaking both Spanish and English, influencing native-speaking children of both languages.
Spanglish, it seems, is here to stay. Bienvenidos everyone.
E-mail: amarshall@desnews.com