There’s more to come. Briefly though, I learned that in the realms of academia it is not called “Spanglish,” it’s called borrowing. Hmm what exactly does the use of “borrowing” instead of “Spanglish” imply? If you read my blog post about Spanglish and then read this, not yet written post about my explorations of Spanglish, you will learn that my interpretation of “Spanglish” has evolved….pero solo un poquito.
Well “Spanglish” refers to two different linguistic phenomenons. Lexical borrowing (prestamos lexicos) are taking a word from one language and converting it into the other language. For example, taking “truck” from English and turning it into “troca.” Code-switching is alternating between two languages at either a single word, clause, or sentence level. For example, Ayer fui al store y compre una sandia. Me encantan las sandias. They are so juicy and sweet. Spanglish is not a new language actually as a pidgin or creole would be because the grammar of one language does not affect the other, it is mainly just switching between the two and mixing them. It actually happens (code switching) anywhere where two different languages are in contact in a bilingual community.