Languages and speech are dynamic concepts. Our way of expressing ourselves orally and in writing is constantly changing, although it’s more common in speaking than in writing. As such, linguists sometimes even struggle to keep up with these changes.
The changes can manifest themselves in countless ways and for a multitude of reasons. Researchers at Florida International University and the University at Buffalo recently documented a curious example of these changes. Their research didn’t cover the now well-known dialect known as "Spanglish," but its context and origin are similar.
A new dialect is emerging in the Miami area as a result of the interaction between the Latin American Spanish of many of the city’s inhabitants and American English. The idiomatic changes resulting from this strong Latin presence are varied, but the recent study has focused on one specific aspect: the transposition of Spanish structures and usages into English.
In Spanglish and other languages, speakers use hispanicisms, that is, words borrowed from Spanish. However, in the new dialect, speakers “copy” expressions from Spanish that aren’t common in English speech. It’s like an overly literal translation of expressions that Spanish-language speakers are used to using in their own language. They’re now using them when speaking in another language.
Study author Phillip M. Carter gave some examples of the literal translation in a The Conversation article. He mentioned phrases like “We got down from the car and went inside” (instead of “got out of the car”), and “I made the line to pay for groceries” (instead of “lined up”).
The study compiled various similar linguistic calques from Spanish, including using “marry with” instead of “marry to” and using the word “meat” to refer specifically to beef rather than to meat in general.
A Dialect That Is Becoming More and More Common in Florida
The researchers behind the study spent 10 years analyzing the South Florida dialect, focusing on changes in speech among first- to fourth-generation migrants. Later on, they extracted expressions from their analysis to use in an experiment.
They formed two groups of participants: one from South Florida and the other from different parts of the U.S. They asked the participants to give their opinions on the appropriateness of expressions like “get down from the car” or “make the line.” Unsurprisingly, the South Florida participants showed a stronger preference for these expressions compared to the others.
However, the non-South Florida participants didn’t find the expressions necessarily rude or incorrect. They just rated them lower than the South Florida group did.
Carter uses the example of the word “dandelion” to demonstrate how languages can adapt foreign words. The English word for dandelion comes from the French “dent de lion.” Meanwhile, in German, the word is “Löwenzahn,” a literal translation of the Latin “dens lionis.”
Linguistic calques are common where two or more languages interact. In today’s world, this interaction isn’t limited to specific places, particularly with English. This is why some languages like Spanish use English-translated terms such as “mouse” and “windows” when talking about computers. But even before computing was as popular as it is today, literal translations of English words like “skyscraper” and “football” were used in Spanish.
In Spanish, people often say “tirar una foto,” meaning “take a photo.” Interestingly, in Miami, “throw a photo” is sometimes used instead, as a direct translation of the Spanish “take.”
“When we conduct research like this, it’s a reminder there aren’t ‘real’ words or ‘pretend’ words. There are only words. And all words come from somewhere and someplace,” Carter said in a press release. “Every word has a history. That goes for all words spoken in Miami.”
Image | Denys Kostychenko (via Unsplash)
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