HispanicBusiness

The use of hybrid languages emerged in border areas between two countries with different languages. For example, in the border between Brazil and Peru, a combination of Portuguese and Spanish is spoken which has received the name of "Portunol."

The same phenomenon occurs in the border areas between Mexico and the U.S., where a blend of Spanish and English has created a very controversial hybrid language known as "Spanglish." It has spread and is used virtually in all Hispanic communities in the U.S.

For those who defend it, Spanglish emerged from the need for communication of Hispanic immigrants in a society where the dominant language is English. In order to communicate, the immigrants end up desperately inventing words that are neither English nor Spanish. This gave rise to the new language and subculture of Spanglish. Thus, a word like "truck" becomes "troca" and "parking" becomes "parqueadero."

Language purists totally reject Spanglish because they consider it an aberration of the Spanish language that needs to be completely eradicated as soon as possible.

At Reflejos, our position is to avoid the use of Spanglish and stick to a standard Spanish that most of our readers can understand. This can sometimes prove burdensome due to the variety in dialect vocabulary used in different nations of Latin America.

But sometimes you will find that we use "manager" instead of "representante" or "campus" instead of "recinto."

Although this might be a cause for alarm among linguistic purists, it just happens that both words appear in the dictionary of the Real Academia Espanola (Spanish Royal Academy), the organization with the final decision as to which words are accepted as part of the Spanish language. The Spanish Royal Academy accepts certain words of English origin because it understands that Spanish, like any other language, is in constant evolution, is dynamic, and can be continuously transformed depending on other language and cultural influences.

The same goes for English. For example, in the English dictionary we can find words like "resume," originated from French, or "hurricane," derived from "Jurakan," the Taino name for God of Storms.

So even though, as a publication, we don't advocate in defense or support of the use of Spanglish, we have to accept that this is an inevitable phenomenon that affects the use of Spanish in the U.S.

We have to accept that Spanish, like other languages, cannot remain static and must evolve by adopting words from other languages. And we should accept these changes and incorporate them into our vocabulary provided that they are officially authorized by the Spanish Royal Academy, the institution that has the responsibility of regulating the use of Spanish Language worldwide.