Spanglish (language)

Spanglish is a hybrid American language that mixes words and other ways of saying things from Spanish and English. It is mostly spoken in the United States.

Speech

Spanglish is spoken in American towns and cities that have large numbers of Latino people, for example Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, Houston, Santa Fe, Newark, and New York. Spanglish is spoken by Spanish-speaking people who have moved to the United States from other countries and immigrants who are are still learning English. Many people born in the United States whose parents came from Spanish-speaking countries also speak Spanglish. An estimated that 40 million people in the United States speak Spanglish.

Spanglish is a source of pride in Latino identity. In Living in Spanglish, Ed Morales wrote, "Spanglish is what we speak, but it is also who we Latinos are, and how we act, and how we perceive the world."

Spanglish literature

Latino literature in the United States has things written in Spanglish. Chicano, Nuyorican, and Puerto Rican poets, playwrights, and novelists use Spanglish. Here are some of them:

• Puerto Rican poet Giannina Braschi wrote the first Spanglish novelYo-Yo Boing! (1998).
• Chicana author Sandra Cisneros uses Spanglish in her poetry, fairy tales, and novels.
• Dominican-American novelist Junot Díaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao also uses Spanglish phrases.
• Nuyorican poet Pedro Pietri wrote the lyric poem El Spanglish National Anthem. (1993)

Spanglish music

Many Latino and Latin American musicians use Spanglish in the words to their songs.

• Reik released a song titled "Spanglish" that is sung half in English and half in Spanish.
• Ricky Martin, a Puerto Rican pop singer uses Spanglish in the songs "Come with Me" and "Maria."
• Pitbull, a Latin Grammy Award-winning artist from Miami, sings rap songs in Spanglish.
• Enrique Iglesias, a Spanish reggaeton singer uses Spanglish in his lyrics.

Spanglish duets

Spanglish duets are songs with Spanish and English lyrics. They are a growing trend in the American and Latin American music industry. These duets are sung by a native Spanish speaker and a native English speaker. Shakira and Beyonce, Romeo Santos and Usher, Justin Bieber and Daddy Yankee (in Luis Fonsi’s “Despacito”) have made the Billboard Hot 100 charts with Spanglish duets.

Related pages

• Code-switching
• Chicano
• Nuyorican

Further reading

Stavans, Ilan, Spanglish: The Making of a New American Language. (2004)