Why Do Spanish-Speakers Adopt English Words?

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Marianne. I am calling from Charlottesville, Virginia.

Lovely. Well, what’s on your mind today, Marianne?

So I was born and raised in South America. So Spanish is my first language.

And I am a trained social worker and currently a PhD student.

And so I have a fascination with languages.

And I love the fact that a lot of words come into different languages when the concept or construct doesn’t exist.

For example, canoe or hurricane didn’t exist until we came to the Americas, and those were indigenous words we took from Central American indigenous people.

What I don’t understand is why it compels people to take words in, for example, English that already exist in Spanish, and instead of using the original Spanish word, use the new English word, but make it in Spanish.

For example, in Spanish, for your bills, we say cuentas. But everywhere around, my clients all call them biles.

Or, for example, a truck in Spanish is a camión. But why do we now call it a troca?

And lunch, we have a word, I always have, it’s called almuerzo. And so now all of a sudden we’re saying, lunche.

And so my interest is, A, why does that happen? And B, what down-the-line impact does that have on the language?

Oh, wow.

What a huge question.

Let me ask you, where in South America are you from?

Argentina.

Argentina.

Okay.

And the only reason I ask is some of what you’re talking about is about the more immediate, I should say, contacts between dialects of Spanish and English.

So Puerto Rico, for example, is this wonderful mixing area of English and Spanish, or along the Mexico-U.S. border, all of those states have varieties of what’s often called Spanglish or Espanglish.

That are not the same, but mix in similar ways.

And I think it’s really important to talk about the why, as you asked it.

It’s partly before efficiency. People maybe reach for that other word more quickly.

And also in a bilingual environment, having those words barring troca or lonche might make a little more sense because their coworkers may understand not enough Spanish, but if they use a similar word, they’re going to get it, particularly in environments where it’s not all first generation speakers.

So you’re going to get people who are second generation and third generation whose Spanish is less well developed.

And so you get some increased understanding when there’s these borrowings.

But also some of it is identity marking, where people who maybe aren’t fluent in Spanish will use angliform words or anglophone words as a way of saying, look, I straddle both cultures.

Maybe not consciously they’re saying it, but I’m a part of both.

I have pride in both of my heritages, you know, both the anglophone heritage and hispanophone heritage.

So there’s a lot of different reasons.

But one thing I want to stress here, none of this is monolithic.

So all of these borrowings are fairly inconsistent, and it’s not really a language.

There’s not a common core that is used by all speakers, these borrowings.

And, you know, the other side happens as well.

Anglophones borrow Spanish words.

Of course, obviously, it’s often food words.

But there is this basic level of what you might call junk Spanish that most Americans know.

Arnold Schwarzenegger said, hasta la vista, baby, in a movie.

You know, a great example of it being a classic line that straddles both languages.

Yeah, I love that.

I hadn’t stopped to think about that.

I was just more like, come on, folks, you know the language.

Yeah.

But also.

But it makes total sense.

Don’t forget, Marianne, that people are incredibly playful with language.

They love to mess around with it.

They love to dip their mouths and ears in different pools of language and just try it out.

And sometimes it sticks.

Well, thank you.

You have a fabulous program.

And I drive back and forth between Richmond and Charlottesville.

My favorite thing is to tune in.

So thank you.

Oh, Marianne, thank you so much.

And thank you for calling.

And as they say, llámanos para atrás, which is the Spanish equivalent of call us back.

Yep, there’s a Puerto Rican one for you.

Llámanos para atrás.

Got it.

Understood.

Bye-bye.

Have a great day, guys.

Un abrazo enorme.

Thank you.

Bye.

Okay, ciao.

Ciao.

Ciao.

Whether your first language is Spanish or another language, we would love to hear your insights about English.

Call us, 877-929-9673.