A new dialect of English is born in Miami due to the influence of Spanish

In Miami Spanish is heard everywhere. In stores, the pubs and the restaurants. At the doctor’s office or at the bank. An omnipresence that is changing the way in which language is spoken English in the American city.

A study led by Phillip Carter, a professor of Linguistics and English at Florida International University (FIU), has discovered the existence of a dialect of that language in the south of the state of Florida.

This variety of English incorporates calques from Spanish, that is, expressions literally translated from that language.

Thus, in Miami a person can say “get down from the car” rather “get out of the car” by influence of “get off the wagon”either “put the light” instead of turn on the light by “put on the light”.

It’s also said “make the line” (queue) instead of the usual “get in line” either make a party (to have a party) instead of “throw a party”.

The resulting English sounds strange to other speakers in the country.

The use of calques is common among immigrants when they learn the language of their host country, but it usually disappears with the following generations, explains Carter, 43.

His study, conducted with interviews with citizens of Latin American origin, showed that in South Florida this is not always the case.

“We were surprised to see that many of these expressions do not disappear with the generation of immigrants”says the teacher. “It was interesting to see that some were passed down to their children and their grandchildren. Not all, but some remain. That’s why we refer to this as a dialect, something that people learn as a first language and that includes some of these Spanish-influenced traits.”

fruit of coexistence

According to the US Census, 69.1% of the population in Miami-Dade County is Hispanic. The coexistence of English and Spanish is, therefore, a daily reality for many inhabitants of the area.

A phenomenon caused by the arrival of hundreds of thousands of Cubans after the 1959 revolution on the island and reinforced by migratory movements from other Latin American countries such as Colombia and Venezuela.

That closeness between languages, that constant switching from one to the other, sometimes in the same sentence, had already created the so-called “spanglish”a variety of Spanish full of anglicisms and calques of English, which is spoken in various parts of the United States.

“There is not a single language that does not have words borrowed from another”says Carter. “The loan is an inescapable reality of the languages ​​of the world. When there are two languages ​​spoken by the majority of the population, many interesting linguistic contacts take place”.

For Ody Feinberg the results of the FIU study are not surprising. “I see it a lot every day, because people start speaking to me in English and suddenly they say to me: ‘You speak Spanish.’ And then they mix it over and over again. It’s quite funny”says this 62-year-old woman, a client advisor for Louis Vuitton in Miami.

Camilo Mejía, 47, celebrates the cultural diversity of Miami, where he works for an NGO.

“Here you not only learn about other cultures, but you also learn about a culture that is the fruit of many people from different origins coming together, living together, and creating new things together.”

Source: AFP