Spanglish In Action

I watched a television program the other day in one of the Spanish Networks where I witnessed one of the worst (the best?) Spanglish conversations.
One woman was interviewed, and as she described a mix-up with a goverment agency, she stated: Los papeles no matcheaban. Then, a professional on the field, of Hispanic background, was asked a few things on the subject, and he said: Las personas vienen, siempre se introducen, son buenas... .
In the first case, we find "matcheaban" from English "to match". The frase translates to "The papers did not match". This woman here feels it's easier simply to make the verb look like Spanish on analogy with cognates in both languages, for example, as in the case of to describe and describir. The same thing occurred the man in this interview who used introducir from English to introduce instead of the usual presentarse. What he wanted to say was People come, always introduce themselves, they're good [people]. In Spanish, however, the verb introducir means to introduce but by means of putting something inside of something else. What he should have said was: Las personas vienen, siempre se presentan... .
Living in the United States, with a minority language that's truly becoming not so minority anymore, these occurrences in Spanish are not infrequent, giving birth to a new vernacular: Spanglish. In whichever way that one decides to call it, the fact is that it exists. I have found, actually, two types of Spanglish. One of them is used by immigrants living in the U.S. who only speak Spanish. These people adopt the vocabulary in use in this country. They will say and write bus [bas] from "bus", cora from "quarter", marketa from "market", troca from "truck", and the like¹. Of course, this lexicon lives around the Spanish these people speak everyday. Some will never learn the English language, yet, their vocabulary that they brought from their native countries, more times than not, will be displaced by English words. This is to the extent that if they were to return to their homelands after several years, they'd be faced with the difficulty of readdapting themselves to the lexicon there. The examples given in the first paragraph were said by bilingual speakers, giving the key to the other type of Spanglish.
In the second type of Spanglish, bilingual speakers, of English and Spanish, will borrow freely from the former language into the latter one. As we see in the above-cited examples, speakers of this Spanglish will take words from English and bring them with no hesitation into Spanish, with the changes that would make the word look Spanish. In the case of matcheaba, we take English to match, and add the marker for the third-person singular in the imperfect, aba, and we arrive at the word the woman said, matcheaba. These are only a few examples, but that's the magic behind it. Sometimes this happens because the person doesn't know what the correct word is, or, because it is this word that he has always used for that purpose.
Another practice amongst these bilingual speakers is the spontaneous mix of both languages: language or code switching. This Spanglish is not uniformed or standardized; it is born on the spot; in the moment. That's correct... we cannot speak of one Spanglish, because it varies greatly not only amongst regions, but amongst individuals. People monolingual in either Spanish or English are surely unable the comprehend a Spanglish conversation of this kind. This Spanglish belongs to those who behold both Spanish and English, where a usual conversation would go like this:
-Hey, where have you been? No te he visto all day.
-Ah, it's just that I was en la house de mi dad... and well, I didn't come back hasta ahorita.
-Y tu dad, ¿qué te dijo? Is he coming o qué?
-No sé. Maybe sí. Le voy a decir que we should go somewhere fun today.
-Yeah, tell him... porque tomorrow me voy con mi mom.

My experience has been that speakers don't conciously select what to say in either language, it simply comes to them as they speak. As you can see from the sample conversation above, each language retains, to an extent, the grammatical rules that govern each one. For instance, saying la house and not el house*, since in Spanish, house, la casa, is feminine. Therefore, the grammatical gender from Spanish is retained in instances like these. Not only that, but this concept is somehow maintained in many other ways; that is, the structure of each language is respected, so to speak. If I could describe Spanglish in one word, it would be spontaneous. In the same manner that someone might say Le voy a decir que we should go somewhere, he could say instead I'm going to tell him que deberíamos ir somewhere; or, porque tomorrow me voy a la house and because manaña I'm going to the house. It is the moment that dictates what is going to be said, in what language, and in which order. Either of those sentences is possible, and I'm sure that other combinations as well, having them experienced myself.
I did say that there are no rules governing this Spanglish because everything can be said in whichever way, the bilingual speaker will always understand. There are some possibilities which do not occur. Language switching will indeed happen not only in between sentences, but in the middle of them. In order for the language switch to take place, in some way certain segments must be finished in that language. For instance, one will most likely not hear something like: Le voy a tell him que we should have fun. Here, the first part of that that sentence, Le voy a tell him, is quite impossible because voy a indicates a compound construction which must be finished in Spanish: le voy a decir. The same thing would occur if the same were said in English. One would not hear I'm going to decirle, instead the compound verb would be completed: I'm going to tell him. This doesn't stop, however, speakers of Spanglish to make Spanish some English words. This is where the example at the beginning makes sense. For instance, if a certain conversation is being held, and the first segment is said in English and the second in Spanish: I think que no matchearon. The speaker says this sentence in a usual manner, with Spanglish as he does everyday with bilinguals. In this sentence, he does not recall the Spanish word, so he uses an English one in the Spanish part of his sentence. However, when speaking Spanglish, one does not think; one simply speaks. This is why I say that it is spontaneous. So, in this Spanglish example, the speaker takes English to match and makes it Spanish matchearon. Then, when he speaks to Spanish monolinguals, he does not know know that matchear does not exist in Spanish, or that if he tries to introducir someone, he will be trying to put them inside of somewhere. Spanglish in its prime.
It is true that languages are always influencing each other, in a difficult path either diverging or converging with one another. Spanish was once heavily influenced by a foreign language, Arabic, from which came words such as alcalde and alcoba. These words are easily identifiable because we actually see the Arabic article al (as in the Arabic TV network Al-Jazera). Another big borrowing of lexicon came when the Spaniards came in contact with the Native American Indians, from whom we got words such as tomate, canoa, and chile. Some of these not only made it into the mainstream standard language, but also entered even English, and other languages. Therefore, it is no surprise that Spanish is being heavily influenced by another language, English, giving us the old famous Spanglish. The only surprise is, for the language purists anyway, that the biggest influence is heard in the U.S., and not in Madrid or Castille, as was the case with Arabic. So, we have the type of Spanglish where those bilingual speakers spontaneously bring words into Spanish. Some of these words eventually make it to the monolingual Spanish speakers, giving us the other type of Spanglish. In turn, some of these words may eventually make it overseas and across frontiers, bringing to reality the anglicization of other languages in the world; languages for which when it comes to borrowing, English is their first choice. As far as the future of Spanglish is concerned, whether it is considered correct or not, it exists; we must learn to live with it, in spite of what the purists say. Just as the lexicon may vary amongst countries with Spanish as the official language, we may see Spanglish as another variety of Spanish. So, for the word "bus", we'll have camión in México, güagüa in the Caribbean and colectivo somewhere else, and we'll have bus [bas] in the U.S.
With all this, is Spanglish a language? A Spanish dialect? How about an English dialect? No one ever speaks of English being murdered by those people, as is the case with Spanish, even though English is too involved here. What I can say is that I have even seen and heard educated and professional people of Hispanic descent, including everything from policemen to politicians, fall into the Spanglish pit. This is seen particularly in the Spanish media, when political leaders are interviewed and they don't speak much Spanish. True. Not much Spanish, what they give is a rendition of Spanglish. As I have said, with so much matchear here and introducir there, sometimes not intelligible to the monolingual Spanish speaker. But, isn't the standard idiom of a country measured in regards to the speech of the educated? Wouldn't this imply that just like the standard pronunciations of Mexico and Spain are set by the educated classes, with pressure from the popular ones, then the standad for Spanish in the U.S. is the speech of those policitians, doctors, and lawyers to whom I refer? The answer is no. Even if that exists, not someone with a Ph.D. who does not speak standard Spanish, that is without incurring upon Spanglish, will be accepted, for instance, in the TV news. Usually, the people who work for the Spanish media, whose faces or voices we are used to seeing and hearing on the screen, speak not a word of Spanglish. When they do, there is havoc everywhere, especially if it comes from a respected personality, as has been the case with Jorge Ramos and his books, and who's accused of using Spanglish in his newscasts. Most of the time, the anchors and hosts are actually not natives to the U.S., having migrated here from a Hispanic country, hence, being able to speak Spanish, and not Spanglish. Those who have grown up in the U.S., and thus prone to using Spanglish, have learned and speak what is standard Spanish, whether it be with a Mexican accent in California or a Cuban and Puerto Rican one in New York and Miami. These people speak perfect, native English, but they have adopted what their career demands.

Some of these words brought suddenly into Spanish like matchear and introducir have made it into the mainstream speech of Spanish speakers in the U.S. These include the words I listed above such as troca from "truck", carpeta from "carpet", and others. As of now, matchear and introducir with that other meaning, have not yet made it in the mouths of monolingual speakers of Spanish, words forming part still of that second type of Spanglish. Who knows, one of these days, these words will suddenly belong to the speakers of all types of Spanglish and we may be reading an ad that says: Si tu troca no matchea tu personalidad, aquí te introducimos otra!.

1.For a brief list of Spanglish words in use, visit Diccionario de Spanglish.