Porfio_Rubirosa said:
What does ESL have to do with spanglish? Do they teach spanglish in ESL classes?
ESL has progressed while you weren't looking, Criss. Too many Puerto Rican adults functionally illiterate in both languages. The modern system has instruction in English with, essentially, tutoring in Spanish. At the end of the day, it's sink or swim in English.
As for the issue of spanglish, it's neither a language, a pidgeon nor a creole. It's the transitional use of a prime language - like "trade chinese". It has a long way to go to become even a creole (like achieving a culturally identifiable geographic group that speaks and writes it in a uniform manner for at least a generation).
I'm no linguist but the verdict may still be pending with regards to whether Spanglish would qualify as a "language". If you go to amazon.com or do a Google search on the word
Spanglish, you will find that there is even a so-called "Spanglish literature", which includes poetry, narrative, even medical Spanglish dictionaries. What for some may be a transitional tool, for others - maybe the ghetto-types described elsewhere on this thread - it may very well be the main form of verbal communication on a daily basis.Some people - there is some scholarship on this issue- seem to think that this is a cool phenomenon. They see it as a valuable form of expression for a special category of people. As if somehow speaking in an unintelligible patois gives one an identity to feel proud of.
Even though languages were meant to change over time and places, it is clear that this mixing of two well-established and complex languages is a poor substitute for learning either one, or both of them well. This Spanglish culture does not travel well into either the mainstream Anglo-Saxon or the mainstream Spanish/Latin American culture. It seems to me a disservice to children that have migrated to a country with another language to deprive them of the proper uses of the local language by allowing a substandard form of isolationist creolization to prevail. Schools and parents are equally responsible to make sure that children under their care learn at least one language well, which is much more valuable than this Spanglish. Not knowing English but proper Spanish instead only, is still better than using this Spanglish.
Perhaps against his instincts, my son nonetheless has been taught to speak, read and write in both Spanish and English here in the U.S. He is very clear about the proper use of both, and he knows that Spanglish is unacceptable in our home or in our interactions with others in either language. The fact that we don't know anyone who speaks this way may explain why we all laugh when it is ocassionally used on tv or in the movies.
- Tordok