A study examines the formation of a dialect of English in Miami under the influence of Spanish
The city of Miami (Florida) is living under the influence of Spanish, which is spoken by a large part of its population, the possible birth of a dialect of English that articulates expressions determined by Spanish in bilingual generations, according to a Florida study International University (FIU) published in English World-Wide, a magazine specialized in language variants.
The FIU has collected this Thursday in a statement some of the results of a study that points out that certain expressions exclusive to Miami are evidence of the emergence of a dialect of English (a kind of Miamian English) in South Florida as a result of a phenomenon that occurs when two languages come into close contact.
In this case, the study notes, sayings in Spanish are being “borrowed” and translated directly into English and then used by bilingual generations.
“Carrying out research like this is a reminder that there are no 'real' or 'pretend' words.. There are only words and they all come from somewhere,” said FIU linguist Phillip Carter, author of the study.
“Each word has a story and that applies to all those spoken in Miami,” said Carter, who for a decade has researched the city's English, understood as a variety with a subtle structural influence of Spanish, spoken mainly by natives of Miami. second, third or fourth generation English.
Previously, the specialist has examined “calques”, which is when a speaker directly translates an expression from one language, considered the “origin” to another.
Spanish expressions in local English
The study reveals that this is what is happening in Miami, that is, that Spanish expressions are being introduced into local English.
For example, “bajar del carro” becomes “get down from the car” and not “get out of the car”, the latter the usual one in standard English, due to the influence of the Spanish phrase spoken in the south from Florida.
The phrase “a meat empanada” becomes “meat empanada” instead of the more common “beef empanada”, since, the study specifies, in Spanish, depending on the context, “meat” can refer to all (including chicken and pork) or specifically just beef.
“There is not a single language that does not have words borrowed from another,” said Carter, after pointing out that “borrowing is an inescapable reality of the world's languages” and that when the majority of the population speaks two languages “there will be many interesting linguistic contacts”.
The study includes a series of expressions commonly used in Miami among various groups of bilingual speakers, focusing mainly on first-generation Cuban-Americans born in Cuba and who immigrated to Miami after the age of 12, and second-generation Cuban-Americans born and raised in Miami, who speak more English than Spanish.
Although some Spanish-influenced expressions were no longer used by second-generation people in Miami, however, not all of them abandoned them, the study concluded.
“Get down from the car” (“Get down from the car”) and “super hungry” (“super hungry”), for example, stayed.
Birth of a dialect of English?
In fact, “meat empanada” (“meat empanada”) and “give me a chance” (“give me a chance”) were used with the same frequency by both the second generation and the immigrant generation.
“This shows that Miamians evaluate certain phrases differently and don't see them as grammatically incorrect,” Carter said, to ensure that “this is how dialects are born.”
Carter also wanted to know how people in Miami perceived these types of Spanish-influenced phrases compared to English speakers in other parts of the US.
To do so, they chose more than 50 sentences that Miami locals found more favorable than speakers from outside of South Florida.
For example, “Get down from the car” and “super hungry” sounded inappropriate to audiences in the rest of the US, while people in Miami were “perfect ” or “correct”.
Carter says the data suggests there's a fine line between what sounds “foreign” and what's acceptable in Miami.