ingléspañol

Al principio

Let me begin by saying that whomever comes across this site, please feel free to write your messages in either English or in español. I can read either, although I read English far better than my secondary language. In this first post I want to tell you that I felt the need to start this blog to communicate with other bilingüeses concerning matters that are very close to me (about which I will delve into further detail in soon-to-follow future posts). By communication: I mean honest and ernest thoughts about how America (and by this, yes, I do mean the US/EEUU) is absorbing (or NOT absorbing) the influence of Latino/Hispanic culture/language.

Many changes are occurring, and have been occurring, for quite some time, and many many people are upset, nervous, or simply scared about this. I somewhat understand the fear, being gringo myself; but what I cannot abide is the reaction to this fear, which usually entails more programs spent on "protecting our Southern border" or waging a war on the teaching of Spanish in our schools and libraries.

In short, America needs to learn Spanish.

You've probably heard the term "Spanglish." Spanglish refers to this mixture of language, how Spanish is picking up English terms, such as "carpeta" for "alfombra" and "trucka" for "camioneta." In this blog, I want to skew that a little bit and talk about the term that I have coined: ingléspañol. This term goes a little bit further than Spanglish, because Spanglish appears to remain insular, that of "maintaining" a Latin/Hispanic culture inside the greater melting-pot culture of America, while ingléspañol feels a little more like the melting/melding that has historically been the raison d'être of the so-called American Dream. This term, for me, is a starting point: an indication about one possible direction for both our languages, that of an eventual merging. Until the two become uno, ¿lo sabes lo que I mean?

Dime lo que piensan.

posted by Verble Gherulous @ 10:04 AM