the influence of spanish on american english by josep antoni bravo i súbies coventry, february 2011

The influence of Spanishon American English

by Josep Antoni Bravo i Súbies

Coventry, February 2011

The influence of Spanish on American English

Spanish has influenced on American English almost since the first British settlements on the Eastern Coast of the nowadays United States. Even the first european man to be at the nowadays territory of USA was Juan Ponce de León who discovered Florida in 1513 almost 100 years before Jamestown (1607). The first longlasting settlement was San Agustin, also in Florida, founded by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés in 1565.

The influence on the language was at the beginning limited to the new crops the Spanish conquerors discovered in the New World.


As for the ONLINE ETIMOLOGY DICTIONARY, words such as: Tomato, Potato, Chile, Maize, Tobacco or Pimento go back to as early date as middle XVIIth century and first reference to chocolate is of 1600.

Those crops were new for Europeans and they adopted the Spanish version of their original names in Nahuatl or Quechua.

The in fluence of Spanish on American English

We should not forget that Spain was the superpower for almost two centuries, those that go from the beginning of XVIth to the end of XVIIth.

The attempt of Spanish King, and former King consort of England, Philip II to invade the British Islands during the reign of his sister in law Elizabeth I produced the entrance into English of sailing related words such as: Armada, breeze, comrade or galleon.


From the British Isles, these words passed to the American Colonies since the settlers needed to cross sailing the Ocean to the New Continent. The Pilgrim Fathers arrived into Plymouth, Massachussets, in 1621.


There they found a land of wonders full of unknown plants and animals such as: Puma, Condor, Mosquito, Llama, Iguana, Coyote, Zorro, Barracuda or Cockroach from Spanish “Cucaracha”, quoted by Captain John Smith as early as in 1624, while he was in Virginia.


Let us read what the Online Etymology Dictionary says about the word: Cannibal

1550s, from Sp. canibal "a savage, cannibal," from Caniba, Christopher Columbus' rendition of the Caribs' name for themselves (see Caribbean). The natives were believed to be anthropophagites. Columbus, seeking evidence that he was in Asia, thought the name meant the natives were subjects of the Great Khan. Shakespeare's Caliban (in "The Tempest") is a version of this word, with -n- and -l- interchanged, found in Hakluyt's "Voyages" (1599). The Spanish word had reached French by 1515.


According to Aleksander Chubarov, “American and British had been diverging from the moment the first English-speaking settlers arrived in North America…

There were variations in American English which were unknown in Britain, and variations in British English which were unknown in America”

Maybe it was because of Spanish, French and Native American Languages influence as well as the huge distance between both of them.


As the West was hung, many words of Spanish origin enhanced American English, since those lands had belonged during centuries to the Spanish Crown.

We can see the Spanish colonial origin in many toponyms throughout southern and western States, from Florida to California, and from Texas to Colorado. Notice that even Alaska has some enclaves with Spanish toponyms such as Valdez or Malaspina, after the seamen that discovered those lands.


At this time, many words from rural life and cattle raising got into American English. Words such as: Burro, Mustang, Caballero, Arroyo, Canyon, Chaparral, Commando, Desperado, Tornado, Fiesta, Guerrilla, Hackamore, Hombre, Lariat, Lasso, Peon, Plaza, Ranch, Silo, Patio,Stampede or Temblor for Earthquake or the gallant Senorita for Young Lady.


The last important source of Spanish vocabulary into the USA has been the work of Nobel Price of Literature, Ernest Hemingway since it is well known his possition on defending Spanish culture. The online Etymology Dictionary proves as his the introduction of words and expressions such as : Fifth column, salud, nada, cojones or Margarita (for the famous cocktail after Rita Hayworth).


But since a Language is a living entity, this is not the end.

There are many words of Spanish origin that are progressively infiltrating in American ordinary life, maybe because of Latin immigration into the USA. Other words related to ethnical dishes which are popular are: cerveza, quesadilla, salsa (for both: sauce and Latin Jazz), burrito, chimichanga, fajita, jalapeño, guacamole.


Here we should add those related to cultural expressions, dance and music.

Words such as: Mambo, Bolero, Salsa, Flamenco, Fiesta, Matador, Macho and Machismo have become popular in nowadays conversations.

Let us see what the Online English Etymology Dictionary says about Lolita, which is diminutive for Spanish christian name Dolores (Lola).


Lolita fem. proper name, dim. of Lola. Title and name of

character in the 1958 novel by Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977) about a precocious schoolgirl seduced by an older man; by 1960 the name was in widespread fig. use.


This influence is not only limited to Lexic, but it is also spread to grammar constructions.

Nowadays is becoming more and more usual to hear double negatives in American English, like: I don’t want nothing, what is a loan translation of Spanish expression: No quiero nada.


According to Wolfram and Schilling-Estes, in Chicano English, the reduction of consonant clusters at the end of words is more than in other vernacular dialects which can partly explain the amplitude of this feature in the text of “Of Mice and Men”, that Nobel Prize John Steinbeck situated in Southern California, where the Spanish influence has always been strong.

http//www.uta.fi/-johanna.e.seppala/steinbeck.htm


Vernacular language has a tendency to use regularized forms instead of irregular forms as shown before with regularized past tense form knowed. Same phenomen can be seen with reflexive pronouns (Marckwardt 152, Wolfram and Schilling-Estes 189). Myself, yourself and ourselves begin with the genitive pronouns my, your and our, whereas himself and themselves begin with the object forms him and them (Marckwardt 152). Vernacular English can insert the genitive form also into third person as in the following sentence from Of Mice and Men.

This ol’ dog jus’ suffers hisself all the time. (49)


According as well to the same authors, Many vernacular dialects in the United States use a structure called double negative -or multiple negation or negative concord (Wolfram and Schilling-Estes 52). Of Mice and Men too has several examples of having two negative markers in one sentence. These double negatives are used by all the characters in the book, even the boss at the ranch.

Well, we ain’t got no ketchup. (8) Bien, no nos queda nada de ketchupThey don’t belong no place. (15) No pertenecen a ningún lugarIt wasn’t nothing. (42) No fue nada or No pasó nada


To all this we should add the increasing income of regional Latin expressions, specially in some suburbs of New York, Miami or Los Angeles, and that have, mainly, Caribbean (Cuba, Puerto Rico or the Dominican Republic) or Mexican origin.

It is quite common there to hear expressions quite difficult to translate such as: Pana that would be similar to friend, comrade or buddy (a Northamerican word)/mate (a British word)


According to Robert Manzanares, Councelor for the American Embassy in Spain, “The Spanish language in the United States is not only a language of immigrants, it is also the mother tongue of the Puerto Ricans, who are USA citizens...It is estimated that for 2050 the hispanic population in the USA will be of 100 million, about the fourth of the total”.

http://juantornoe.blogs.com/hispanictrending/2006/05/el_futuro_del_e.html


According to Atanasio Herranz, from the Honduran Academy, “The Spanish in the USA acquires the characteristics of total, global, neutral language; a standard dialect, a unique variety of sinthesis, not of control of a dialect over another and that tends to understanting and negotiation.”

http://juantornoe.blogs.com/hispanictrending/2006/05/el_futuro_del_e.html


Nowadays, the USA have got the second most important Spanish speaking community in the world after Mexico, and before Spain, Colombia and Argentina.

It is also the second most spoken language in the city of New York, the most studied foreign language and the mother tongue for more than two million of its inhabitants.


It is also the second most spoken language in 43 states of the USA as well as the District of Columbia.

Besides, many of the USA institutions apply bilinguism as a rule on their web-sites, such as The Government, The White House or the National Medicine Library.


New Mexico is one of the few states where there are non-immigrant population whose mother tongue is Spanish, however, the Spanish is not one of the official languages of that state.

Josep Antoni Bravo i Súbies


List of references: http://juantornoe.blogs.com/hispanictrending

/2006/05/el_futuro_del_e.html http://www.codex99.com/list/images/hemingway_sm.jpg http://www.uta.fi/~johanna.e.seppala/steinbeck.htm http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia http://etymonline.com http://1066andallthat.com/english_modern/

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the influence of spanish on american english by josep antoni bravo i súbies coventry, february 2011

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