Languages, languages, speech… are dynamic concepts. The way we express ourselves verbal or written It changes constantly (more in speaking than in writing, of course) and linguists sometimes have a hard time keeping up with speakers.

These changes can manifest themselves in an infinite number of ways and have an infinite number of causes. An interesting example of these changes was recently documented by researchers at Florida International University and the University of Buffalo. It is not related to what is already known. Spanishbut their contexts and origins are similar.

This new dialect It is the result of the interaction between Latin American Spanish and American English among many urban dwellers in the Miami area. The linguistic changes resulting from this strong Latin presence are manifold, but recent work has focused on one particular aspect: the transfer of Spanish structures and usages into English.

That is, without resorting to Castilianisms (e.g. Spanish), speakers of this new dialect use “calculated” expressions of Spanish that are not common in spoken English. It’s like translating one’s own expressions word for word when speaking in another language.

Phillip M. Carter, one of the authors who analyzed this speech, said: some examples of this in an article Speech: “We got out of the car and went inside” (“We got out of the car and got in”), in fact in English the person is not “getting out” of the car, but “getting out”;I stood in line to pay for groceries” (“I stood in line to pay for the purchase”), in English one does not “stand in line” when one “waits” in line.

The traces compiled by the authors of the study are diverse. They range from expressions such as “to get married” (to “get married”)marry” in its place “to marry“), changes in the meaning of certain words, such as the use of the word “meat” to refer not only to meat in general but to beef specifically.

An increasingly personal dialect

The researchers responsible for the study analyzed this South Florida dialect for 10 years, paying attention to changes in certain speech patterns of first, second, third, and fourth generation immigrants. They took some of the expressions they identified during their analysis and used them to conduct an experiment.

They took two groups of participants, one from South Florida and the other from different parts of the United States. They asked the participants for their opinions on the appropriateness of the following statements:get out of the car“anyone”create the line” and to no one’s surprise, participants from South Florida showed more closeness With these expressions more than others.

Of course, the rest of the participants did not, on average, perceive the statements as rude or wrong. They simply rated them less highly than the participants in the “experimental group.”

Carter gives a flower as an example of the variety of ways languages ​​can appropriate foreign words. The English equivalent of the word dandelion dandelionAdaptation of the French term dent de lion; used in German LowenzahnA calque or literal translation from Latin Dens lion.

Tongue marks are very common in some places. where two or more languages ​​interact. Today, this is not limited to specific geographical environments; all languages ​​interact in the global village. Especially with English. Therefore, we use devices such as a “mouse” to navigate between the “windows” of an operating system. Even before the advent of computers, we used expressions borrowed from English, such as “skyscraper” or the now obsolete term “football”.

In Spanish we don’t just “take” photos, we also “take” them, as in English. Curiously in Miamitake a photo” is sometimes often replaced by “send a photo“, that is, “take” or “capture” a photograph.

“When we do research like this, it reminds us that: There are no ‘real’ words or ‘made up’ words. There are just words. And all words come from somewhere,” Carter explained in a press release. “Every word has a story. It goes [también] For all the words spoken in Miami.

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Image | Ryan Parker

*A previous version of this article was published in September 2023.