I'd like to begin by saying that everybody in the class should know that I am from Michigan (Eastern Time zone), and thus I am shaped by my history there (and other places I have lived), so any comments I make in class should be taken in the light of "she doesn't know New Mexico until she hears it from us nuevomexicanos."
However, speaking of different experience, I have still dealt with and learned about and experienced major social issues... a different way. Where I am from, people are really worried about equality, and when I say equality, I mean the kind in politics- everybody gets the same thing. So, talking about having separate schools in Spanish and English is segregation which is a huge no-no, due to previous segregation issues with blacks and whites. So, what I was saying by the emotional issues are different where I am from than in NM, I mean that to have Spanish immersion instruction for some usually means that it must be offered to everyone.
Unfortunately, most of the 'native' languages in the Eastern US have disappeared in public contexts in large numbers, which does not seem as much in the West, I mean both the languages of the Native Americans and the Dutch, German, and Hungarian (from my experience) etc. that is only confined to the home, that only the abuelitos speak. (BTW, there are many abuelitos who still speak these languages exclusively and some nietos can understand and speak a little and some can't).
However, more and more people are speaking and learning specifically Spanish in the East because of the Utilitarian Reason, like I said, because when I was young I was told "If you don't learn Spanish, you won't be able to compete in the new millennium." The Spanish program got so big at my high school that now k-12 is taught in both languages, 50/50.
What I think UnitedStatesians need to accept (because Spanish is growing in popularity among non-hispanics of all races and ethnicities) is not only that Spanish and English separately will eventually both probably be spoken by the majority (not speaking of race), but that Spanglish and code-switching will probably be the official language of the US in 100 years or less.
Languages will always evolve as people do, they mix as people mix.
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ResponderBorrarIt's really interesting to hear your perspective from a different part of the states. I had no idea that Spanish was that popular out east! I'm from here, and to be honest, I had no interest in learning Spanish until my sister went to Mexico and told me about the experience. No one told me to learn it because it would be beneficial to me, and now that's all you hear. With Spanish as popular as you say it is, it's going to be interesting to see what people are speaking in the next 50-100 years. But with this English-only movement, do you really think Spanglish is possible??
ResponderBorrarOf course Spanglish is possible. If linguistics classes like Language Change and History of Spanish have taught me anything its that institutions and governments can slow down natural language evolution with oppressive policies (like English-only), but they can't stop what's happening in the streets. F-yeah Spanglish is going to rule one day. Its all over the internet, and many people do all/a lot of their business via internet and across borders. It's not like Spanglish is exclusively United Statesian either. When I was in Colombia the girls I stayed with were bilingual (and of all different colors of Colombian) and sometimes they would be speaking Spanish and then say "Well, there's no right word for what I want to say in Spanish but the expression 'I got tore up' in English works perfectly for what I want to say." I loved it! I couldn't believe that Spanglish was so prevalent in the WORLD. Of course code-switching happens everywhere between many languages, but Spanish and English seem to be mating, and I am pretty sure that Spanglish will be its own thing in a century or so. Just like Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and French never existed before 700 AD. I bet the Celts never would've believed that they would speak Latin and the Latins would've never believed that they would be speaking hispano-romance, and then finally Spanish. I think it is just natural. Here's a nice little summary I found online about that evolution:
ResponderBorrarHistory of the Spanish Language & Vulgar Latin
The Spanish language originated in the Southwest region of Europe known as the Iberian Peninsula. Sometime before the end of the 6th century BC, the region's first inhabitants, the Iberians, began to mingle with the Celts, a nomadic people from central Europe. The two groups formed a people called the Celtiberians, speaking a form of Celtic.
Under Roman rule, in 19 BC, the region became known as Hispania, and its inhabitants learned Latin from Roman traders, settlers, administrators, and soldiers. When the classical Latin of the educated Roman classes mixed with the pre-Roman languages of the Iberians, Celts, and Carthaginians, a language called Vulgar Latin appeared. It followed the basic models of Latin but borrowed and added words from the other languages.
Even after the Visigoths, Germanic tribes of Eastern Europe, invaded Hispania in the AD 400s, Latin remained the official language of government and culture until about AD 719, when Arabic-speaking Islamic groups from Northern Africa called Moors completed their conquest of the region. Arabic and a related dialect called Mozarabic came to be widely spoken in Islamic Spain except in a few remote Christian kingdoms in the North such as Asturias, where Vulgar Latin survived.
During the succeeding centuries, the Christian kingdoms gradually reconquered Moorish Spain, retaking the country linguistically as well as politically, militarily, and culturally. As the Christians moved South, their Vulgar Latin dialects became dominant. In particular, Castilian, a dialect that originated on the Northern Central plains, was carried into Southern and Eastern regions.
http://www.alsintl.com/resources/languages/Spanish/
I've said it before as though joking yet it is a plausible outcome that in a couple hundred there will emerge a new language... Spanglish could be the official language of the US. The romans tried to control latin but it got out of their hands after all.
ResponderBorrar