Language loss in America

Grammar & vocabulary, learning it, etc.<br>
Gramática y vocabulario, aprenderlo, etc.

Moderator: Moderators

User avatar
Bob
Moderator
Posts: 1772
Joined: Mon Feb 24, 2003 3:54 am
Location: Connecticut and Massachusetts

Post by Bob »

I can't see any reason why education level should affect our willingness to play with language (except perhaps that the more educated might be a bit more willing to do so, having more resources to draw from). In any event, language is a living thing, always changing in interesting ways.

I'm unconvinced that formal written language really reflects spoken language, even for the educated class. I don't think this was true of Latin, and I don't think it's true for modern languages. What we see as fossilized remains (i.e., written language) is usually something that has been labored over, not natural speech. I'm sure that Cervantes and Shakespeare didn't dash off their works in a fiery moment of creativity. Written works may tell us something about what was considered "correct," but they provide relatively little insight into actual language use.

Bob
User avatar
Eli
Moderator
Posts: 308
Joined: Wed Mar 30, 2005 8:00 pm
Location: Luray, VA. US

Post by Eli »

Hi Joanne, it is not that I'm particularly interested in languages, I'm more of a 'bookworm' of sorts, I read everything I get my hands on. Well thank you, that is the best compliment yet... Spanish is my first language, although I seldom speak it anymore. Often I write in English and then have trouble translating it to Spanish. I have no problem translating other folks writings, or my own a couple of days after the fact, but from my experience here I’ve noticed that if I write something in English and immediately afterwards I attempt to translate it to Spanish I have a ‘mental block’ of some sort, not sure why that is. Upon reading my posts two days later I find myself thinking ‘geez...’ lol Don’t know if it would happen the other way around as I haven’t done that yet. Think I might just try it to see what happens.

>>I'm just going to assume, as I have up until now,....

I don't disagree with that at all, people from all walks of life contribute to the evolution of the language.

yup, I completely agree with Bob as well.

---------

El Español siendo uno de los pocos idiomas regulados (sino el unico) por medio de la Real Academia Española en su ultima edicion agrego mas de 16,000 nuevas palabras o significados a palabras existentes. Ellos describen su trabajo de esta manera; "El Banco de datos recoge el español que se emplea o se empleó en todos los territorios de habla hispana y en todas las épocas de su historia. Es importante el peso concedido al español de América, que se divide en seis grandes zonas lingüísticas, y supone un 50% del número de registros. Además, los dos corpus se estructuran según una serie de hipercampos o géneros, que incluyen tanto la lengua literaria como la no literaria."

Una busqueda en http://www.rae.es/ sobre las palabras introducidas al Español en la ultima edicion (escoji la letra S) nos da:

=============

sajurín, na. adj. El Salv. Dicho de una persona: traviesa (º inquieta).

salsina. f. Hond. Salsa de tomate frito que se vende en conserva.

saltoguareño, ña. adj. Natural de Salto del Guairá. U. t. c. s. º 2. Perteneciente o relativo a esta ciudad, capital del departamento de Kanindeyú, en el Paraguay.

saó. m. Bol. Palmera del Oriente. º 2. Bol. Sombrero fabricado con la fibra que da dicha palmera.

seibano, na. adj. Natural de El Seibo. U. t. c. s. º 2. Perteneciente o relativo a esta localidad de la República Dominicana o a su provincia.

semillazo. m. C. Rica. Golpe, porrazo.

semipiso. m. Arg. En edificios de varias alturas, departamento que ocupa con otro análogo la totalidad de una planta.

sirifico, ca. adj. Hond. mentiroso (º que tiene costumbre de mentir).

sobrador, ra. adj. Arg. Dicho de una persona: Que acostumbra tratar con suficiencia a las demás.


=========



Uno claramente puede ver como palabras creadas en distintas partes se van agregando al idioma. Las personas que regulan el idioma simplemente reunen las palabras que utilizan los incultos con mayor frecuencia, cuando suficientes personas utilizan una palabra determinada la agregan al idioma. De la misma manera cuando una palabra simplemente cae en desuso, la retiran.

Aunque talvez me equivoque, francamente todas esas palabras parecen haber tenido su origen en alguna jerga local.

Elí
User avatar
JoAnne
Posts: 34
Joined: Fri Dec 23, 2005 12:51 pm
Location: Maryland
Contact:

Language development of an Asturian American

Post by JoAnne »

Hi Eli, No wonder your Spanish is so good! We're having to learn it the hard way. :? If you are an Asturian-American, or even if you're not, I'd be interested in hearing about your early language development with Spanish as your first language, how you learned English, when and where you still use Spanish, etc. I'm interested in the bilingual experience (in fact, I would like to take a graduate class about it), and of course as an ESOL teacher I'm interested in first and second language development, too. JoAnne
User avatar
Bob
Moderator
Posts: 1772
Joined: Mon Feb 24, 2003 3:54 am
Location: Connecticut and Massachusetts

Post by Bob »

Eli,

I think your difficulty in translating immediately after writing may be a variant of the old code swtiching problem. Even given two reasonably similar languages (like English and Spanish as opposed to either one and Japanese), switching language is mid-sentence is difficult. We not only have to rearrange our voice machinerey to produce somewhat different sounds, but we also have to switch from one set of syntactic and grammatical structures to another. I suspect that much the same thing happens when trying to translate immediately after writing, because we still remember what we have written all too clearly.

I found that my spoken Spanish improved quite a bit when I visited Asturias because I forced myself to think in Spanish, not first in English and then translate. Translating from Spanish (or French) into English is very easy for me, but the reverse takes much more time. And I can read several other languages with decent understanding, but I can't translate from English into them at all. It's funny how our minds work.
User avatar
Eli
Moderator
Posts: 308
Joined: Wed Mar 30, 2005 8:00 pm
Location: Luray, VA. US

Post by Eli »

kinda had an ace up my sleeve.... :-) I’m not Asturian-American I’m just the plain garden variety of common everyday ‘what you see is what you get kind’ of American. I was born and raised in the American southwest, to be more precise in Lima, Peru. I went to the Unitedstadian School of Lima, so I grew up with English as a second language. Although I have an accent, it is so lite that folks often assume I’m Canadian. The only two places I use Spanish nowadays are here and in a private MSN group were I share new genealogical info with other members of my family all over the world, some of them don’t speak Spanish which must be a drag for them given our surname... :-) ohh there is one other place/time I'll still almost always use Spanish. There are certain words that just don’t have an equivalent expression in English, for instance if you are hammering a nail and you miss the nail and hit your thumb... the English expressions just fall short of the true meaning you want to convey or express... in that case invariably I’ll use the Spanish expression carajo! ;-)

Stopped speaking English when I left school and picked it up again at 24 when I came to the States. Although a little rusty at the time it didn’t take long for me to get back on the horse again. Since, I’ve spoken Spanish less and less every day. Not by choice, rather, there are few Spanish speaking people in my neck of the woods. Since those that do speak the language and I have nothing in common, we don’t seek each other out.

Wish you all kinds of good luck with your new project, if you choose to pursue it.

============

I think you are right Bob, this just occured to me, I could be way off but it may be something like that ol’ trick, try and do this if you can:
---------------
How Smart is Your Right Foot?

This is so funny that it will boggle your mind. And if you are
anywhere near as stubborn as I am, you will keep trying at
least a few more times to see if you can outsmart your foot,
but you can't.

1. While sitting at your desk, lift your right foot off the
floor and make clockwise circles.

2. Now, while doing this, draw the number "6" in the air with
your right hand. Your foot will change direction.

I told you so. And, there's nothing you can do about it!

Go ahead KEEP TRYING ALL YOU WANT!

Have a great day!

Now get back to work!!
------------

It occurs to me that language skills probably work much in the same manner as motor skills, I could be way off so don’t quote me on that ;-)

>>I found that my spoken Spanish improved quite a bit when ...

The same happens to me, if for some reason I speak nothing but Spanish it will improve tremendously, it is not that I have forgotten it, since all it takes is a couple of hours of talking in Spanish and it comes back (for the most part, except for a word here and there) as if I had never stopped speaking it, so it is probably like old lanes/connections that our brains haven’t used in a while so it kinda has to think ‘ok... so what word means what I want to say and how do I make that sound again ...?’

I never really considered myself fully bilingual until I realized that I was dreaming in English, not only me but other characters; for instance, my dad never spoke English, however in my dreams at some point he would express himself in English (not always, in fact seldom), but when characters that in real life only spoke in Spanish in my dreams portrayed themselves in English, I knew I was bilingual. The characters themselves had become secondary to the plot, my thinking, even dreaming was happening at it’s most basic level in the second language.

Like you, because I know Spanish and English, I find that I can read other languages i/e French, Italian and Portuguese, and get the jist of what they are saying. I still can't speak them though...


Elí

ps. Think I’ve made a new rule for myself, I'll translate my posts if 5 lines or less, otherwise it becomes too much of a chore.....
Fonzu
Posts: 43
Joined: Thu Jun 19, 2003 8:04 am
Location: Maryland

Post by Fonzu »

He leido algunos de los comentarios anteriores sobre el español, el inglés y el deterioro de ambos o spanglish.

Tengo un hijo de 12 años nacido en U.S.A. Habla razonablemente español considerando que su madre es de latinoamérica y tiene mas contacto con su parte que con la mia (soy asturianu hasta los huesos) en su escuela estudia español (o debería por que sólo les ponen interés a los que no saben nada). Su maestra es una chica joven que habla un español muy "agringado" dominado por el estereotipo de que todo lo que suena a español ha de ser relacionado con México. El año pasado asistí a una reunión en la escuela y cuando visité el aula de español me percaté que en la pared había banderas de todos los paises latinoamericanos de habla hispana pero no había una bandera de España. Este año cuando mi hijo vuelve a la escuela y el primer día de clase de español le dice a la maestra que estubo en Mexico ella le pregunta que si montó en burro.

No entiendo como puede ser tan difícil encontrar profesionales competentes, lo que sí entiendo es que mientras tanto, nos estamos acercando al momento que todos los errores de la lengua se justifican dando a entender que o todo es mexicano o está bajo esa palabrita que quisiera llamarla de otra manera (.... ......) pero que la gente llama spanglish

saludos

caxigal
User avatar
Bob
Moderator
Posts: 1772
Joined: Mon Feb 24, 2003 3:54 am
Location: Connecticut and Massachusetts

Post by Bob »

Eli,

I love your description of Lima, Peru as the American southwest. It's quite true, but it would lost on most of my fellow norteamericanos here in EEUU.

Bob
User avatar
Art
Site Admin
Posts: 4489
Joined: Mon Feb 17, 2003 4:50 am
Location: Maryland

Post by Art »

Alfonso wrote:No entiendo como puede ser tan difícil encontrar profesionales competentes.
Hola, Alfonso,
Creo que hay una escasez grave de profesoras de español. Con un diploma universitaria y habilidad en la lengua, no sería díficil encontrar trabajo.

Los profesores de las escuelas públicas son norteamericanos normales, más or menos. La mayoría de nosotros no somos muy listos en geografía o culturas extranjeras.

Se me ocurrió que es probable que la professora agradecería tu visita a la clase para presentar una programa sobre Asturias. Es bastante corriente aquí que los padres participaran en las clases así. ¡Y ya tienes los accesorios asturianas!

----------------
Alfonso wrote:I don't understand how it could be that difficult to find competent professionals..
Hi, Alfonso,
I think there's a severe shortage of Spanish teachers. With a college diploma and ability in the language, it might not be hard to find a job.

Public school teachers are average North Americans, more or less. The majority of us aren't very bright about geography or foreign cultures.

It strikes me that the teacher might welcome your visiting the class to present a program on Asturias. It's fairly common for parents here to participate in classes like that. And you already have the Asturian "props"!
Fonzu
Posts: 43
Joined: Thu Jun 19, 2003 8:04 am
Location: Maryland

Post by Fonzu »

Art,

Yo debería de haber empezado mi respuesta anterior con un Feliz Año 2006 para todos pero bueno lo digo ahora.

Volviendo al tema, he de añadir que en este caso tiene menos perdón aún ya que no es una escuela pública sino privada.

Si he pensado como bien indicas en pedir una cita a esa maestra para que me explique un poco cual es su programa para este año académico 2005-2006 y aprovechar esa cita para sugerirle que tome una acción diferente en cuanto a tareas por ejemplo con los muchachos (en asturianu "rapaces") que ya tienen una base fuerte en el idioma.

Lo que me dices de la presentación de Asturias e incluso ir vestido no se me había ocurrido pero obviamente lo consideraré, además el "rapaz miu" también tiene otro traje de asturianu. Ya te contaré.

Cambiando de tema y aunque es algo temprano quisiera preguntar si alguno de los locales pudieran venir este año al Festival del Potomac y/o aportar material y/o ideas. De mano espero que tu (Art) puedas venir a darnos esa valiosa ayuda que en otras ocasiones nos has prestado, y así pasar a ser parte del "inventario" del Fest.


Saludos astures

Alfonso
User avatar
Art
Site Admin
Posts: 4489
Joined: Mon Feb 17, 2003 4:50 am
Location: Maryland

Post by Art »

Hola, Alfonso,

Sí, claro, me encantaría ayudar con la tienda asturiana en el Festival de Potomac. Voy a abrir otro hilo para este tema aquí: (http://www.asturianus.org/forum/viewtop ... =5908#5908).

Vaya, en una escuela privado se espera mejor, es verdad. Bueno, ¿quizas puedas ejercer algún dominio sobre la profesora?

--------------

Hi, Alfonso,

You bet! I'd love to help with the Asturian Tent at the Potomac Celtic Festival. I'm going to open another thread here for this topic: http://www.asturianus.org/forum/viewtop ... =5908#5908

Wow, in a private school one would expect better, that's true. Well, mayve you can exert some influence on the teacher?
User avatar
Eli
Moderator
Posts: 308
Joined: Wed Mar 30, 2005 8:00 pm
Location: Luray, VA. US

Post by Eli »

Hmm... que palabrita es esa Caxigal? no tengo idea a que te refieres... Hispanic? Latino? pero luego dices Spanglish asi que no entiendo. Sobre lo de la profesora, no estoy seguro de que pensar, sin conocerla es dificil juzgar.

------

hey Bob, yeah I'm sure some would think wait a minute... but Unitedstadians are by in large an intelligent bunch most first react with a something of a defensive position, but soon they realize there is no need for that. Most folks I know tend to agree with my point of view, think that the trick is that I don't force it on anybody, I let them know what I think then it is up to them to embrace it or not.

------

Fui a ver el telar sobre el festival Asturiano que comenzo Art, me parece fantastico el que ustedes hagan eso. Si no me equivoco he visto algo al respecto el año pasado y pense ir a verlo, pero luego me olvide.

------------

huh what word were you talking about Caxigal? have no idea what are you refering to... Hispanic? Latino? but then you say Spanglish so that throws me off. About that teacher, not sure what to make out of it, it's difficult to judge somebody without knowing them.

----------

Hey Bob, si estoy seguro que algunos pensarian un momento... pero los Estadounidenses son la mayor parte inteligentes, la mayoria al principio reaccionan en forma defensiva, pero pronto se dan cuenta de que no hay necesidad para eso. La mayor parte de la gente que conosco esta de acuerdo con mi punto de vista (aunque no lo siguen, lo entienden), me parece que como yo no los fuerzo a que hablen de tal o cual manera, simplemente les explico y los dejo que ellos escojan el usarlo o no.

---------

Went to see the thread about the Asturian festival, think it's great that you guys do that. Unless I'm mistaken I saw something about that last year, at the time I though I'd go see it but then I forgot.


Elí
Carlos
Moderator
Posts: 528
Joined: Sat Oct 18, 2003 5:14 pm
Location: Xixón
Contact:

Post by Carlos »

Hola, Eli

Caxigal no es hispanic, ni latino, ni español, ni spanglish, es... lengua asturiana.

Supongo que Alfonso lo usa como un alias, nick, mote (eso es algo muy frecuente en Asturias, incluso puede transmitirse a toda la familia), o bien puede ser un apellido.

Lo que en inglés se dice oak, en asturiano se puede traducir con varias palabras, dependiendo de la clase de roble de la que hablemos:

Reboyu o reboriu, del latín robur

Carbayu, de origen prerromano

Caxigu, caxiga o quexigu, del céltico cassos, cassanos (origen del francés chêne = roble)

De modo que, en asturiano, un caxigal es un lugar donde hay o hubo robles (en español robledo, robledal, etc.), concretamente del tipo de los caxigos.

Saludinos 8)
User avatar
Eli
Moderator
Posts: 308
Joined: Wed Mar 30, 2005 8:00 pm
Location: Luray, VA. US

Post by Eli »

Hola Carlos,

Que interesante que digas eso, la verdad es que me referia a lo que dijo Caxigal (Alfonso) "está bajo esa palabrita que quisiera llamarla de otra manera (.... ......) pero que la gente llama spanglish ". Pero gracias por la informacion, no tenia idea. Sabia que era un apellido o parte de un apellido porque mis ancestros se apellidaban "... ..... y Caxigal" no tenia idea de que el apellido era Asturiano, aun no termino (ni de lejos) con la rama que estoy estudiando. Me encanto el resto de la descripcion, la guardo para referencia en el futuro cuando llegue el dia de comenzar esa rama :-)

muy buen dato, gracias.

Elí
User avatar
Art
Site Admin
Posts: 4489
Joined: Mon Feb 17, 2003 4:50 am
Location: Maryland

Post by Art »

Pues, Elí. Ya sabes que estás en el foro con razón, ¿no?
----------
Well, Elí. Now you know that you're here on the forum for good reason, right?!
User avatar
Eli
Moderator
Posts: 308
Joined: Wed Mar 30, 2005 8:00 pm
Location: Luray, VA. US

Post by Eli »

Si, claro, porsupuesto! :-)

Mi apellido es de Asturias, es tan Asturiano como es posible ser. Comenzo/fue creado en el año 844 cuando aun era el reino de Asturias, despues de una de las primeras batallas de la reconquista. Precisamente fue buscando mayor informacion sobre Asturias que accidentalmente encontre este foro. Con el paso de los siglos el apellido fue cambiando y eventualmente uno de mis ancestros agrego el apellido de su madre y lo hizo "... ..... y Caxigal' pero como ni he comenzado con lo de Caxigal porque al independisarce el Peru de España mi chozno dejo de usar la parte 'y Caxigal', y claro, todos sus decendientes aun usamos la vercion acortada.
Post Reply

Return to “Castilian Spanish - Castellano”