spanglish?

Lately I've been talking to my "homeroom" teacher about my literature class. This has more or less just been us going back and forth on how I need something in 'simpler Spanish' to do, as reading one million old Spanish really isn't ideal for the non-fluent speaker.

So she gave me photocopies of our lit. book. Six of 'em. About the Renaissance.

I had to go back and double check the word for 'simple' in my dictionary. There's quite a difference between simple and small. So off I was to get that cleared up. The next day at school she asked me how it was going, and I continued to tell her how it took an hour for someone to explain the first column. She then made photocopies for me of a Spanish grammar packet, which has proven to be more helpful and realistic.

Later in the day she calls me over in the hallway (using the name of a German exchange student) and gives me this:


I just kind of gave her a smile and returned to my class. I wasn't really sure what to think. Spanglish? A school paper? Cool. So like the difficult words will be in English, and everything in between in Spanish. I can work with that.

Wrong.

I read the whole paper, understanding practically everything. Amazed, I had a lot of new words added to my vocabulary. But wait- there were a lot of English words spelt wrong...who wrote this?

So I read it again. I couldn't help but notice all the English grammar mistakes. "Livin"? Since when do writers write in teen language?

And then it hit me. How did I miss it? Spanglish. Not a mix of words- New words. In the language of Spanglish.

All the words in highlighter (pink/orange) aren't words. Unless I missed one, those are all made up words in the language of Spanglish. It made my day, really. Click on the picture to zoom.

With adding "O's" and "A's" and random verb endings, Spanish pronunciations, "ado", "aba", and everything in between, you are able to see the connection between the two languages.

placete- place
remembrearme- remember me
choppeada- chopped
cuarers- quarters
huntear- hunt
forgetear- forget
similarmente- similarly
felo- fellow
redy- ready
daun al dosk- dawn to dusk
anithin- anything
despait- despite
halfo- half

So there it is, my teacher's attempt at English. She can't possibly know what the paper says, so I'm guessing I won't be tested over this- especially since she didn't give me the entire article.

And that's it. Small but different.

My adventura d'day but you understeaba everythin o the leest halfo despait los things transladado.



Yo He finisheado- til lee(gh)ter,


-mb



PS: the writer? Llán Stavans