'Get down from the car': New South Florida dialect found that mixes English and Spanish
A Florida International University professor claims to have discovered an emerging new dialect that has evolved from a combination of Spanish and English in South Florida over 60 years, following the end of the Cuban Revolution in 1959.
FIU linguist professor and the study’s lead author Phillip Carter says that the developing dialogue is the result of Spanish expressions being introduced into English through direct translation, resulting in phrases such as “We got down from the car and went inside,” “I made the line to pay for groceries” or “He made a party to celebrate his son’s birthday.”
The research, conducted with linguist Kristen D’Allessandro Merii, sought to document a type of word borrowing linguists call “calques” in the English spoken in South Florida. In the study, the researchers identified three types of calques being adopted: literal lexical calques, semantic calques and phonetic calques.
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Here’s everything you need to know about the new dialect.
How did the dialect develop?
In a story where he talks in-depth about the study, Carter describes how prevalent borrowed words are among many languages.
Many of the words English speakers use today are calques borrowed from languages all over the world. Carter uses the words “pajamas,” “gazelle” and “tsunami” to illustrate his point, saying these words originated from Hindi, Arabic and Japanese, respectively.
This emerging dialect in South Florida has evolved similarly. Carter says that when Cubans first came to Miami, they would often switch between speaking English and Spanish depending on who they were talking to, slowly learning when it’s ok to mix the two.
The idea is similar to the emergence of “Spanglish,” which also mixes English and Spanish language. However, in this case, as more Spanish speakers began learning English, they would often directly translate a Spanish phrase into English, resulting in the aforementioned phrases that native English speakers might find awkward.
For example, the phrase “get down from the car” is based on the Spanish phrase “bajar del carro,” according to Carter. The word “bajar” means “to get down,” which has led to South Floridians adopting the phrase “get down from the car” rather than “get out of the car.”
What is the new dialect?
The new dialect uses three types of calques: literal lexical calques, semantic calques and phonetic calques.
Literal lexical calques are direct, word-for-word translations, according to Carter. The above example using the phrase “get out of the car” is an example of a literal lexical calque.
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Semantic calques are loan translations of meaning. The word “carne” means meat in Spanish, but it can refer to all types of meat or specifically to beef, says Carter. This has led to the adoption of using English words in similar ways. For instance, ordering a meat taco instead of a beef taco.
Phonetic calques top off the list and is the translation of certain sounds. In this case, Carter uses the phrase “Thanks God” as an example of a loan translation from “gracias a Dios,” a common phrase in Miami that has analogized the “s” sound at the end of gracias and applied to the English phrase.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: New Florida dialect discovered mixes English and Spanish languages
