Say what?
Hybrid language gaining popularity

AVRAH URECKI/Charleston Catholic (click to enlarge)

By Cynthia Hager
Poca High School

Everywhere you go today, you hear people speaking different languages. Some speak English, others speak Spanish. Some speak both at the same time.

Teens are required to learn a foreign language, and most choose Spanish because it sometimes seems like the United States’ second language. Then, when they interchange Spanish words with English ones in conversation, the result is Spanglish.

Poca junior Harley Farrell is a Spanglish speaker. “I speak it all the time,” she said. “I try to use just Spanish, but if I can’t remember a word, I replace it with English.

“I speak Spanglish to my friends, family and teachers, whether they know Spanish or not. I do not find it offensive and don’t think anyone else should. People who come to this country from a Spanish-speaking country speak Spanish, so why can’t I?”

Sophomore Rebecca Holliday does not speak Spanglish, but she doesn’t mind if others do — for the most part. “I do not speak Spanglish because I do not know Spanish, but it does not bother me [if other people do] as long as they are not trashing me in Spanish.”

“My friends and I speak Spanglish constantly,” said sophomore Alli Santer. “Even certain friends who aren’t in my Spanish class will occasionally greet each other with ‘Hola’ or apologize with ‘Lo siento.’

“Often while at stores, restaurants and even in the school hallways, I hear Spanglish,” she added. “This doesn’t bother me personally, but I do wonder if the native speakers are offended by it.”

“I think it is funny,” said Andrea Celorio, a sophomore from Poca who moved to the U.S. from Mexico a few years ago. “I like how they try to talk in Spanish.

“It doesn’t make me mad because they are actually trying to communicate with Spanish-speaking natives. I speak it sometimes just to play around, but personally I do not like to speak it. It irritates me when some native people try to talk like this all the time. They should either choose to speak English or Spanish, not both.”

But while Celorio doesn’t see a problem with English-speaking people using Spanglish, she does warn that once you start talking like that, it can become a bad habit. And like any other bad habit, it can be hard to break.