tb04.doc (B5) // H. Ueda // 2004/11/02

Journey With Language – Variations in Spanish (4)Puerto Rico
●Destination - Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico is an island located between the Atlantic Ocean (OcéanoAtlántico) and the Caribbean Sea (Mar Caribe) to the southeast of the UnitedStates. It is about half the size of Shikoku in Japan. Visiting the old town (elViejo San Juan) and El Morro in San Juan, the capital of the country, it makes
you feel as if you have arrived in the colonial period. If you like music, youcannot miss the Pablo Casals Museum (Museo Pablo Casals), and if you haveextra time, you can also experience the natural world in the rain forest in thesuburb of El Yunque, or you can enjoy the beach at Dorado.

【Picture １: Children in El Yunque】
Politically, Puerto Rico is a “Free Associated State” (Estado LibreAsociado) of the United States, and American influence can be found in theirlanguage as well.

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A lot of English words are taken into Puerto Rican Spanish, and a
mixture of Spanish and English makes their language interesting. It can befound in the conversation of local people, signs in the city, shops etc.

【Picture 2: No Parking Sign in English + Spanish】
María Vaquero works on Spanish studies in Puerto Rico. In herstudies, she has accumulated data on English influence (anglicismo) found inPuerto Rican Spanish and cited some notable phenomena as shown below. 1•

Using Spanish words with English meanings: using bloques for“(street) blocks” (manzana and cuadra are used in regular Spanish).
E.g. Yo tuve que dejar el carro lejos, como a tres bloques. (I had topark my car three blocks away.)•Using English word form: coincidentalmente instead of de forma
coincidente (original form in Spanish) implies an influence of English“coincidentally”.

1"Anglicismos en la prensa: Una cala en el lenguaje periodístico de San Juan",Lingüística Española Actual, 12, 19902

•Calque or loan translation: hacer sentido in “Lo que dijo no hacesentido.” (“What he said doesn’t make any sense.”) is a calque fromthe English expression “make sense”. (We have discussed “calque” inMay.)
Spanish has many loanwords from English in general, and it isespecially true in Puerto Rican Spanish. Humberto López Morales is a leading
sociolinguist of the Spanish language. The graph shows how many English
loanwords there were among the 4452 words selected in different regions: 291
in Madrid, 170 in Mexico City, and 480 in San Juan. 2Anglicismos
500
400
300
200
1000MadridCiudad de MéxicoSan Juan

It is not always a simple selection of Spanish or English. For
example, an English word, magazine is used to describe popular magazines
for amusement, and Spanish revista is used for news magazines and journals.
●Pursuit of Language - Prescriptivism and Descriptivism
Intellectuals and teachers show their concerns over the situation, andoften make suggestions on how “proper Spanish” should be used innewspapers and magazines . This is a prescriptive point of view (posición
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El Español del Caribe, 1992, Editorial Mapfre.

3prescriptiva). On the other hand, linguists try to observe and study the realityof the language by making a record of people’s conversations, asking which
words are commonly used, and keeping track of the vocabulary being used inthe mass media. This is a descriptive point of view (posición descriptiva), andthey report their observations and findings in academic journals andpublications.
It is difficult for us Spanish teachers in Japan (non-natives) to decide
which position to take. It is necessary to teach “proper Spanish” in classrooms,
but we cannot ignore the Spanish currently spoken by native speakers either.
In my classes, I teach standard Spanish for beginners, and introduce regionalvariations for advanced students and in special courses.
In order to identify the difference between “standard Spanish” and“regional variations”, we need to study numerous references and continue ourresearch at the same time. It is necessary to cover all the variations to set astandard, so those two are interrelated with each other.
There are still a lot of things yet to be discovered about the Spanish
language across the world, and we will continue to study through precedingstudies and our own investigations. A collection of theses (Estudios deLingüística Hispánica. Homenaje a María Vaquero) was published last year(1999) in commemoration of María Vaquero’s retirement from the Universityof Puerto Rico. Inside the collection, you will find many studies on theSpanish spoken in various parts of the Spanish-speaking world reported by theresearchers she had known worldwide.
●Language Variations - “Drive”
As we drove from San Juan in the northeast of the island toMayagüez in the west, we saw a van with a campaign sign (see picture). It
says “If you drink, don’t drive”, and the word “guiar” is used for “drive”.

4【Picture 3: No DUI Campaign】
We have seen guiar (G in map) used in Guatemala, and conducir(C) is common in Spain. Manejar (M) is widely used in Latin America, butconducir is also used in some countries. Dirigir (D) is rare, but was used inLapas in Bolivia.

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【Map: “Drive”】*Assignment -4a
Read Lipski (1996: 350-364), and explain the relationship between Puerto
Rican history and the Spanish language.
*Assignment -4b
Lipski (1996: 358) describes syntactic Anglicism (anglicismos sintácticos) in
Puerto Rico. Study its geographic distribution using references and internet.
•¿Cómo te gustó la playa?

•El problema está siendo considerado.

•Te llamo para atrás.

•Él sabe cómo hablar inglés.
Corpus del Español: http://www.corpusdelespanol.org/, Google etc.

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*Assignment -4c
Describe regional variations of the word “drive” in Spanish.
Varilex: http://gamp.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~ueda/varilex/

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