The American Dialect Society

Englaol: More Language Contact in Puerto Rico

Author(s): Rose Nash
Source: American Speech, Vol. 46, No. 1/2 (Spring - Summer, 1971), pp. 106-122
Published by: Duke University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3087992 .
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ENGLANOL:MORE LANGUAGE
CONTACT IN PUERTO RICO
ROSE NASH
InterAmericanUniversity
T

HE
LANGUAGE CONTACT that began in Puerto Rico at the turn of the century

and has greatly intensified during the past several decades has produced
a number of hybrid varieties of Puerto Rican Spanish and American English,
widely used in metropolitan areas of the island. The best known of these is
Spanglish, a name that I did not invent but have adopted to refer to a type of
English-influenced Spanish.l
Here I shall deal with an equally interesting and important manifestion of
the contact situation, Spanish-influenced English. This language variety is
no less vital than Spanglish in the economic and cultural life of the island,
and its users run well into the hundreds of thousands. However, it is as yet
unrecognized as an independent dialect, different from Standard English,
and I have therefore exercised my prerogative as a linguist to give it an
appropriate name. This new variety of English, which I shall call Englanol,
contrasts in significant ways with Spanglish in the sources of its creations.
Unlike Spanglish, Englainol exhibits very little direct lexical borrowing.
There is, however, a great deal of syntactic transfer from Spanish, use of
deceptive cognates in their non-English senses, false translational analogies,
and hypercorrections in the areas of phonology and orthography, all of
which combine to give Englafiol a special flavor that bears little resemblance
to Miss Fidditch's brand of English, but is nevertheless completely intelligible
to its users and perfectly adequate as a linguistic system for communication
in Puerto Rico.
The typical speaker of Englaniol is a well-educated adult bilingual whose
first language is Spanish and who has spent most or all of his life on the
island. He has studied English in the schools for at least twelve years and uses
it frequently in his daily affairs. He considers himself, and is considered by
others, to be fluent. Educated Puerto Ricans differ widely in the way they
use English, but I would say that all who fit into this group exhibit at least
some evidences of Englafiol.
I

Before describing what Englafiol is, I would like to clarify what it is not.
Because it is still in the emerging state, describing the dialect is not an easy
1. Rose Nash, "Spanglish: Language Contact in Puerto Rico," AmericanSpeech45 (1970)
223-33.

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ENGLAi~OL

107

task, and at present I am seeking formal criteria for some intuitive classifications that involve two borderline areas.
The first borderline area is between Spanglish and Englafiol, where a
great deal of vocabulary switching takes place. Very close to the Spanglish
end of the continuum are mixed up messages that start out as Spanish but
include more familiar English words (italics have been added):
Se solicitan2 clerktypists.(classifiedadvertisement)
2 huevosplain. (menulisting)
Abierto24 hours.(sign on a coffeeshop)
English sentences that switch into Spanish, usually for special effect, also
occur:
Make big dinero.
He has that specialmanera
deser.
40 palabraso mdsporminuto?
Are you a bilingualsecretaryescribiendo
Moving closer to Englafiol is the more or less conscious use of Spanish
words in otherwise English contexts. Many of these words have no satisfactory English equivalent:
Have you tried our new improvedsofrito?
EasternAir Lines aims for Puertorriquenismo.
Golfers-Ram SuperD is muymacho.The most machogolf ball ever made. The
machogolf ball makesthe machogolfer.
Other high-frequency Spanish vocabulary items replace their English
equivalents only in informal speech:
What a tapon[trafficjam; lit., bottleneck]!
The winnergot a big abrazo[hug].
Is this elevatorgoing arriba[up] or abajo[down]?
All of the foregoing are borderline cases because Englaiiol users, as I
define them, do not typically make such simple vocabulary switches.
The second borderline area is between "bad" English and good Englafiol,
which overlap. Compare the following sentences: (a) No have money.
(b) I do no have money. 'No tengo dinero.' Although both sentences contain grammatical errors in Standard English, traceable to Spanish, and both
might occur in a language class, (a) is definitely NOTEnglafiol, whereas (b)
may be. This seemingly arbitraryjudgment is based, again, on my knowledge
of the people who speak Englafiol and the kinds of errors they do not make in
English, such as the omission of the subject pronoun and the auxiliary.
Englafiol is not the language of the student in the classroom, but the language
of the bilingual adult who uses it confidently in his daily affairs. Englafiol
cannot be equated with institutionalized grammatical errors, because the
equation would not account for innovations that arise and are adopted by

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AMERICAN SPEECH

108

other speakers as a consequence of normal language use rather than the

classroom situation.
Also within this borderline area is a type of linguistic activity that is
practiced for fun by Puerto Rican bilinguals highly fluent in both languages
and that bears a surface resemblance to Englafiol. It is produced by literally
and consciously translating colloquial Spanish into English, with ludicrous
results. This art was carried to its high point by the late journalist Eddie
Lopez, who created a character called Candid Flores. The following is
an excerpt from one of his literary efforts, with the reconstructed Spanish:
"I don't see the toast to marriage,"Candid said. "I see all you marrieds
making of guts heart to pay the counts. Like you, for example, you're the
brassiereof your family. Don't you have to sweat the fat drop to make enough
money? Me marry? Forgetit and sing a tango.Well, until the sight." ["Candid
FlowersRides Again,"SanJuanStar,7 November1969,p. 37]
"Yo no le veo la tostadaal matrimonia,"dijo Candido."Yo los veo a todos
ustedeslos casadoshaciendode tripascoraz6npara pagar las cuentas. Como
ti, por ejemplo,tfi eres el sost6nde la familia.e Td no tienesque sudarla gota
gorda para hacer dinerosuficiente?e Casarmeyo? Olvidaloy canta un tango.
Bueno,hasta la vista."
II

After the preliminaries on borderline Englafiol, I shall now turn to some

of the linguistic characteristics of Englaniolproper. These characteristics are
the manifestation of three kinds of analogical processes operating simultaneously in the mind of the Englanfolcreator. The first and most important
process is

DIRECT CARRY-OVER. The

guiding principle here is: "Since Spanish

does it this way, English must do it this way too."

Direct carry-over affects all levels of language structure, but not with
equal force. Phonology and orthography, the most superficial levels, are
affected the least. Englaniol speakers pronounce English words carefully,
making the necessary distinctions between such pairs as ship and sheep.
Many have near native command of English phonology; others may produce
minor phonetic distortions of English sounds and sound patterns with no
loss of intelligibility. Just as a person may speak otherwise Standard English
with a Spanish accent, a person may speak Englaiol with little or no Spanish
accent.
The most noticeable difference between Englafiol and Standard English
is the pronunciation and spelling of cognates in which direct carry-over
affects one or the other, or both.
A Spanish vowel phoneme replaces an English vowel phoneme:
We must knowour PuertoRican culture
/kulcur/.
That is a beautifulcolor/kolor/.
He is afamous/famos/writer.

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ENGLAJfOL

109

A medial consonant is deleted or added:

ended in violence.
The demostration
our conversation.
He interrumpted
is he buried?
In which cementary
Spanishy replaces Englishj

(y = [j]):

The proyectwill be completed by next year.

Women feel that "housewife" is a peyorativeword.
My mayor[major] is English.
Spanish i replaces Englishy:
The pickets sang himnsand waved placards.
He is a tipicalpolitician.
Cristalchandeliers are very expensive.
Double consonants are reduced to single consonants:
I read your interesting comentary.
Life is just an ilusion.
My daughter asists to the university.2
Final m becomes n:
Minimunsize 8 x 11.
Maximunsize 18 x 24.
We sell aluminunawnings.
A more subtle kind of direct carry-over is seen in sequences of words that
do not conform to English rhythm:3
We need an agressiveand brightgirl for a secretarial position.
We guarantee you the most reliableand completeautoservicein Puerto Rico.
We appreciate your thoughtfulandkind wishes.
On the morphosyntactic level, there is direct carry-over from Spanish
of inflectional categories, word order, and usage patterns. One of the most
obvious inflectional differences between Standard English and Englaiiol
occurs in compound nouns derived from constructions containing a plural
noun that is shifted in the compound to the noun-modifier position otherwise filled by an adjective, as in a pie made of cherries-+ cherrypie, which, in the
logic of Spanish, implies a pie made of only one cherry. In Englaiiol the
plural inflection is retained, producing constructions such as cherries pie
2. See sectionon deceptivecognates;Englaiiolasistor assistmeans'attend.'
Order(Cambridge:Harvard
3. See D. L. Bolinger,Formsof English:Accent,Morpheme,
Univ. Press, 1965), pp. 129-38. Such binomialsare always arrangedby native speakersso
that, if possible,there will be an alternationof stressedand unstressedsyllablesratherthan
two stressedsyllables back to back: bright and a-gr6ss-ivegirl, com-plete and re-li-a-ble
au-to service, kind and th6ught-fulwish-es.

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110

AMERICAN SPEECH

gravy(salsa de
(pastelde cerezas),saladsdressing(salsapara ensaladas),mushrooms
parking(parkingparaclientes),garbagesarea(areadedesperdicios),
hongos),customers
and childrendiscipline(disciplinade los niitos).Other examples:
CocktailsLounge.
For Sale: Soft DrinksFactory.
For Rent: 14,000SquareFeet Lot.
Wanted:FemaleSalesGroupsDirector.
MonarchCarpetFibersare SpotsResistant.
It's 12 noon by Rado'sWatchesTime.
ArtisticSignsCenter.
It should be mentioned here that such constructions are not unknown in
Standard English, which has systemsanalysis,earningshistory,operations
manager,
sales department,
innovations
committee.Some Standard English compounds are
Medical Science(s)Building.
acceptable either way: complaint(s)department,
Another case of inflectional carry-over is the use of a plural count noun
where Standard English uses a singular noun, usually a mass noun:
At your services
[a sus 6rdenes].
instructions
[instrucciones].
Swimming
Thanks for all your attentions[atenciones].

These are usedfurnitures

[muebles].
I am taking my vacations[vacaciones] the first week in June.

English mass nouns that correspond to Spanish count nouns are also
treated as count nouns in the singular through the influence of Spanish:
I will give you a goodadvice[un consejo].
We have made a bigprogress
[un progreso].
This is a nonsense
[una tonteria].
The definite article is used much more frequently in Englaiiol than in
Standard English, following Spanish usage:
I hope this has theacceptance
[la aceptaci6n]fromall of you.
TheFrench[el frances]is a beautifullanguage.
Is moneyso necessaryin thelife [la vida]?
Direct carry-over from Spanish to Englafiol plays a major role also in
word order. It is particularly evident in the position of adverbs and adverbial
phrases in sentences containing transitive verbs and direct objects. In Spanish,
verb modifiers usually come between verbs and their direct objects; in
English, they come before the verb or after the direct object. In Englafiol,
the Spanish order is used: This affectsdirectlymy work,like Spanish Esto afecta
mi trabajo,and unlike English This directlyaffectsmy workor This
directamente

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ENGLAROL

111

afects my work directly. Other examples:

I wish to congratulate wholeheartedly
Fernando Pico.
It is necessary to establish immediately
the program.
Buy todayyour luxurious apartment.
You can have therea wonderful time.
The tendency was to accept with openarmsthe white invader.
Another less frequent type of order carry-over is subject-predicate inversion in statements, of a kind permitted in Spanish but not English, as in:
It is of the utmost importance your actual presence at the meeting.
Opens soon here a new legitimate theater.
It did not arrive at all today the mail.
It is on the lexical level that we find some of the richest sources of Englafiol
resulting from direct carry-over. These include deceptive cognates, coinage
of English-like words, and literal translation of idiomatic expressions. Spanish
and English have hundreds of cognate words. Although only a relatively
small proportion of them have divergent meanings in the contemporary
languages, the semantic differences may in some cases be quite startling.
Some examples of commonly used deceptive cognates are the following:
She was molested[molesta 'annoyed'].
Please prove[probar 'test'] the lamp.
We should pretend[pretender 'try'] to work carefully.
I assisted[asistir 'attend'] to the reunion[reuni6n 'meeting'].
What is Julio's note [nota 'grade'] on the test ?
My skin is very sensible[sensible 'sensitive'].
Separate[separar 'reserve'] your apartment now.
You have to approve[aprobar 'pass'] this course to graduate.
He compromised
[hacer compromiso 'promise'] me.
To illustrate[ilustrar 'enlighten'] your readers.
He guards[guardar 'keep'] his things here.
The discovery of America was a great success[suceso 'event'].
We recollected
[recolectar 'collect'] a hundred dollars.
That's very gracious[gracioso 'amusing'].
Don't preoccupy[preocupar 'worry'] yourself.
Pass by [pasar por 'stop by'] the office.
There are many marginal[marginal 'fringe'] benefits.
We are conscientious
[consciente 'conscious'] of the need.
The door must be maintained[mantener 'keep'] closed.
My typewriter doesn't serve[servir 'function'].
I'm up for permanence
[permanencia 'tenure'].
The government has helped other entities[entidad 'organization'].
The New York Times is finished[finito 'sold out'].
I like to use [usar 'wear'] pants.
The university will present a cycle[ciclo 'series'] of lectures.
I bought that book at the library[libreria 'bookstore'].

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112

AMERICAN SPEECH
Sorry, but actually[actualmente 'right now'] I have no money.
We need a bilingual with capacity[capacidad 'ability'] to translate.
The novel didn't have an interesting argument[argumento 'plot'].
There is too much competence
[competencia 'competition'] between nations.
It's a disgrace[desgracia 'pity'] you lost it.
Everyone admires her sympathy[simpatia 'friendliness'].
Please be more educated[educado 'polite'] to me.
The conference[conferencia 'lecture'] had a large concurrence[concurrencia
'audience'].
Spanish is an easy idiom[idioma 'language'] to learn.
I have many parents[parientes 'relatives'] in New York.
Smoking is not convenient[conveniente 'beneficial'] for you.
We mustfoment [fomentar 'promote'] better relations.
There are serious lagoons[laguna 'gap'] in our education.

Deceptive cognates operate in both directions, occurring in Spanglish

as well as Englafiol. Some cognates show a tendency to switch places, each
hybrid variety claiming for itself the borrowed sense of the word:
Give me the applicationfor the job.
English:
Dame la solicitudpara el puesto.
Spanish:
Englafiol: Give me the solicitudefor the job.
Spanglish: Dame la aplicacionpara el puesto.
Englaiiol coins words on a Spanish model. Because of the large number of
cognates in Spanish and English, the Englafiol speaker expects close cognates
where none exist and innocently supplies the lack:
He adverted[advertir 'warn'] us of the danger.
Can you traduce[traducir 'translate'] this?
Your actitude[actitud 'attitude'] is very negative.
I object to this intromission[intromisi6n 'meddling'] in our affairs.
The scene was very pintoresque[pintoresco 'picturesque'].
There are always voluntaries[voluntario 'volunteer'] for that job.
Literal translations fall into several groups. Most prepositions have more
than one translational equivalent, and some will be treated later. The
preposition con, however, is one of the fairly reliable ones, corresponding to
with in nonidiomatic English. This translation is carried over into Englafiol in
idiomatic expressions such as the following:
He married with [se cas6 con 'married'] Elena.
One dollar with [un peso con 'a dollar and'] 32 cents.
What I mean with this [significo con 'mean by'] is...
Can we count with [contar con 'count on'] you?
Formal similarity between English and Spanish prepositions accounts for
some cases of carry-over:
I lived there during[durante 'for'] three years.
I know thisfor [por 'from'] experience.

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ENGLAfIOL

113

One mistranslation that is serious from the point of view of Standard

English involves both formal similarity and different word order. For is used
for por to express exchanges in expressions in which Englanol substitute. .for
has the sense 'replace ... with':
English:
Spanish:
Englafiol:

Substitute saladfor potatoes,please.

Cambieme las papaspor ensalada,por favor.
Substitute potatoesforsalad, please.

When two-word English verbs correspond to one-word Spanish verbs, the

preposition may be dropped altogether:
I have to pick [cojer 'pick up'] my husband at five.
The meeting was presided[presidir 'preside over'] by Dean Piiiero.
This report shouldbe handed[entregar 'hand in'] not later than noon.
Rosario Ferre grew [madurarse 'grow up'] in a castle.
A burglar broke[allanar 'break into'] my house last night.

Other kinds of literal translations use the most frequent English equivalent:
How is it called? [~ C6mo se llama? 'What do you call it?']
Can I stay with it? [~ Puedo quedarme con esto? 'Can I keep it?']
You are closed-minded.[Tiene una mente cerrada. 'You are narrow-minded.'
Openthe water. [Abre el agua. 'Turn on the water.']
The elevator is out. Use the ladder.[Use la escalera. 'Use the stairs.']

Word-for-word renderings may add, subtract, or change some item in

Standard English:
Until I don't know. [Hasta que no sepa. 'Until I know.']
I cannot less than... [No puedo menos que 'I cannot do less than']
We are in a daily struggle. [Estamos en una lucha diaria. 'We are engaged in a
daily struggle.']
The most liberal man that I have never known [que nunca hubiera conocido
'that I have ever known']

Finally, there are direct carry-overs in commonly used or idiomatic

expressions, some of which do not make much sense in Standard English:
By the book! [Por el libro! 'That's great!']
Under my word. [Bajo mi palabra. 'On my word.']
You are in nothing. [No estas en nada. 'You are really square.']
He's a self-starter. [El es un emprendedor. 'He's a go-getter.']
They caught him with his hands in the dough. [Lo agarraron con las manos en
la masa. 'They caught him red-handed.']
III

The second analogical process used in the creation of Englafiol is REVERSE

The Englaniol user attempts to make his English look and sound

CARRY-OVER.

more like English by exploiting the differences between English and Spanish

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114

AMERICAN SPEECH

-differences he has struggled with during many years of second-language

acquisition. Analogies of this type produce hypercorrections primarily in
the areas of pronunciation and spelling. The guiding principle in the mind of
the Englainoluser is: "Since Spanish does it this way, English must not do it
this way."
Some of the hypercorrections that will be mentioned are identical with
forms used by some native English speakers. These include forestressing
(afternoonfor afternoon),dropping of an initial unstressedvowel (expect/spekt/),
and doubling of consonant letters (collissionfor collision).They are classified
as Englaniol along with hypercorrections not paralled by native English
usage because, in the Puerto Rican setting, they are clearly cases of language
interaction. In reverse carry-over, the usage always contradicts Spanish
practices.
Forestressing of polysyllabic words affects both cognate and noncognate
words, though the pattern to be reversed certainly comes from cognates.
Spanish tends to stress words at or near the end; English at or near the
beginning. Many Spanish-English pairs differ in stress placement: animal,
animal; color, color; decision, decision; actividdd,activity. In Englaniol this
tendency is exaggerated, producing the following pronunciations:
I'm going to New Yorknext week.
He's an Ingineer.
We boughta new refrigerator.
Initial clusters of s and a consonant are not permitted in Spanish. Words
otherwise containing such clusters must begin with e-: estado, not *stado.
English does not have this restriction; both state and estateare permitted. In
Englafiol there is a tendency to omit the Spanish pattern entirely by dropping
the initial vowel in words beginning with unstressed syllables:
How can you explain/spleyn/ this?
The prisonerescaped
/skeypt/.
What is the name of the establishment
/staeblimant/?
Some phonological hypercorrections are triggered by similar spellings,
in which, however, the Spanish vowel is pronounced as a monophthong but
the English vowel as a diphthong with a different quality. Many SpanishEnglish pairs have this difference: signo, sign /i, ay/; vacancia,vacancy/a, ey/;
pura,pure/u, yu/. In Englafiol the monophthongal Spanish value of the vowel
letter is avoided in favor of the diphthongal English value, producing pronunciations such as:
Languageis a systemof code signals/saygnalz/.
We cannotworkin a vacuum
/veykyum/.
Lawsshouldbe made for the good of the public/pyfblik/.

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ENGLA]fOL

115

Such distinctive pronunciations are high-level Englaniol. They are

characteristic of speakers who have a good, if incomplete, mastery of English
phonological patterns, and are often the only clue to their status as nonnative
speakers of English. In fact, the logic apparent in spelling pronunciations
may give rise to more than one Englafiol variant, depending on the type of
analogy used by the speaker. For example, amiable/eymiabal/ is a spelling
pattern possible in both languages. If direct carry-over is applied, the most
likely result will be /amiabal/ by analogy with the Spanish cognate amdble.
Our more sophisticated Englafiol speaker, however, will apply reverse
transfer, producing /amayabal/ by analogy with other English words having
similar spellings, such as reliable,pliable, and viable.
There is also a less frequent kind of spelling pronunciation practiced by
some speakers whose Spanish dialect includes the substitution of /1/ for /r/ in
syllable-final and preconsonantal position, as in comer/komel/, porque/polke/.
Such an Englafiol speaker, in accord with the guiding principle, will reverse
the direction of the substitution, pronouncing English I as /r/:
Put the book on the table/teybar/.
That building
/birdirj/containsmany art treasures.
It's not nice to be a tell-tale/terteyr/.
Orthographic hypercorrections are of three kinds. The first is an excessive
use of double consonants, a spelling pattern that is restricted in Spanish to
II, cc, and rr, but has a much wider distribution in English. Many SpanishEnglish pairs differ in single and double consonants: asociacion,association;
afrenta,afront; oculto,occult; opresion,oppression;abreviatura,abbreviation.The
following examples of Englafiol have been noted in the San Juan Star and
elsewhere:4
AutomobileOwners:Don't wait for a collission!
Varied menusfor all occassions.
For Rent mansion... including2 dinningrooms.
Biologyteachervaccancy.
I am writtingthis letter because...
Christis comming.
Reverse carry-over may go hand-in-hand with direct carry-over. In one
letter to the editor, the writer discussed "the mennace of comunism."
The second kind of orthographic hypercorrection is the substitution of v
for b in noninitial position, where a Spanish b "sounds" like /v/. The Englafiol
4. There is, of course, the possibility that these are printing errors, but the evidence points
the other way. They are highly patterned and are seldom corrected in repetitions of advertisements. One "true" error, corrected the next day, was: "unexpensive results," changed the
next day to "inexpensive results."

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AMERICAN SPEECH

116

speaker knows that, unlike Spanish, English b is /b/ and English v is /v/, and
therefore writes:
The United Nationsis the greatestdeliverative
assemblyin the world.
women are still enslaved.
In spite of all this gibberishabout liveration
The governoris spendingour tax money on glove-trotting.
The third kind of orthographic hypercorrection is the proliferation of
apostrophes, which are completely absent in Spanish and are therefore
guaranteed to give an English flavor to one's writing. Apostrophes crop up
with the morphological ending -s when it represents the plural:
Attorneys'at Law.

I was not impressedby what the Soviet'shave accomplished.

Head Supervisor... capableto instructand controlqualityfor a pant'sfactory.
In Englaniol,inanimate as well as animate nouns may be inflected with the
genitive ending and marked with the apostrophe. This construction, too, is
absent in Spanish, and reverse carry-over produces hypercorrections:
Suit'sCity. Widestselectionin town.
cars.
We'respecialistsin Chrysler's
St. John Baptistis a saint and the capital of PuertoRico bearsit's name.6
IV

The third analogical process used in Englainol is related to Spanish only

indirectly. It operates whenever a choice must be made between two or more
English possibilities, and it uses English analogies. It may be influenced by
the speaker'sknowledge of Spanish, but the decision rests on what he believes
English is like. If his choice does not conform to Standard English because it
was based on a false analogy, the result is Englaiiol. The guiding principle in
his mind is: "Since this is OK in English, that must be OK in English also."
The choice made in a particular case depends to some degree on the taste
and personality of the Englafiol speaker. The conservative person will stay
as close as possible to the corresponding Spanish, in accord with the direct
carry-over principle. More daring persons,aware that the closest translational
equivalents are often inaccurate, will try out other possibilities that, to them,
seem less Spanish in flavor, in accord with the reverse carry-over principle.
There are usually analogical English formations to support either strategy.
In choosing prepositions,the Englanol user is often faced with a bewildering
number of possibilities. Stockwell, Bowen, and Martin list nine English
correspondences to Spanish en and ten Spanish correspondences to English
5. The lack of agreement, its instead of his, is due to the many translations possible for
Spanish su, which corresponds to his, her, its,your, and their.

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ENGLAifOL

117

by.6 Many of the distinctions between prepositions in Standard English, for

example in the desk and on the desk, are neutralized in Englafiol, and, if
necessary, the difference in meaning is clarified by context.
Some typical examples of prepositional use and their possible analogies
are the following:
We should thinkon [think about, meditate on] each student as unique.
I have to work in the night [at night, in the morning].
This fact hints to [hints at, points to] the real discrimination.
Citizens, don't throw your trash in thesidewalks[on the sidewalks, in the streets].
He may arrive in any moment[at any moment in a minute].
The elections are held on November[in November, on November 3].
They show an interestfor[an interest in, a preference for] their Spanish culture.
I do not intend to enterin [enter into, participate in] any debate.
You are not well informedof [informed about, aware of] this matter.
This is a causeof [cause for, source of] great sorrow.
I approached
to [approached, walked to] the walL
The complicated rules for verb usage in Standard English account for
such common Englainol examples as:
to [recommend that you, advise you to] change to a regular
We recommendyou
account.
We inform[inform you of, announce] the following...
I am suggestingyou[suggesting to you, advising you] ...
I accept[accept the invitation, agree] to come to your party.
We are usedto think[are used to thinking, want to think] in terms of the future.
I was thinkingto do [thinking of doing, planning to do] this.
There are a number of other things that may happen to verbs in Englafiol.
Transitive verbs become intransitive:
We loan money if you need.
Can you help me? I wouldappreciatevery much.
Feel free to call any time, you don't bother.
Past participle endings are dropped:7
Wanted-experience bilingual secretary.
Priceso you can have this capability right in your pocket.
If my Aunt Sisebuta were alive she would have exclaim: Echale!
Verbs are inflected for third person plural as well as singular subjects:
The articlesraisescertain points.
I'm sure all PuertoRicansagreeswith you.
All of myfriends doesn'tknowabout it.
6. R. P. Stockwell,J. D. Bowen,andJ. W. Martin, TheGrammatical
Structures
of Englishand
Spanish (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1965), p. 207.
7. The restriction on final consonant clusters in Spanish phonology may play a role here.

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AMERICAN SPEECH

New verbs are improvised:

He is accustoming
to the weather.
This author has impressioned
me a lot.
will
with
comensurate
Salary
experiences.
The audience applausedloudly.
The major word classes-nouns,
verbs, adjectives, and adverbs-are
to
the
third
of
subjected
type
analogical process in two ways. First, an
association with formally similar English items is evident in:
Most of my associations[associates] have already left.
The remaining[remainder] of the group ...
The air conditioning system uses salty water[salt water].
We are building new alive [lively] subdivisions.
In your public pronunciation
[pronouncement] ...
The office isfully new [fully and newly] equipped.
The position is of permanence
[permanent].
Informative[informational] Bulletin.
Artisans are crafty[craftsmanlike] people.
Please read, then initiate [initial].
He is a natural-born public server[servant].
Fifty hands rose as one. The concerted motion[effort] was audible.
Secretary-must take dictation and transmit[transcribe] accordingly with other
duties.
The association may also be with the same word as it is used in another
common expression:
Status was decided by waysof [ways and means] a plebiscite.
Our people show a lack of spirits [be in good spirits].
Second, the association may be with English words of similar meaning:
He chokes[rams] down our throats...
Write in strictest confidence outlining your experiences
[jobs].
Salary commensurate with performances
[skills].
If you have a tape recorder, it pushes[encourages] you.
You are so enrobed[wrapped up] in money that...
Your property will be persistently[frequently] shown to buyers.
The Popular Party in the last ten years has lost height[stature].
I believe in the rights for which you complained[argued].
Balloons and a wide variety of beach entertainers
[amusements] ...
Have your carfinally [completely] tuned up.
Rent a last [late] model car.
We have worried[been concerned] to make this the best product.
The photographer meant to beckon[call] attention to ...
Ponce-the largest authentic Spanishflavoredtown [town with Spanish atmosphere] in Puerto Rico.

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ENGLA.~OL

119

English-to-English analogies are most striking in the area of derivational

morphology. Such sporadic creations as the following are a tribute to the
inventiveness of the human mind:
course.
Englishis a compulsatory
The cleaningness
of the condominiumdependson everyone.
We need a personwith FHA knowledgements
[conocimientos].
Boarddo somethingabout it ?
Why doesn'tthe Planification
airlinesoperateunderstrictregulations.
Certificated
Graft is officialized
by the Nixon administration.
In attempting to express his thoughts in a language that is not his first
language, the Englaniol user is forced to be original. His perceptions of
grammaticality and appropriateness in English are not inhibited by years of
conditioning to prescriptive norms laid down by a dozen or more Miss
Fidditches, with dire penalties for nonobservance. In this sense, he can be
more spontaneous than the person who is a native speaker of Standard
English and who is therefore more language-bound. Idiolects in Englaniol
are due to this freedom, which enables each person to develop his own individual style of expression. The following three examples bear this unmistakable stamp of Englaiiol. The first excerpt is from an announcement by Aerequipo Inc., celebrating its tenth anniversary in business:
We build a dealershipof the best machineryfromall over the world. The kind
that conveysPuerto Rico's constructionindustryto a daily achievementof a
continuousfutureplanning.[SanJuanStar,3 September1972,p. 11]
The second excerpt is part of a message from Felix Morales, president of
the Heavy Equipment Workers Union of Puerto Rico, on the occasion of
Labor Day and the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Santiago Iglesias
Pantin, a union organizer:
As for this one, we don't know his age nor do we know if he is alive or dead.
What we do know is that it's a day for celebrationbut what'scelebrating,not
working?As far as I'm concernedthat's resting,althoughI work Labor Day
as my way of paying homage. [SanJuanStar,3 September1972,p. 5].
The last example of Englafiol is taken from an article written by Rosario
Ferre, daughter of the former governor of Puerto Rico, in which she explains
her political philosophy-a philosophy diametrically opposed to that of her
father:8
I believe that no matterthe sufferingin which being incurs,the PuertoRican
peoplewill necessarilyhave to face theirdestiny,assertinga new man and a new
independentnation,if they are todaylocked.[SanJuanStar,19 September1972,
p. 22]
8. Written in Spanish, and translated by a staff member of the San Juan Star. Governor
Ferr6 heads the New Progressive Party, which is pro-Statehood.

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v

In summary: Englafiol is an emerging variety of English used by educated

Puerto Rican bilinguals whose first language is Spanish. Its manifestations
are the result of the application of three kinds of analogical processes: direct
carry-over from Spanish, reverse carry-over from Spanish, and associations
within English that may or may not be influenced by Spanish.
If we compare the interaction of Spanish and English in Puerto Rico and
the resulting hybrids of Spanglish and Englaiiol that language contact has
produced, we must conclude that the basic structure of English has been
affected far more than that of Spanish. Of the three analogical processes
described above, Spanglish uses only the first, and uses it to a very limited
extent. In the surface structure of Spanglish there are a handful of loan
translations and a great many borrowings of English lexical items, which are
gradually assimilated into the vocabulary stock of Spanish by phonological
and morphological adaptation. The phonology, morphology, syntax, and
semantics of Spanish remain virtually unchanged. Spanish takes from English
what it needs to function in the twentieth-century world and absorbs it
completely, but this absorption process takes place on a superficial level.
Spanish, not English, is the dominant force in Spanglish.
And Spanish is also a dominant force in Englaniol. Here, there is only a
minimum of superficial vocabulary borrowing, but the other levels of
language structure are drastically modified. English receives the full force of
Spanish semantics, Spanish grammatical patterns, and Spanish logic. The
differences between Englaniol and Standard English are subtle, but deepseated. One might say that Englanol represents the triumph of Spanish
mind over English matter. The direction of change in the creation of the two
hybrid language varieties can be schematized as follows:
SPANGLISH:
ENGLANOL:

Spanish vocabulary *- English vocabulary

Spanish structure - English structure

What is the future of Englafol ? I think it is here to stay for the following
reasons:
First, it has a high prestige value. It is used by people of influence in
Puerto Rican society-doctors, lawyers, priests, professors,businessmen, and
other members of the highly educated class. There is no stigma attached to
Englafiol, except perhaps on the part of finicky English teachers born in the
continental United States, who seem to have remarkably little effect on the
speech habits of their students and who, along with other native English
speakerson the island, constitute a relatively small minority. I might mention
here that all the examples of Englafiol that appear in this article came from

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ENGLA;fOL

121

the pages of the English-language newspaper the SanJuan Star,from Englishlanguage radio and television, from university memorandums and faculty
meetings, and from conversations with Puerto Rican friends and colleagues.
Second, Englaniol is more intelligible than Standard English. A Puerto
Rican who is not fluent in English can exploit his knowledge of Spanish to
decode a message in Englafiol more easily than he can decode a message in
Standard English. As a matter of fact, Englafiol is the true standard in
Puerto Rico. With very few exceptions, it is Englafiol rather than
Standard English that is taught in the public schools, from the first
grade through to the university level. It has happened more than once that
I myself have switched to Englainol to make myself more intelligible to my
students. Neither the vast majority of public school teachers, nor their
students, nor the educated adult bilingual community, are aware of the
linguistic gulf that separates the two varieties of English. When Puerto
Ricans leave the island to live in the United States, they face unexpected and
unpleasant handicaps when they find that the kind of English which was
acceptable in Puerto Rico is not adequate for communication in their new
environments.
Third, there is very little external pressure for standardization because of
Puerto Rico's geographical isolation from the mainland. Although, theoretically, any Spanish-speaking person who also knows English can produce
Englafiol,9 as a widespread means of communication it is not used outside
Puerto Rico, for understandable reasons. Puerto Rico is the only region in the
world where both English and Spanish are official languages,'1 and both are
used constantly in daily affairs. As the level of education rises and the pace of
industrial development accelerates, more and more positions of authority
are being filled by bilinguals who were born and raised on the island and who
have not had many opportunities for contact with native English speakers
during their formative years.
This situation contrasts sharply with that of Spanglish, which is not limited
to the island. According to census figures, there are nearly ten million Spanishspeaking Americans in the continental United States, concentrated mainly in
Florida, Texas, the Southwest, and the large Eastern cities; and Spanglishtype hybrids have emerged in all these language contact areas. Because
Spanglish is closely related to the problem of bilingual education, it has
received justifiable attention from sociolinguists. Its practical importance is

9. An entire article written in Englafiol appears in Linguistics, no. 83 (May 1972), pp.
64-86.
10. In the state of New Mexico, Spanish has the status of a legal language on a par with
English. However, it is not a required subject in the schools.

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demonstrated by the fact that the New York School of Social Research
offered a course in Spanglish for hospital personnel and welfare workers.
Englaniol has not had this kind of recognition, but it should have. It is at
least as different from Standard English as is black English, and its educational and social implications are just as crucial, if different in kind. A
study of Puerto Rican Englaiiol would provide valuable insights into how
second languages are acquired, internalized, and used for communication.
But perhaps even more interesting, in view of our rapidly shrinking world,
are the ways in which first languages interact with second languages to
produce new and independent, socially conditioned varieties. To the linguist,
all of man's many voices deserve to be heard, that of the educated bilingual
adult no less than that of the uneducated ghetto child. Or, as might be said in
Englaniol, "The language is it that speaks the people."
[Received November 1972]

QUERY
Although mid-1973 is too early to know what the long- or even the shortrun effects of the Watergate will be, the linguistic aspects of investigations
into it are noteworthy. Quite apart from such voguish expressions as inoperative'wrong,' misspokeoneself'lied' (apparently limited to the past tense),
in time 'now/then' that have become household
and at this/thatmoment/point
term
is of interest. From its use as a proper place
the
itself
words,
Watergate
name, the Watergatequickly became a proper name for an improper event.
There are signs, as of this point in time, that it is commonizing. Jack
Anderson's column for 6 May 1973 began a story about the efforts of an
automotive manufacturer to conceal a serious defect in one of its products
with a timely lead-in: "The Watergates, with their elaborate tapestry of
cover-ups, are not confined to politics. Equally cynical and deceitful are the
corporate Watergates." Will the term become a common noun as the foregoing use suggests it may ? Watergatebears watching.

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