As hybrid languages proliferate around the world, Euronews Culture has been talking in tongues around some of the most popular combinations in Europe. A recent study of the US Latinx community found that 75% could speak Spanish well, leaving a whole quarter of American Latinos unable. Of this group that can’t use Spanish fluently, more than half said they had been shamed by their ability.
Yet amid statistics of falling Spanish fluency in the US, a new dialect is developing. Spanglish “is the fastest-growing hybrid language in the world,” Ilan Stavans, professor of Latinx and Latin American studies at Massachusetts’s Amherst College told . Spanglish is a hybrid spoken language that combines both Spanish and English.
In the US, over half (63%) of the 62 million Latinx population communicate with this mix of the two popular languages. In different areas of the US, different Spanglish dialects have developed, with “Nuyorican” describing the Puerto Rican Spanish/African American English mix spoken by New York Puerto Ricans and “Cubonics” used by Cubans in Miami. Hybrid languages are a commonly occurring part of cultural integration.
While in the US, it might be remarkable to discuss how the Latinx community has created these mini-dialects of Spanish and English, languages melding together is by-the-by for the average European. Whether you’re stalking the corridors of power in Brussels or ordering a beer at a späti in Berlin, you’ll likely overhear at least a .