By Francisco Zermeño

So, I walked into a Waldenbooks at our local mall, Southland (Hayward, CA), a couple of years back and asked the young lady: ‘Do you have a libro on the Aztecs?’ An understandable ‘Excuse me?’ followed. ‘Yes,

I need a libro on the Aztecs.’ ‘A what?’ ‘A libro, libro.’ ‘Oh, you mean ‘book, booook.’

Had I forgotten the English term for man’s other best friend? No. I was experimenting. You see, I wanted to find out if code switching would work in an English environment. It did not. I have tried it with other words: ‘Pass me the lápiz, please,’ ‘My zapatos are from Macy’s’ and even ‘I really have hunger’ and ‘what means that?’ Totally unacceptable.

The point to this is that this Engliñol – a word I just invented - does not work. Why? The dominant language in the States is English, and it doesn’t allow itself to be infiltrated by Spanish terms. It maintains itself pure. Ah, but you may say, we smatter English with French! Yes, but that’s because it’s chic. Much like Latin Americans, in Latin America, do with not only French, but also English. And, they do this to show off, to yell to the listener that they are learned, international folks. ‘He’s debonair,’ ‘We’re having hors d’oeurves,’ are completely acceptable and understood here in the USA, and outside of France and Quebec.

Ah, but how about ‘salsa,’ ‘tacos,’ ‘patio’ and ‘tamale’ (not the correct ‘tamal’) and others, you ask? Well, these are Hispanisms, Spanish terms long accepted in our English jargon. Why? Well, the Hispanic world invented them, that’s why!

But why doesn’t ‘libro’ work? Simply because English already has a word for that object; it’s ‘book.’ The book clerk obviously assumed that I’d either forgotten, or did not know the work for ‘libro.’

Well, that’s exactly what I conclude whenever someone includes an English word when speaking Spanish to one. It doesn’t happen when they write. Why? Well, they have a dictionary on hand to look it up, that’s why. I have not read this phenomenon when reading Rubén Navarrete (San Diego Union-Tribune), Jorge Ramos (Univisión), Rick Rodríguez (Sacramento Bee) or Raúl Reyes (USA Today).

In other words, I am in complete disagreement with George Muñoz’s thoughts on this issue in his column of the magazine Poder (June/July 2008). He claims that Spanglish, the ‘mixing of two languages can reflect more meaningful and emotional communication, as well as pride in a dual culture.’ Nope. Complete disagreement.

We bilingual Latino/Hispanics speak English well, and perfectly. Why can’t we do the same with our Spanish? Why would I write this piece in Engliñol, if I chose to write in English? The 995,000+ words we have in our English vocabulary should suffice in order to excel in English prose writing. While I write, if I can only think of ‘recordar’, but not its English equivalent, I’ll look it up. I wouldn’t write: ‘We have to recordar to write without code switching.’ I guarantee that you would not be impressed. Why then – as does Muñoz - celebrate the bonehead inclusion of ‘password’ (‘¿Olvidaste tu password?’) by the folks over at Mexico City’s Reforma newspaper? Shame on them! Also, those pesky ‘haga clic’ on websites, ‘fans’ in magazines, and ‘estoy estresado’ in the workplace. They are all linguistic sins against our beautiful language, the one that is ‘the language of God’ (la lengua de Dios), as Charles V roclaimed a few centuries ago.

I guarantee that folks would cry foul and be unimpressed if Yahoo were to have ‘Did you forget your contraseña?’ on their webpage.

We must do the same when we speak and write Spanish. Be unimpressed when it is not completely Spanish. Vicente Oria Razo (El Sol de Tijuana newspaper, Aug., 1996) stated it best when he wrote that if we lose our language and our culture, we lose our identity, because language is the expression of our culture. Like Frances Fernandes (‘Spanglish obscures students’ skills,’ UC Mexus News, Spring, 2008), I am also of the belief that true, ‘ideal bilinguals’ keep their languages completely separate.

Now, with only 295,000+ words in our language – certainly not as many as English, but more than other languages, such as French, with only 100,000+ - we do have a term for everything under the sun. And if we don’t, we invent it, as we are smart enough to do so.

Now, if USALatinos/Hispanics want a new language, I’m all for it. It would be a new identity, a new language, a new culture, but not a mishmash of two existing ones. It can be done. Witness what some folks have done with Esperanto.

In the meantime, I want us to promote true professional cultural pride in either English or Spanish, but not in Engliñol, or Spanglish.

Teach on!