A new dialect, born of mingling between English and Spanish speakers has been heard in some parts of Miami recently.
The Cuban revolution in 1959 saw thousands of Spanish speakers arrive on the shores of Florida, with many making their homes in the state and bringing with them their language and culture.
Miami is one of the most bilingual cities in the US with a majority Hispanic and Latino population and in recent years the influence of Spanish language mixing with more established US dialects has given rise to a set of unique expressions and phrases.
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Professor Phillip M. Carter, Director of the Center for Humanities in an Urban Environment at the Florida International University has been studying this evolving dialect.
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“In Miami, there are many ways of speaking English. The variety we have been studying for the past 10 years or so is the main language variety of people born in South Florida in Latinx-majority communities. The variety is characterized by some unique but ultimately minor pronunciations, some minor grammatical differences, and word differences, which are influenced by the longstanding presence of Spanish in South Florida,” he explained.
The new dialect sees users take Spanish sayings and directly translate them into English without changing the original Spanish structure of the phrase. For example users might say “Marco and I went to a bar and he invited me a beer,” instead of, “Marco and I went to a bar and he bought me a beer.” Or you might hear someone say: “I made the line to pay for groceries.”
Experts said the language is not only being used by people who speak Spanish as their first language (Getty Images)And the trend is catching on, while the Spanglish mix originated with bilingual people, researchers have noticed that some of these phrases have been adopted by native English speakers in Miami as well. These direct translations, called calques, are being used by the children of immigrants, who would have learned English as their co-first language in school, Carter said.
In 2022 he carried out a study into the new phenomenon of the unique version of Spanglish spoken in Southern Florida. A mix of first-generation Cuban Americans, second-generation Cuban Americans, and non-Cuban Hispanic people from the area were asked what they thought of 50 sentences in the new dialect. The same questions were asked of a second group from outside the region.
The findings shows that the dialect sounded natural to the Miamians but seemed more alien to people living outside South Florida. Carter says this shows that we are seeing the birth of a new dialect in the region, but he fears that it may attract stigma.
“I want Miami English to lose its stigma because Miami English is someone’s home language variety. It’s the language that person learned from their parents, that they used in school, that they hear in their community. It’s the language variety they developed their identity in, developed their friendships in, found love in. Why should that be stigmatized?” he asked.
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