Spanish basically

[xandiwillflailx]

Am I wrong or being too prescriptivist if i cringe when i see people say "AMO este programa!" or other inanimate/not real people? Is this becoming an acceptable alternative to "Me encanta"? Or maybe just in the Americas where the gringo influence is more prevalent? I mean, it really bugs me

Comments

[taschenrechner]

These things become part of the language over time. I don't hear anyone complaining about all the Arabic words in Spanish.

It's just that this is a part of language change that you're noticing. Whether that's good or bad isn't linguistics' call.

[alchemy_gryph]

Second. Languages that don't change very much (e.g. Latin) are usually ones that are either dead or don't look to be resuscitated too soon.

- Madox

[taschenrechner]

This is very much true in the case of dead languages. However, in some Native American communities, the attempts at language revival have met with lots of borrowings. How exactly do you say "television" in Choctaw? This is a borrowing of necessity and should not be looked upon as a corruption.

[xandiwillflailx]

It's not that I think language should be static, but in the mean time, i mean until it gets completey accepted...isn't it normal to have some level of skin crawling?

i guess i'm more accepting of new words coming into languages than I am of changing meanings of words/phrases...when there is already a perfectly decent way of expressing the said idea in that language

[sacundim]

I think you need to get out more.

[xandiwillflailx]

lol if i get out more...i'll just hear it more ;)

[apetulantrose]

yeah i think its perfectly normal for languages to change and evolve...spanish is alive and well and that is just proof of it. it will keep changing. i love that i am seeing spanish influences in english words. i find it refreshing and challenging.

[muckefuck]

What's so bad about yeísmo? I love the sound of a Spanish /j\/, not to mention all the crazy variants, from /J/ to /S/, that have developed in Latin America. Spellings like "desalluno" in Mexican restaurants don't upset me, they just make me laugh.

[sacundim]

I think it's worth mentioning that yeísmo is normative in Spanish everywhere, except IIRC in Paraguay and a few of other smaller places...

[xandiwillflailx]

mm yeah i didnt say it bothered me.

i prefer not to be a yeista but that's only because i find it difficult to pronounce the ll like in the english word "million" in spanish so im trying to work on it.

[sparkofcreation]

Err, that doesn't make sense? Yeismo is pronouncing the double L like Y, lleismo is pronouncing it like the LLI in million. Though as someone said, lleismo is extremely, extremely rare, as in I've never heard anyone use it.

[sparkofcreation]

Drives me insane, too. Especially when what the person has actually said means something else entirely in correct Spanish. See icon. Also, as most of the Spanish-speakers probably know, the word for "rape" in Spanish is violación. It drives me insane to hear people use that for "violation" (infracción). The other week I had this really gruelling day (we had 40 unrequested Spanish cases come up, including three trials) and by the time I got to the electrician's expert testimony at 4:00 I was too tired to fight it (it is, of course, usually easier to use the same words as the person you're interpreting for, unless they're really blatant anglicisms*). So I just went with violación because that's what he was saying. And then they got to "And how many violations were there in that house?" And when I heard myself say "¿Y cuántas violaciones había en esa casa?," I almost died.

*Like the woman I mentioned in my journal last week who said she didn't owe as much rent as her landlord said because "La huaifa del lanlo y el louya del lanlo

[sparkofcreation]

And I should add that there are a hundred and five certified Spanish court interpreters in the state of New Jersey, and every one I've ever talked to finds such things just as annoying as I do.

[sacundim]

Have you considered the possibility that these attitudes you report on the part of interpreters towards defendants and plaintiffs may be a serious obstacle to equal access to justice? I know that if I were brought to court in a foreign country, I wouldn't want to have what I say interpreted by a person who is contemptful of the way I talk-especially given that attitudes toward language varieties derive from attitudes towards the speakers of those varieties, as any linguist should be able to tell you.

And, after all, there is such a thing as the Pygmalion effect.

[xandiwillflailx]

I don't think she's contemptful of the way they talk. at least, thats not what i get from reading her entries about people who speak spanish...."creatively".