So. CA waiting list news. My Experience

They mix English and Spanish vocabulary with street slang that belongs to neither language. The result is a language that cannot be understood by either Spanish speakers or English speakers.

Another thing that happens is the loss of grammar as some verb tenses are dropped, resulting in a kind of "broken down" Spanish. It's a shame, really, because legitimate castillian is a rich and beautiful language. Mexican Spanish does not use the vosotros form but is otherwise true to Castillian Spanish in all but the pronounciation of a few letters.

Mexicans speak an excellent Spanish, but there is nothing in all the world to compare with Spanish the way it's spoken in Madrid and the surrounding area.

 

Perhaps we are moving to a new creole language. BTW I always thought that problemo was Spanglish, but then I am a Jazzoid.

 

iow... its basically the same thing that americans did to the english language...hmmm must be the water...

or is could be that we are not english but americans with our own culture just as the americans with a mexican heritage are americans. if mexicans want to be like mexicans then they can stay in mexico. but chicanos are americans who want to be american while retaining the best part of their mexican roots.

 

I like that Castillian lisp...can't we all have the Castillian lisp? :mrgreen:

 

With the exception of Cockney English, Americans and Brits can understand each other just fine. There is some vocabulary only used on one side or the other, but the grammar has not changed.

Apparently Chicanos and Mexicans would have a much harder time understanding each other, unless they were bilingual Chicano/Spanish.

It's not really a lisp. Madrileños still pronounce the S as we do. It's only the Z, and the C when not pronounced like K, which are "lisped." They refer it as the ceceo (pronounced thetheo) to distinguish from the seseo of new world Spanish.

And yes, it's lovely. They also have a slightly different, softer way of pronouncing the S when it occurs in certain places in words. And sometimes a final S or Z is softened to the point where it becomes little more than an exhale of breath, as in the name of the great painter, Velazquez.

On the other hand, in Seville they speak the ugliest Spanish in the world. It's almost as different from Castilian as Chicano is, but with no redeeming features whatsoever.

Whew! Talk about topic drift. Good thing the moderators are lenient.