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Adriana Briceno
Prof. Rodriguez
ELN 101.7360
Research Final Draft
July, 24 2008
Spanish Language
“The Hispanic population in the United States is like a sleeping giant that has only
recently begun to awake, and it is imminent that as this giant stirs, it will continue only to get
bigger”. (Eliaz- Olivares, et .al, ed .1) In the United States the use of the Spanish language has
grown massively over the years. In some parts of the country it is a necessary to know the
language to be able to communicate with different communities. For me it was shocking to
discover the importance and the influence that the Spanish language has in some the
communities, especially in New York City. As I started to investigate about the origin on the
Spanish language, I realized that this language has stopped been a foreign language and for some
people it has converted, in to a second language since in some communities the English language
is not a necessary. To be able to understand how influential the Spanish language is in this city, I
will illustrated a description of the Spanish language, the use of this language in an specific
community and how the persons that live, work and socialize used this language to communicate
with each other.
The Spanish language comes from the evolution of an old language that was spoken in
north central Spain. It is an Indo –European language. Accordingly to Ralph Penny in his book A
History of the Spanish Language, the Indo-European language was spoken in the area of the
Black Sea what is now Turkey (3). The Indo- European family is the most important of all
linguistics groups. And Latin is the most prominent member of the Italic branch of IndoEuropean (Penny 3). Latin was used in the Roman Empire which later becomes Italian, French,
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Provencal, Catalan Spanish, Portuguese, Rhaeto- Romanic and Rumanian. According to Robert
Spaulding is his book How Spanish Grew, Latin is the basic tongue of the Romance languages
(2).
Spanish evolved from the Latin of daily intercourse, which is called Vulgar Latin. Some
of the Vulgar Latin features have continued to the present day in Spanish. There is also a few
Germanic words found in Spanish but they are originally from the Gothic dialect. The three
hundred or more Germanic words appearing in the Romance languages which are the result of
the intimate contact on several frontiers between German tribes, Roman soldiers and colonizers.
A few of them are; “burgus, cofea, harpa, sapo, jabón” (Spalding 49).
Today there are more than 350 million people that speak the Spanish language. It is the
official language or the principal language of some twenty nations and is continuing to grow. In
the United States, the Hispanic population is one of the largest ethnic groups. Spanish is a formal
written language. According to Ronald E. Batchelor and Christopher J. Pountain in their book
Using Spanish both authors state; “Spanish does not have a clearcut distinction as English
between nouns and adjectives, and almost any adjective can also function as a noun. In many
cases, an English adjective can only denote a plural as a noun, e.g. “los jóvenes” the young,
while “el joven”, the young man (52).
A mayor characteristic in the Spanish language is the similarity among words where a
single letter can change the meaning of a word. They are called paronyms, for example;
“abertura”, hole, gap, and “apertura”, act of opening as in a theatre performance. There are also
some paronyms that are similar in form but unrelated in meaning; for example: “abrasar”, to burn
up and “abrazar”, to embrace ( Batchelor and Pountain 81).
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Spanish has a distinctive gender endings, but those words mean something different, for
example; “acta”, minutes, record of proceedings, and “acto”, action, deed, act. Also nouns in
Spanish are either, feminine or masculine gender. Peter T. Bradley and Ian Mackenzie in their
book Spanish An Essential Grammar, described;
Most Spanish nouns fall into one of the following categories: Nouns that end in –o,
“libro”, book, nouns that end in –a, “casa”, house, nouns that end in –e or a consonant.
“nube”, cloud, “tacón”, heel. Nouns ending in –o are almost always masculine, the
majority of those ending in –a are feminine and those ending in –e or a consonant can be
either gender. (13)
The use of “el” or “la” is the use of “the” in the English language; for example, “el
abuelo”, gradfather, “la abuela”, grandmother. In some cases the same word is used irrespective
of gender, the definitive or indefinite articles alone making the distinction, for example: “el/la
futbolista”, football player. Negation in Spanish has only a common word: “No”, the verb do is
not used in Spanish to show any kind of negative exclamation or answer, for example: “No
quieren venir”, they do not want to come.
Another mayor characteristic of Spanish is the use of the letter ñ for “niño”, boy and the
letter ll like “llamas”, flames. In the English language, these letters are not used. My last name is
Briceño, but this letter was removed in any documentation that includes my last name.
Spanish is a common language but also is a language that is different. “In most of the
Iberian Peninsula, with the notable exception of Andalusia, the letter z is pronounced like ‘th’ of
English ‘think’. This sound is not used in the Spanish of Latin America where is replaced by the
‘s’ of ‘six’.”(Bradley and Mackenzie 305). Both authors also state; “accordingly, in Latin
America Spanish word pairs such as the following have an identical pronunciation; “rozado”,
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worn/grazed and “rosado”, pink. This phenomenon, which is known as seseo, is more or less
universal in Latin America. It is also normal in much of southern Spain and the Canary
Islands”(Bradley and Mackenzie 305).
Another example of how different countries used the language in a different form is
when we heard the word “vos”, you. Guatemala, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Chile and some
other countries in South America used this word. However, the use of “vosotros”, you in plural
are used in the Canaries and much of the southern Spain (Bradley and Mackenzie 307).
Spanish is the language that is used in more than 21 countries, is also spoken by a
minority in the following countries: United States, Philippines, Morocco, Belize, and Andorra.
In New York City the Spanish language is constantly used in many neighborhoods. Many
people come from different parts of the world. And they embraced their culture by creating new
communities that carry their culture and language. As an example Jackson Heights is an
Hispanic community located in Queens. Accordingly to the Jackson Heights Beautification
Group, this neighborhood was named after John Jackson the president of the Hunters Point and
Flushing Turnpike Company. In 1910 Jackson Heights was farms and fields, but after the
massive explosion of people living in Manhattan and Brooklyn a company decided to invest and
build a new and modern neighborhood that could offer the same qualities of living in Manhattan.
This was one of the main reasons the word Heights was also named after Jackson.
1917 was a very special year for this neighborhood. With the construction of the subway,
many persons moved to Jackson Heights. The type of construction started a signature look and it
was called the Garden Apartments. Jackson Heights was the first neighborhood to give the
chance to a person to own their own property. The Queensboro Corporation introduced the first
cooperative housing plans in the United States, also the first Cooperative Ownership Plan. The
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prices for the apartments were between $18.000 and $25.000. Many families after the years
moved to Jackson Heights and after the 1960’s arrival a lots of immigrants came from all over
the world, the neighborhood grew tremendously. Today Jackson Heights is a neighborhood that
has multicultural residents and is considered the heart of New York City’s Colombian
population. This neighborhood has the best of the world. It has small bakeries where you can
find one of the most delicious Colombian coffee, but at the same time you can find a Dunkin
Donuts. Jackson Heights is also recognized for the diversity of his restaurants. Many restaurants
offer Latin food; Colombian, Peruvian, Mexican, Ecuadorian, however it also has Indian,
Japanese, Chinese and Mediterranean food.
There is a major Hispanic community that lives in Jackson Heights, it is very easy to
speak Spanish in all the stores in the neighborhood at least one employee speaks the language. In
some stores they only speak Spanish and the necessity to speak English is very little. Jackson
Heights also has a variety of supermarkets in which you can find food from different countries.
This neighborhood is a blend of all the different cultures around it. The people who live in this
neighborhood have everything that Manhattan can offer. Diversity of people, food, mix culture
and also has a movie theater that offers movies in English with subtitles in Spanish. For many
persons that have problems with the language this is excellent choice of entertainment. To
understand how this community used the Spanish language on a daily basis, I interviewed three
persons with different ages and backgrounds, all of then are part of the Jackson heights
neighborhood, and the Hispanic community.
Mr. Kim works in the Jackson Heights community, he is a manager of a cell phone store.
As I interviewed him, we exchanged some words and he mentioned to me that he was born in
Korea, he has been living in New York almost 20 years ago and he is a trilingual person who
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manages Korean, English and Spanish. It really interested me to know Mr. Kim’s background.
He mentioned; “I was raised and born in Korea then I moved to Argentina and then I came to
this country.” He said that he uses all three languages at his work place. He also notes: “It is very
funny when a person who speaks Spanish ignores me in the store and ask other employees to
help them, at soon as I start speaking Spanish they get very surprised.” For Mr. Kim to help other
persons with their language barrier is not a problem. “Its very good also for the business to speak
different languages, many people don’t feel comfortable speaking English, so for me is a very
big plus”, he said. Mr. Kim also said that he was married to a Korean woman who he met back in
Argentina, so in their home all of their children manage the three languages.
As I was trying to leave the cell phone store a young woman named Vanessa Garcia, was
hearing the conversation between Mr. Kim and I, she decided to talk about her bilingual skills as
well, she mentioned to me that she lives in the neighborhood. And she was born in Dominican
Republic, she is 19 years old and she lived in Colombia with her parents for a period of time. She
said; “My father is Dominican and my mother is Colombian, I lived in both countries, every year
I go twice to see my relatives, I love it.” As I interviewed her we exchanged some words in
Spanish but I noticed that all her answers were in English, I asked her if she doesn’t speak
Spanish on a daily basis and her answer was; “Not really, I only do it at home and sometimes in
school when some classmates have trouble communicating in English. I also do it to have a
better understandable conversation with other people that don’t speak the English language.” I
asked her if she doesn’t feel comfortable speaking Spanish, she said; “No, don’t get me wrong, I
can speak very fluently I can also write it, it is just that all my friends and people that I know
don’t speak it, so I use English all the time.” Vanessa also commented that she is attending
Monroe College.
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While I was eating an “empanada”, beef patty, in a Colombian bakery I started a
conversation with Esperanza Cordoba, a 67 -year old woman who is from Medellin, Colombia.
We started talking about Colombia, soon I asked her if I could interview her and she agreed. I
had to speak Spanish with her because she didn’t know much English. She said to me; “After so
many years living in this country I understand a little bit of English, but I speak only the
necessary.” She told me that all her family lives in the United States, and that she has been
living in the same apartment for so many years that her rent is less than $500. I asked about the
neighborhood and how it has changed over the years, she pointed out that she has seen a lot of
people, business, and community moved from one place to another, she said: “I know a lot of
people in this neighborhood, years ago we didn’t have all this stores around here, it was a quiet
place to live, now there are a lot of stores and a lot of people walking by”. I asked her if all those
changes affected her in a good or bad way, she said; “In a good way, since most of the
community speaks Spanish for me was a blessing to have people that can talk to me in Spanish, I
don’t like English. Even when I go to the bank, I know a very nice young man who always help
me in anything I need.” For Mrs. Cordoba the used of the English language is minimal on a daily
basis, the community offers her anything that she needs. She had the Elmhurst Hospital near by
and her doctor speaks Spanish as well.
In conclusion the research of the Spanish language opened my eyes to see how important,
this language is to a neighborhood such as Jackson Heights. It was clear to me that many cultures
can be together in the same place and share their different traditions and languages. For the
Spanish speakers Jackson Heights represents a small piece of the customs that they carry. They
embrace theses traditions by sharing their different backgrounds with food, language and by
sharing the neighborhood with others. It is also important to say that as a Hispanic woman I am
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very honor to know that our different communities can co-exist and that we can share all the
different traditions that the communities offer. The Spanish language will continue to grow in the
United States and many people will share it with others who will embrace their heritage.
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Work Cited
Batchelor, Ronald E, and Christopher J. Pountain. Using Spanish. 2nd Ed. New York: Cambridge
University Press,2005.
Bradley, Peter T. and Ian Mackenzie. Spanish An Essential Grammar. London: Routledge, 2004.
Cisneros, Rene, Lucia Elías-Olivares, John Gutiérrez, and Elizabeth A. Leone, eds. Spanish
Language Use and Public Life in the USA. New York: Mouton Publishers, 1985.
Cordoba, Esperanza. Personal Interview. 17 July 2008.
Garcia, Vanessa. Personal Interview. 17 July 2008.
Kim S, Personal Interview. 17 July 2008.
Penny, Ralph. A History of the Spanish Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2002
Spaulding, Robert K. How Spanish Grew. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967.
Unknown, “History of Jackson Heights.” Jackson Heights Beautification Group.unknown. 11
July2008. http://www.jhbg.org/history/history.html
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Bibliography
Batchelor, Ronald E, and Christopher J. Pountain. Using Spanish. 2nd Ed. New York: Cambridge
University Press,2005.
Bradley, Peter T. and Ian Mackenzie. Spanish An Essential Grammar. London: Routledge, 2004.
Cisneros, Rene, Lucia Elías-Olivares, John Gutiérrez, and Elizabeth A. Leone, eds. Spanish
Language Use and Public Life in the USA. New York: Mouton Publishers, 1985.
Penny, Ralph. A History of the Spanish Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,2002
Spaulding, Robert K. How Spanish Grew. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967.
Unknown, “History of Jackson Heights.” Jackson Heights Beautification Group.unknown. 11
July 2008. http://www.jhbg.org/history/history.html
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