Frankenstorm: The Perfect Storm with a Perfect Name
Can a new word become part of a language before the event it refers to officially happens? That seems to be what happened with “Frankenstorm” — the storm currently terrorizing cities and towns along the East Coast. Paul Payack, the president and chief word analyst of Global Language Monitor, which tracks word usage in the […]
Communicating for Life: The Language Barrier in Health Care
Learning a foreign language for the purpose of living in another country goes beyond mastering the basic conversations one might have on a street corner. With the complexity of life, comes the wide variety of situations that a person must know how to navigate in their new language in order to get by. But even […]
Indigenous Influence on the Spanish Language
The history of the lexical influences that have come into contact with the Spanish language is one steeped in geography, politics and colonization. When Christopher Columbus arrived in the Americas representing the Spanish crown, he was immediately put into contact with various native groups and tribes with their own respective languages. As colonization spread out […]
The Dynamics of Language and Sociolinguistic Norms
Language change is a well-documented phenomenon and one that has contributed greatly to the idea of language as a dynamic, evolving form of communication. This evolution manifests in everything from vocabulary to syntax, punctuation and accent. Because it encompasses so many influences over a period of time, language change is generally too gradual to make […]
The meaning of ‘yirar’
Argentine Spanish is strewn with words and colorful phrases from Lunfardo, a rich vocabulary born on the streets of Buenos Aires in the second half of the 19th century. Now considered a fixture of the Spanish language in Argentina (especially in and around Buenos Aires) and Uruguay, linguists cite the use of Lunfardo as a […]
Take a Butcher’s at Cockney Rhyming Slang
What exactly is Cockney Rhyming Slang and where does it come from? Is it still used today? Was it developed for particular social or political reasons? There are many worthy questions surrounding the use, creation and development of Cockney Rhyming Slang and there’s a lot of fun to be had too in the practice of […]
Courting Votes and Taking Notes: The Delicate Act of Appealing to Latino Voters
A recent BBC article picked up on a gaffe U.S. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney made while trying to appeal to Latino voters in this year’s upcoming election. In fact, many news outlets ran the story, noting that it fits into a tradition of presidents or presidential candidates embarrassing themselves before the largest minority group […]
A Guide To Peruvian Slang
In many places, slang is a natural inhabitant of the Spanish language. It’s so common, and yet so often different depending on the country, that people can sometimes find themselves in an embarrassing situation saying something they didn’t intend. It is particularly prevalent in Peru, where so many native languages and cultures intermingle. So taking […]
Twenty Reasons to Choose to Study Spanish as a Foreign Language
If you are thinking about learning a new foreign language, Spanish should be at the top of your list. Why? Twenty of the very best reasons, divided into specific sections, which explain why Spanish should be your first choice in foreign language study are listed below. Society, Communication and Travel Social groups and […]
FUNDEU and RAE: Two Essential Sites for the Good Use of Spanish
Spanish, like most modern languages, is suffering from a lack of care and a candid disregard for the correct use of grammar, punctuation, spelling and tense. Indeed, it is particularly concerning when members of the press, media and communications also fail to possess a clear understanding of how the language is correctly constructed. Fortunately, Fundéu […]
