Artículo sobre Spanglish, publicado en inglés por Jack Segura, miembro de la Academia Norteamericana de la Lengua Española.

Having been involved in English-Spanish translation for more then fifty years, I was appalled by an article on Computer Spanglish that appeared in the Austin American-Statesman on August 30, 1995.

The article, by Lori Hawkins, features the work of Yolanda M. Rivas, a graduate student at the College of Communication, University of Texas at Austin, who as part of a semester project opened a World Wide Web site on the Internet, where she not only expounds on the use of Spanglish by the "Latino world" (a rather large claim), but also disseminates on an ongoing basis a Glossary of Spanglish. Along with English and Spanglish terms, the glossary includes standard Spanish equivalents, which she often deprecates as difficult or impractical to use.

In preparation for her newspaper article, Lori Hawkins did consult with me and with Leticia Molinero, a technical translator and personal friend of mine. However, our comments to her on the Rivas theories were grossly ignored; only the mildest of the rebuttals offered by Mrs. Molinero were used in the article, and not a word of mine. So much for impartial reporting.

We would not normally comment on such language matters, except that in this case Yolanda Rivas, of Peruvian extraction, has taken it upon herself to spread her glossary and misguided theories over the entire cyberworld. The glossary would not be of much concern if it were presented as an item of curiosity or for consideration by linguistic experts, instead of offering it as a quasi-official guide (with the implied backing of the University of Texas at Austin) to the preferred usage of Spanish in the computer field. In this reply to the article and to the misinformation being spread on the Internet, I will limit my comments to a few key points Ms. Rivas puts forth.

1) It is understandable for an ethnic community living in an environment in which English is ubiquitous and overwhelming as the language of the land, to have trouble using standard Spanish words in connection with a new and difficult technical subject, such as computers, which suddenly have become a commodity accessible to practically everyone. That the people she surveyed may feel uncomfortable with standard Spanish is an altogether different and deeper phenomenon. Ms. Rivas fails to point out that many of these persons also use Spanglish in various other areas of their lives. In a way, they might just as well speak and write in English, instead of trying to mold it haphazardly and incorrectly to Spanish lexicon and syntax.

2) To argue, as does Ms. Rivas, that Spanish equivalents are not available for the English terms is a misconception or worse-a misrepresentation. Her own glossary contains many standard Spanish equivalents (some good, some inappropriate, but at least all standard Spanish).

As I told Lori Hawkins when she telephone me, "At this very moment I have in front of me no less than six English-Spanish computer dictionaries, in any of which you can find the great majority of terms listed in Ms. Rivas' glossary. Those not found could be furnished by any competent technical translator specializing in computers.

The crux of the matter is that those who use Spanglish on the Internet are not just conversing among themselves, but committing their words to writing for all the world to see. There has always been a significant difference between the language one speaks at home or among friends and what is written and published for other people to read. Orally, almost anything goes, but put it in writing and it becomes almost gospel. Then, when someone like Ms. Rivas, who should know better, comes along to cheer and encourage (with what is at least a semblance of institutional backing), the matter becomes one of greater concern.

3) One of Ms. Rivas' more incomprehensible statements is that computers are "English-speaking machines". Apparently she is blissfully unaware that thousands, if not millions, of people write on these same machines in Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Hebrew, Arabic and many other tongues spoken on this planet. It's not the machines, it's the programs you feed them that make it possible to write in any language. I personally happen to work, most in Spanish, on a supposedly "English-speaking machine" and have no trouble writing things like "José", "montaña", ¿Cómo?", "¡No digas!", which contain accents and symbols not found in the English language. In addition, computer exporters are required by some countries to provide action keys like BACK SPACE, DELETE, OPTION, ALT., in the language of destination. Even the menus, prompts, dialog boxes, legends and written instructions appearing on the screen must be in the target language. Neither Ms. Rivas nor Ms. Hawkins seem to be cognizant of these basic facts, although I must assume that Yolanda Rivas writes to her mother in Spanish (?) on an "English-speaking machine".

4) Ms. Rivas further pontificates that the lack of Spanish equivalents for English terms is due to the backwardness of the Spanish-speaking countries in matters scientific and technical, to the "chaos of language impotence"*. I could recite to her some outstanding scientific and technical achievements of Spanish-speaking people, including a number of Nobel prizes. It is a fact that English creates thousands of new terms per year and that it is the paramount technical language in today's world. However, to infer from this that there are no equivalents for English terms in other languages is to be incredibly out of touch with reality. True, it does take a little time to come up with equivalents in other languages, but this catching up goes on continuously. As a matter of fact, the problem in Spanish is not so much that there are no equivalents, but that often there are too many, as each Spanish-speaking country creates its own. What it unacceptable to those who have devoted so much effort to the development and preservation of languages is the attempt to Hispanicize English terms and English syntax in order to arrive at something that is neither English nor Spanish.

5) Ms. Rivas makes the all-encompassing claim that "Using 'words' as tools of interaction, Latino communities unconsciously have taken [sic - taken up?] the challenge of revolting [sic - revolting against?] their language's old purity rules and traditions, setting new paradigms for the perpetuation of their identity in the Information Age?" What utter nonsense!

She is saying, in essence, that in order to be up to date, Latinos must abandon their language traditions, their very identity, not even in the hope of becoming Americans, but a subset of we could call Spanglish-Americans. As for "revolting [sic] their language's old purity rules", it is not a matter of purity, but simply one of speaking-or at least writing-a standard Spanish, just as Americans are guided by a standard English, whether they are aware of it or not. Would she also have them revolt against traffic lights because they provide some order and continuity to traffic flow?

Some of the examples of Spanglish given by Ms. Rivas in her glossary and in her statements to Lori Hawkins as being easier to use and to remember than standard Spanish are at the very least questionable; but more to the point, they are unnecessary language pollution for any Spanish-speaking person: Is ''surfear [to surf] la Internet" any easier or clearer than "navegar por la Internet"? Or "Voy a uplodear [to upload] este software", better than "Voy a enviarte este programa"? Or "deletear"[to delete] better than "borrar"?

As a translator an former journalist and English scientific and technical editor, with a deep affection and respect for both English and Spanish, I firmly believe that the University of Texas at Austin and the Austin American-Statesman should shun any participation or implied approval of the misrepresentations being served to the world on the Internet and in print by their associates.

As for Yolanda Rivas, we catch a glimpse of her own troubled ambivalence when she candidly lets slip out to Lori Hawkins: "If my mother knew about this Spanglish se would kill me."