Spanish Without Self-Esteem

I look with concern at the way native speakers of the Spanish language write on social media. This statement humorously reminds me of the elderly when they criticize the way the younger generation acts or speaks. With some frequency we hear grandparents talk about how the times are in decline; they seem devoted to preaching that the past was a place with far more meaning, hope, and order than what we live today. Change always brings confusion, chaos, and despair to those who do not understand or manage to adapt to it, so I consider it natural that older people cling to what they have always understood and known. Perhaps that is why the past is so often seen as a better place by the elderly. I do not know whether I am already getting old, but I am beginning to notice that our generation — the one that lives on social media, hyper-connected through smartphones, tablets, and computers — is dragging the Spanish language into a dark corner. Just 7 years ago people did not write so badly, nor did they make so many errors of syntax, logic, or composition. Perhaps the worst thing about the errors is not the fact that they are made, but that their frequency is precisely causing them to begin to be accepted as something natural and valid. My knowledge of literature and communication has allowed me to understand that language, more than a set of symbols and rules, can be interpreted as a kind of living organism that resides in collective interaction, which makes it subject to mutations, adaptations, and transformations — all of it ultimately necessary if the language is to endure over time. Societies are shaped by their experiences, scientific advances, or technological achievements, so that someone from the 17th century would not speak in the same way as someone from the 21st, even though it is still the same language; at times messages can become unintelligible given the cultural gap, and this is something we can observe when reading old books. My criticism of the conduct being adopted toward the Spanish language is directed essentially at two aspects. The first has to do with the form the language is taking: technology and social media have, to a large extent, forced a change in the way we write. Twitter, for example, has led people to shorten and optimize their messages, allowing information to be communicated more quickly and precisely. I believe that, over time, the virtues of this philosophy have been wearing thin, and we see how a large portion of users on the network write without using punctuation marks with an alarming frequency. The second aspect is related to the use of a great deal of English-derived vocabulary in Spanish. I accept that it is inevitable that we use English words in our daily life, because a good part of today's technology, information, and culture comes from countries where English is the native language; nevertheless, other languages such as Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, French, or German do not use English words in written or spoken communication as frequently — at least not more than necessary. The Spanish of social media sometimes seems a sort of Spanglish, where for every 2 words in Spanish, 1 is said in English. I have always thought that in order to express yourself in another language you must have at least a respectable command of your mother tongue; but the reality is that it is increasingly common to see people with an abysmal level of Spanish writing in English, which results in a dreadful Spanglish, a kind of pseudo-language that superficially reveals a form of expression riddled with spelling errors and phrases devoid of logical sense. Language can be interpreted as a reflection of the nature of the individual's thought; what can we expect of the mental structure of these people when their way of communicating is chaotic, disorganized, and illogical? It is no coincidence that problems of effective communication will be on the rise in the coming decades. Perhaps when I see more English-speaking people using words from other languages more frequently — or, more precisely, Spanish words in their youthful or everyday slang — I will be able to accept more calmly the sort of Spanglish that is taking shape among young Spanish speakers; but for now, that does not seem to be happening. What this situation allows me to glimpse is a profound lack of self-esteem on the part of those who carry Spanish as their mother tongue, who prefer to use words derived from English when their natural equivalents in Spanish exist and qualify to convey the meaning of their messages correctly. © Alejandro Guipe | All Rights Reserved.