I was websurfing and found an interesting thing: Ilan Stavans has translated the first chapter of Don Quixote into a very entertaining Spanglish version. Here are the first few sentences:
In un placete de La Mancha of which nombre no quiero remembrearme, vivía, not so long ago, uno de esos gentlemen who always tienen una lanza in the rack, una buckler antigua, a skinny caballo y un grayhound para el chase. A cazuela with más beef than mutón, carne choppeada para la dinner, un omelet pa’ los Sábados, lentil pa’ los Viernes, y algún pigeon como delicacy especial pa’ los Domingos, consumían tres cuarers de su income. El resto lo employaba en una coat de broadcloth y en soketes de velvetín pa’ los holidays, with sus slippers pa’ combinar, while los otros días de la semana él cut a figura de los más finos cloths. Livin with él eran una housekeeper en sus forties, una sobrina not yet twenty y un ladino del field y la marketa que le saddleaba el caballo al gentleman y wieldeaba un hookete pa’ podear.
I've always been fascinated by the way that languages mix together. I have been hyperaware, lately, of the immense amount of Konglish found in my current South Korean environment. I spend a lot of time reading random signs, websites, and bits of advertising, just to practice, and when I do that, I am stunned by how much of it turns out simply to be English written in Korean hangul. Some examples from just the other day on the MSN homepage, Korean version:
스페셜 이벤트 = seupesyeul ibenteu (i.e. special event)
스타홀릭 = seutahollik (star-holic i.e. "addicted to celebrities," roughly)
As a language learner, I find all this easy-to-parse verbiage reassuring. As a student of linguistics more generally, as I already mentioned, I find it fascinating. But as a sometime critic of neocolonial processes, I sometimes find myself disturbed about it, too.
Anyway, I'm going to try to coin yet another neologism. "Glish" is the generic name for all the hybrids the globalized neo-colonial enterprise called America is engendering: Spanglish, Konglish, Franglais, etc.