As mentioned in Reviews of Prior Translation, the only previous translation of Don Quijote into Spanglish was performed by Ilan Stavans. I use this section to present an interview between Professor Stavans and Ray Suarez from PBS. Furthermore, at the end of this section, I will present the first paragraph of Professor Stavans translation and my translation in order to observe the differences.
PBS NewsHour correspondent, Ray Suarez speaks with author Ilan Stavans about his new book, Spanglish: The Making of a New American Language, a look at the new lexicon created by Latinos living in the United States.
RAY SUAREZ: Spanglish, The Making of a new American Language. The author of is Ilan Stavans, the president of Latin America and Latino culture at Amherst college. Welcome.
ILAN STAVANS: Thank you.
RAY SUAREZ: What is Spanglish?
ILAN STAVANS: Spanglish is the encounter, perhaps the word is marriage or divorce of English and Spanish, but also of Anglo and Hispanic civilizations not only in the United States, but in the entire continent and perhaps also in Spain. It is the way of communication where one starts in one language, switches to the other back and forth or perhaps coins a few new words or thinks in one language and reacts in another one. It is a very creative jazzy way of being Latino in the U.S. today.
RAY SUAREZ: But is it really a language? I don’t want to sound pedantic, but is what’s being made by this encounter a language?
ILAN STAVANS: Not yet, not quite. Perhaps we’re in the process of becoming one. We are closer to being a dialect. There is really not one Spanglish. There are varieties of Spanglish. There’s Spanglish spoken by Cuban Americans in Miami called cubonics is different from Mexican American Spanglish, but thanks to the Internet, thanks to radio and television, thanks to what is happening in the classrooms, in the streets in the restaurants, we are finding a middle ground.
The same way there is not really one Latino, but a number of different Latinos, the Latinos of different backgrounds, these varieties of Spanglish are finding a middle ground and perhaps as time goes by, we’ll discover that we are closer to becoming a standard way of communication, perhaps.
RAY SUAREZ: Well, is one language crashing into the other in an equal kind of way, or is this something that’s really happening to the way Spanish is spoken without much movement in the other direction?
ILAN STAVANS: Well, it really depends where you are based and the type of Spanglish that you’re listening to. If you are in Puerto Rico, you will hear one type of Spanglish where English and Spanish really get intertwined. It also depends on the social class. If you are in the U.S.-Mexican border, a variety of Spanglish will be sensible to you. But if you go down to Buenos Aires, there are words that are borrowed from English and incorporated into Spanish.
And if you go into certain parts of the U.S., where the Latino population is not the predominant one, you will hear more English and less Spanish. So it really depends on the location of the listener or the speaker, the frequency with which one language will mix or clash or become intertwined with the other.
RAY SUAREZ: Is this a peculiar American event, or with the many other languages that have come to this continent, have we seen this kind of blending before?
ILAN STAVANS: We have seen this kind of blending before. Every time there is an immigrant group that makes it to America, that wants to become part of the so-called melting pot, there is this period of transition between the so-called immigrant language that slowly disappears with the children of immigrants and the grandchildren of immigrants and the acquisition of English as the great equalizer, the one… the language that makes us all one. But the difference with Latinos is a dramatic one and an important one whereas Jews or the Poles or the Germans virtually gave up their immigrant generation by the third generation, that is by the grandchildren of the immigrants, because of the closeness of the place once called home, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Central America, Spanish is not disappearing.
Spanish actually is becoming a major force in this country. But it’s not surviving in an uncontaminated, pure way. And in that sense, Spanglish is similar to previous patterns of linguist assimilation but very different in that Spanish remains alive and strong and is creating this mixture that is unique and is defining the way Latinos describe themselves, feel, think. I think Spanglish is more than a way of communication; I think it’s a way of thinking, a new way of being for us almost 40 million people in the U.S.
RAY SUAREZ: But haven’t there been defenders of Spanish, fans of the language, people who want to maintain a kind of uniqueness in the United States who’ve decried not only Spanglish but decried your book, who, when they hear “maborpalancha, “they say that’s terrible. That’s not Spanglish. That’s bad Spanish.
ILAN STAVANS: That’s right, by all means, and the critics or the accusers or attackers are strong and need to be heard as much as those that are supporting Spanglish should be heard. One has to keep in mind, ray, that at any given point, languages are in constant change. In order to survive, Spanish had a h to become what it became, what it is today by incorporating words from the French, from the Italian, from the English; 100 years ago, the Spanish that was spoken in Spain was very different from the one that we speak today, let alone 500 years ago, when Miguel des Bantis was writing 400 years ago, when he was writing his masterpiece, Don Quixote tape. Like with English, 500 years ago English was very different than what it is today.
I think that being able to appreciate Spanglish enables us tore see the process of language formation. It is like an astronomer discovering a new galaxy. It is not only an opportunity to see how galaxies are created, but to see how our own galaxy was formed. I think Spanglish enables us to think how Spanish and English became what they are, how they at one point became colonial languages, imperial languages, Spanish as much as English, and how they became the status quo. All other languages that are formed, that are shaped tend to come from the sides and eventually come to the center. And that is what is happening I think with Spanglish.
RAY SUAREZ: But with Spanglish, will you ever have a grammar, a form, rules? I mean this seems to be a language that’s formed by breaking the rules.
ILAN STAVANS: And that is exactly the way it happened to Yiddish 700 years ago. Yiddish originally in Eastern Europe was considered the language of children, of the illiterate, of women. And 500 years later, by the 19th century, by the 18th century, writers realized that, in order to communicate with the masses, they could no longer write in Hebrew.
They needed to write in Yiddish, the language of the population. Will Spanglish become a language that can express the emotion, the depth, the complexity of the Latino population? Perhaps. When people ask me, “what will happen with Spanglish? Will it become the language of the continent?” I tend to answer, “we don’t need to wait for the future to come.
The future is already here. Spanglish is already a diverse, influential way of communication.” Corporations have discovered it. It is on television, it is in radio. Novels are being written in Spanglish. Rap, rock — this is kind of a utopian dream or an anti-utopian dream.
RAY SUAREZ: Professor Stavans, thanks for being with us. Spanglish, the making with of a new American language.
ILAN STAVANS: Thank you for having me.
Comparing Ilan Stavans’ Spanglish to Nico Pascual-Leone’s Spanglish
Ilan Stavans’ Spanglish:
“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. El gentleman andaba por allí por los fifty. Era de complexión robusta pero un poco fresco en los bones y una cara leaneada y gaunteada. La gente sabía that él era un early riser y que gustaba mucho huntear. La gente say que su apellido was Quijada or Quesada –hay diferencia de opinión entre aquellos que han escrito sobre el sujeto– but acordando with las muchas conjecturas se entiende que era really Quejada. But all this no tiene mucha importancia pa’ nuestro cuento, providiendo que al cuentarlo no nos separemos pa’ nada de las verdá.”
Professor Stavans here presents a “traditional” spanglish. The flow he is able to create between spanish and english in this passage is consistent with what true cultural spanglish is like. His use of english verbs conjugated like spanish ones is something all spanglish speakers can relate to. Therefore, as one would expect from such a master of spanglish, this passage is extremely successful. However, Don Quijote is written in a formal spanish. Spanglish is in no way a formal language. Therefore, by translating to spanglish, Stavans loses much of the strength and feel of the original. By using words like “pa’los”, this further moves the translation away from the original and away from a “formal” text. While some of the informality is inherent to spanglish, Stavans’ decision to add words like “pa’los” makes it even more informal. These types of words are used frequently in spanglish, however when translating a text like this, using a more formal spanglish may be necessary. It is the informality of spanglish which causes Stavans to be critiqued for his work, because in terms of spanglish, this translation is gold.
Nico Pascual-Leone’s Spanglish:
“In un lugar of la Mancha, of cuyo name no quiero remember-me, no ha a lot of tiempo que lived un hidalgo of those de lanza in astillero, antiquated adarga, a skinny rocín and a running galgo. An olla of algo more vaca than carnero, salpicón most nights, duelos and quebrantos on saturdays, lentejas on fridays, algún palomino of añadidura on sundays, consumían the three partes of his hacienda. The rest o’ella concluded sayo of velarte, calzas of velludo for the festivals con his pantuflos of the same, los days del week se honored with his vellori of the most fino. He had en su house una ama that pasaba forty, and una sobrina que didn’t reach twenty, and un mozo of countryside and plaza, that así ensillaba the rocín like tomaba la podadera. Frisaba the age of nuestro hidalgo with los fifty años, he was de complextion recia, dry de carnes, lean de rostro; great madrugador and friend of la caza. Quieren say que he had el sobrename of Quijada or Quesada (that en this hay some diferencia of the autores that o’este case escriben), even though por credible conjectures se deja understand that se llama Quijana; but this importa little a nuestro story; basta that en la narration dél no se salga one point de la truth.”
By translating to an educational spanglish, the formality of the original is better maintained. Not only is the sentence structure consistent, but the ability to use words like “pa’los” does not arise. The combination of these two events cause my translation to seem more formal and in that way more consistent to the original text. But, then is this really spanglish? In a way, this is not true spanglish. Spanglish is more of an informal language that prides itself in its ability to make english words sound spanish and vise versa. By translating to an educational spanglish, this ability is somewhat lost. So why would a spanglish speaker want to read my version over Professor Stavans? On just the surface level, my translation is able to keep the sentence structure of the original and therefore is more consistent with the original in this way. This causes my version to flow more like the original. But it could still be argued that it is not spanglish. My spanglish serves as a bridge. Not only between the two languages, but a bridge that attempts to bring spanglish into people’s thoughts when thinking about translation. This more structured translation serves as a first step in “formalizing” spanglish so as to allow for spanglish to grow into a language that will be seen and respected in textual form in the future. As I have already mentioned, spanglish is more of an oral language. The process of formalizing spanglish will therefore take time. But this translation shows how even an old formal text can be translated into a structured spanglish. The next steps are to further formalize the spanglish while keeping the flow that appeals to many of its speakers.