Uruguay President Jose Mujica pade a visit to the White House on Monday and sat down with President Barack Obama to discuss the cultural and economic ties between the U.S. and South America.
"Yearning..." "Love that remains," "Pining for love lost," "A complex feeling that involves romantic values... or a distinct feeling of longing." These are responses when asked to convert the rich, untranslatable word Saudade from its native Galician-Portuguese to English.
Spanish increasingly allows access to new vehicles of success and education, but the influential language has not fogged out English as the reigning language to know. English grants access, and is recognized globally as a language that's affiliated with business and status.
"Spanglish" has been called English's assault on the Spanish language; an implementation of English in routine speech or writing of Spanish-speakers that leads to the invention of words and phrases that don't exist in English or Spanish. This upsets purists, who see the infiltration of English vocabulary, particularly in the United States, as blatant Americanization of the Spanish language. Spanish and English are used interchangeably, within the same sentence -and the bilingual splicing of words is not unheard of. It has become a part of daily life, Latino American culture, and is promoted through major media outlets. Spanish words sometimes replace their English counterparts, and English words have crept "into everyday speech in Spain and Latin America, spreading to advertising, movies, and the other media of popular culture."
