Puerto-Rican English

Here in Puerto Rico our first language is Spanish, but we do have a very strong second language that has been impacting our common tongue in a great matter. That language is considered to be English. Now, we can't say that our English is the same as the one spoken in the United States, or much less as it is spoken in the UK. It is a mixture of all of this languages that threw time our society has listened to and mixed in their own way. Also, inside our own type of language, we can differentiate spoken and written English in which case both differ in various aspects.

In a study made by Dr. Manfred Krug, it is shown that our English is much more alike to the same language spoken in the United States. In other conclusions that he got from his studies, Malta's English is more alike to Britain's English. Now, the interesting thing about all this is that he also found Malta's and Puerto Rico's English to be more similar than Britain's and US English even though we are so far apart. We keep learning more and more each day!

Now, a topic I want to point out in this post that maybe gets sidetracked a little from the purpose of Dr. Krug's study, which is to show similarities and differences between the languages, is that I've heard many puerto ricans say they would like to see English become the first language of our island, instead of Spanish.

The first time I heard this statement was actually from one of my closest girl friends. I was a little skeptical at first about this because threw so many years our "safe" language has been Spanish, and even though we are territory of the United States and their first language is English, if we make that change, it would drastically shift our normal every day lives. I believe that learning English has many advantages, and that it could open a door for a lot of the people that want to expand their basic knowledge, and by basic I mean being fluent in their native language and none other. Learning other languages is a great way for people to introduce themselves in businesses, jobs, while traveling, among other things, but I don't believe we should lose our common tongue which distinguishes us so much from all the other territories in the United States. Instead of thinking of changing our first language, I propose we should emphasize more on our current first language and solidify the base of our second language, it being English. This could be a better way to learn both languages and be fluent in them, so that we can expand our horizons even further than what we are already doing. It'll be a very helpful tool for a lot of people and one that isn't very hard to accomplish. In the end, for now at least, our fist language will continue to be Spanish, and while the generations keep growing, our English will become stronger and it will be added to our enormous bag of knowledge that we carry with us everyday.