(La) Florida: Not Just Spanglish

(LA) FLORIDA

Florida is one of several U.S. states with a name of Spanish origin. “La Florida,” meaning “the flowering,” was inspired by the region’s abundant and beautiful blooms. Yet, the name is only a small part of the profound influence Hispanic culture, especially in South Florida, has had on the state’s identity. 

1 out of 3 households in Florida speaks a foreign language at home

Besides Alaska, Florida is the only state in the United States of America that borders the Ocean on three sides: the east; the south; and the west. The sea routes of this wealthy and populated state, 21 600 000 people with a median household income of  USD 67 917 – USD 80,610 is the median household income U.S. (Data USA, 2022a) – has carried a constant flow of trade, music, art, food, and human beings from Mexico, the Bahamas, and, more importantly, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Caribbean world. The consequent influences on Florida culture span from Europe to Mesoamerica and from Africa to Asia. 

Resident population of Florida in 2023, by race and ethnicity

Source: Statista

A continuous flux of visitors, immigrants, and newcomers adds to the state cultural lush, to the extent that the public education system found more than 200 languages being spoken privately as first language in the state (MacDonald, 2004). More impressively, according to the American Community Survey by the U.S. Census Bureau, almost 1 out of 3 households in Florida speaks a foreign language at home (Data USA, 2022b). Currently, these languages include Spanish (22.2%), Haitian (2.12%), and Portuguese (0.732%) as well as French, Chinese, Arabic, Tagalog, Vietnamese, German, Russian, and Italian, among others (Ibidem). 

“We really learn our language not from our families, but from speech communities around us.”

– Said Phillip Carter, FIU professor of English and linguistics and affiliate of the university’s Cuban Research Institute, who led the research.

English-Spanish: A polymorphic influence

The aforementioned geographic, historical, and cultural elements play a morphing role in the everyday language spoken in Florida, especially in the south. According to Professor of Linguistics Phillip M. Carter, Florida has featured “one of the most important linguistic convergences in all of the Americas” (Carter, 2023). This de facto English-Spanish bilingualism has produced phenomena such as Spanglish and linguistic calques, derived from Spanish expressions, that have permeated into the so-called English of South Florida. 

The most noticeable effect of these influences on English is the phenomenon of calque. A calque is “a sort of a loan translation, where you don’t borrow the word, but you borrow the concept and you translate it into the target language” (Rascoe, 2023).

Sources: Carter, 2022; Carter and D’Alessandro Merii, 2023; Munzenrieder, 2014b

Not just Spanglish: Cubonics, and Haitian Creole

Spanglish is a combination of Spanish and English, with different versions throughout the U.S. and other countries. Antonio Martínez defined Spanglish as “code-switching” and a “hybrid language practice” rather than a creole, a dialect, or an ethnolet (Martínez, 2010). A politically active linguist, Zentella, stressed that English-Spanish switching is rather “a creative style of bilingual communication that accomplishes important and conversational work” (cited in Lipsky, 2008, pp. 48–49). 

“All dialects have rules every bit as rigorous as those of the standard dialect, which is usually determined by the most influential social class. So speaking with a Southern, Brooklyn, or Black accent is not a matter of breaking the rules of grammar but of speaking with slightly different ones. So, if you change your accent, remember, the reasons are all economic or social; they should not be linguistic.”

(Beard, 2024)

The specific form of Spanglish spoken in Southern Florida is called Cubonics by merging the terms “Cuban” and “Ebonics.” Cubonics is so widespread in Miami that courts require specific translators for it (de Jongh, 1991). Its characteristics are the following: 1) it uses Cuban idioms within English phrases; 2) it has a Cuban inflection of English words; and 3) it translates some Cuban idioms directly into English.

Source: Katel, 2013

On the other hand, Haitian Creole, one of the two official languages of Haiti, is a French-based creole language spoken by 10 to 12 million people worldwide, making it the 2nd most important creole language in the world. Even if its extent is not comparable to that of Spanglish, Haitian Creole is the 3rd most spoken language in Florida. 

Source: Sonny, 2022

Everyday slang

Florida slang does not necessarily emerge from bilingualism or calques. It has much to do with the typical lifestyles (Munzenrieder, 2014a), which are generally considered “weird” by most other Americans because of their patchwork mix. Leisure and tourism, immigration, retiree habits, and rurality, but also Southern American dialects all contribute to mold slang expressions of everyday life.

Sources: Nautilus, 2023; Munzenrieder, 2014b

The Miami dialect 

Moreover, in Miami, phrases that might sound unusual to most English speakers have become part of everyday speech. Expressions like “get down from the car” instead of “get out of the car” reflect a direct translation from the Spanish “bajar del carro.” Similarly, Miamians might say “make a party” rather than “throw a party,” translating from the Spanish “hacer una fiesta,” or “married with” instead of “married to,” based on the Spanish phrase “casarse con.”

 “get out of the car” > bajar del carro > “get down from the car” 

“throw a party” > hacer una fiesta > “make a party”

What’s fascinating is how Miami’s homegrown dialect continues to evolve. While some expressions, like “throw a photo” (from “tirar una foto”), are primarily used by the immigrant generation, others, like “married with,” are embraced by Miami-born speakers. Experiments show that Miamians are more accepting of these localized expressions than people from other parts of the U.S. 

This phenomenon reminds us that language is always changing, shaped by cultural exchange and history. Take the world dandelion as an example. This flower grows in central Europe and when the Germans realized they didn’t have a word for it, they looked to botany books written in Latin, where it was called dens lionis, or “lion’s tooth.” As a result, the Germans borrowed that concept and named the flower “Löwenzahn”, a literal translation of “lion’s tooth.” Also the French didn’t have a word for the flower, so they also borrowed the concept of “lion’s tooth,” calquing it as “dent de lion.” Similarly, the English, not having a word for this flower, heard the French term without understanding it, and gradually they’ve adapted “dent de lion” into their language, transforming it into “dandelion.” This term, shaped by centuries of calques from Latin to German, French and English exemplifies how language evolves. In the same way, modern expressions from the Miami dialect, like ‘get down from the car,’ show how languages continue to adapt and evolve through cultural contact. Therefore, every phrase we use carries a story and a history of borrowed meanings and cultural fusion.

Sara Bissen

English expert linguist

Sara Bissen has built action-oriented research in relation to the rural-urban conflict. Her transnational perspective on land and dispossession has informed her transdisciplinary work on rurality—from a pre-industrial country, such as Guatemala, to the developing and post-industrial countries of Turkey and Italy, respectively. Within this frame, her work has addressed the following contemporary topics: forced migration; urban decay; transnational peasantry; urban informality; farmer suicide; and rural transformation. Through The Ruralist Body, Sara has published over 20 disseminative and scientific writings on social, economic, political, and anthropological factors from the vantage point of the rural world. Her published books include Topsoil (2015), The City Smells of Decay (2016), and This Is Not Topsoil (2024).

References

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