Spanish Influence On English Essay

English is variously open to external influence. Since its birth, English has been in contact with the languages of very different people in Europe. Its linguistic system has become more analytical and prone to borrowing. English has borrowed much from Spanish. During the sixteenth century when Spain was a world power in conflict with the emerging British Empire was when the Spanish contribution had its first impact on the English language due to the cultural exchanges between England and Spain.
The suffixes or combining forms that betray Spanish origin include the prolific –teria of cafeteria and the –aroo and –eroo which appeared in American English in the 1930s by analogy with buckaroo and the coincidental support of kangaroo. Felix Rodriguez Gonzalez refers to –aroo as “parasitic” because “it lacks the ‘trans categorizing function which is proper of suffixes, for it is used simply to create amusing, slangy variations of whatever is infixed.”
This “slangy” character is also present in other American combining forms of recent creation such as –esta, which denotes extra fanfare (i.e., jubilesta [jubilee], Hallowesta [Halloween]) and el –o (common pattern among Spanish singular masculine nouns) which constitutes an amusing …show more content…
Spanish serves as a donor language and the ongoing compilation of words and expressions of Spanish origin in the English language proves that Spanish remains a vital influence on English. Furthermore, if the intimacy of English-Spanish contacts in North America both at the present time and historically, and the intimate borrowings resulting from such interaction are considered, together with the growing importance of the Spanish-speaking population, it is doubtful whether any other modern language is likely to rival Spanish in the immediate