RE: ADSactly Education: Anglicisms in Spanish Language and Culture (Part I)
An extremely interesting and controversial topic, @hlezama; I imagine not only in the English-Spanish relationship.
In order to be alive, languages must be modified, enriched, and this renewal will come, as one of its main ways, from the assimilation of words from other languages (as has happened historically). Speaking on the subject of fidelity to language, Octavio Paz says in one of his essays an ironic phrase that I like very much: "The worst infidelity is casticism".
What worries me the most are the syntactic turns that have been traced or transferred unconsciously.
After all, the central problem is - in my opinion - in the formation that the speakers have of their native language, which would come fundamentally from the education received. And there we stumble upon a harsh reality: our educational system - which I believe is almost universal - is not solidly forming our speakers.
Greetings.
You have pointed at a very important issue. I think that it is undeniable that we are having a serious decline in the, how can we put it, linguistic proficiency in our young generation. That poses a future problem and a dilemma. I can see there are reasons to worry if on top of a low proficiency in the mother tongue, speakers are going to incorporate common/populat expressions from other languages. What would happen with the standard language, and by extension to literary language?
I think that our educational systems must be better equipped to provide the best and demand the best from our kids so that the incorporation of foreign words does not represent any cause for alarm.
I do worry that most kids these days (and I can only speak about my inmediate reality) can't speak well or read and comprehend standard spanish.