Cubonics

Cubonics is a dialect of Spanglish spoken by Cuban Americans[1] that originated in Miami.[2] The term is a play on words of the term Ebonics which refers to African American Vernacular English.[3]

For the variety of Spanish spoken in Cuba, see Cuban Spanish.
For the general dialect of English in Miami, see Miami accent.

The term for the dialect is rather new but the dialect itself has existed ever since the first Cuban exile to Miami in the 1950s. The dialect is a mix of the English language and Cuban idioms.[4] Use of Cubonics has become so popular in Miami that a knowledge of it is considered necessary by some Cuban Americans. Language researcher Elena M. de Jongh even notes how popular Spanglish in Miami is that court translators need knowledge of it to function proficiently.[5]

Cubonics exists as a form of Spanglish where certain Cuban idioms are preserved in Spanish. When these idioms were translated to English they lost some of their original meaning so to preserve these meanings the phrases were continued to be said in Spanish.[4] Cubonics also consists of the Cuban inflection and use of English words.[6] On some occasions Cuban idioms are directly translated into English, these translations are still considered part of Cubonics.[3]

See also

References
  1. Neuliep, James (2009). Intercultural Communication: A Contextual Approach. ISBN 9781412967709.
  2. Lipski, John (2008). Varieties of Spanish in the United States. ISBN 978-1589016514.
  3. Clary, Mike (1997). "Finding a 'Muy Friquiado' Way to Speak". Los Angeles Times.
  4. Rodica, Nina (2013). "Spanglish: an English Spanish Language Phenomenon" (PDF). Maribor International Review.
  5. "A linguistic analysis of Spanglish: relating language to identity". 2005.
  6. ""Miami Cubonics": A Ten-Word Guide, According to Palo!'s Steve Roitstein". 2013.
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