A new dialect of English has emerged in Miami, spoken not only by immigrants but also by those born in the US

A new dialect has emerged in some areas of Miami, formed through the cultural interaction of Spanish and English speakers. This unique dialect is a variant of English with a strong Spanish influence, writes Indy100.

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Miami, one of the most distinctly bilingual cities in the United States, has a predominantly Spanish-speaking Latino population. Over time, Spanish has become mixed with American English, resulting in a new dialect with its own vocabulary and grammatical constructions.

Linguists from Florida International University in Miami say this is a clear example of how languages ​​change under the influence of historical and social factors.

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“Every word, dialect, and language has a history,” said Professor Philip M. Carter, director of the Center for the Humanities at Florida International University. “There are many ways to speak English in Miami. We have been studying this dialect for about 10 years. It is the primary language of people born in South Florida in Latino communities and is characterized by unique but subtle pronunciation variations, grammatical differences, and lexical borrowings that result from the long presence of Spanish in the region.”

The new dialect borrows elements of Spanish expressions and translates them literally into English, but retains the Spanish structure of phrases. This process is called calque.

For example, the phrase carnival ("get out of the car", literally "go down, get off") is translated as get down from the carAnd not get out of the car, as is typical of most American dialects of English.

This is not just used by bilingual speakers. Linguists have noticed that native English speakers have begun to borrow certain phrases.

"These examples are literal lexical calques, direct translations. It is noteworthy that we found them not only in the speech of immigrants who use their first language, Spanish, when learning English, but also in their children who learned English as a second native language," he explained.

In 2022, Carter and linguist Kristen D'Alessandro Merry conducted a study to document Spanish-derived calques in South Florida English. They surveyed both the national group and outside the region for comparison.

The study involved 33 Miami-based speakers, including first- and second-generation Cuban Americans and non-Cuban Hispanics, who rated more than 50 sentences in the new dialect on how “perfect,” “acceptable,” “awkward,” or “awful” they sounded.

The results showed that the dialect seemed "natural" to Miami residents, but caused considerable confusion to people outside the region, highlighting how dialects are formed through small changes that become noticeable to other speakers over time.

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Carter calls for destigmatizing Miami English and other dialects that arise in mixed communities.

“I want Miami English to be free from condemnation because it is someone’s native language. It is the language that a person learned from their parents, used in school, heard in their community. It is the language in which they formed their identity, found friendship and love. Why should it be condemned?” the professor emphasized.

The study by Philip M. Carter and D'Alessandro Merry is published in the journal English World-Wide.

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