Earlier this morning I sent the following email a Ilan Stavans – un profe at Amherst y escritor de Spanglish: the making of a new american language. I’ll write a review sobre el libro pronto but what I want to know now is how many of you would help contribute to an online dictionary of Spanglish?

Ilan,

I just finished reading Spanglish y me impresiono un chingo. Finalmente tenemos un answer to the racismo and nationalistic closed-mindedness de cabrones like Samuel Huntington. Ademas, Espangles ofrece an alternative to the English hegemony that is steadily becoming la lingua franca de La Red. Mis companeros y yo hemos estado chateando in Spanglish por un buen rato, but much of what we say depende on the localismos de nuestra area. Creo que ud. tendria interes to see the blogs of nuestra communidad virtual. Hay muchos links to other Spanglish blogs de mi pagina – http://www.el-oso.net/blog

Pero nosotros, no tenemos un lugar where we can all reference the different localismos de cubonics, espangles, etc. so I was thinking we need an online lexicon of Spanglish terms. Ya se que you talk a lot about the impressive individualismo de hombres como Samuel Johnson and all the trabajo that they put into sus diccionarios and lexicons, pero yo tengo ganas a comenzar algo mas democratico, something that everyone contributes to and allows for the change that the fluidity of Spanglish requires. Por eso, quiero empezar un diccionario de Spanglish bien similar al Wiktionary – http://wiktionary.org/wiki/Main_Page – which allows for an organized layout of terms that everyone can contribute to and help grow. De hecho, me gustaria si Espangles could be an official language on wiktionary (ya tienen Polish y Frances) pero dudo mucho que ellos ven Spanglish as worthy of an official lexicon.

Pues, tengo the programa en my site – lo mismo que utilizan for wiktionary and wikipedia – so eventually if we can convince wiktionary que el espangles es bona fide – it would easy to transfer it to the wiktionary site.

Gracias para empezar la platica sobre una tema so important to setting a foundation para el multiculturalismo to really funciona. Como dices que nos ayuda to look at the history of Ebonics and Yiddish when thinking about el desrrollo de Espangles, I think que existen equal parallels entre ingles y espangles. “The Story of English” por Robert McCrum, Robert MacNeil, William Cran habla de la historia de ingles that could be a foreshadowing de Espangles.

Por favor, cuando tienes chance, escribame sobre sus pensamientos of an online Spanglish dictionary that all could contribute to.

Sincerely y Con Mucho Respeto,

David Sasaki – “El Oso”

Please let me know what you think of this idea by way of comments or emails.