Ilan Stavans

Notable Quotes

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There are varieties of Spanglish. There's Spanglish spoken by Cuban Americans in Miami called cubonics is different from Mexican American Spanglish, but thanks to the Internet, thanks to radio and television, thanks to what is happening in the classrooms, in the streets in the restaurants, we are finding a middle ground.

From Ilan Stavans

Yiddish, originally, in Eastern Europe was considered the language of children, of the illiterate, of women. And 500 years later, by the 19th century, by the 18th century, writers realized that, in order to communicate with the masses, they could no longer write in Hebrew. They needed to write in Yiddish, the language of the population.

From Ilan Stavans

Spanglish is the encounter: perhaps the word is marriage or divorce of English and Spanish, but also of Anglo and Hispanic civilizations - not only in the United States but in the entire continent and, perhaps, also in Spain.

From Ilan Stavans