New York Latino English

New York Latino English
East Coast Latino English
Native toUnited States
RegionNew York metropolitan area
EthnicityHispanic and Latino Americans
Latin (English alphabet)
American Braille
Language codes
ISO 639-3

The English language as primarily spoken by Hispanic Americans on the East Coast of the United States demonstrates considerable influence from New York City English and African-American Vernacular English, with certain additional features borrowed from the Spanish language.[1][2] Though not currently confirmed to be a single stabilized dialect, this variety has received some attention in the academic literature, being recently labelled New York Latino English, referring to its city of twentieth-century origin, or, more inclusively, East Coast Latino English.[3] In the 1970s scholarship, the variety was more narrowly called (New York) Puerto Rican English or Nuyorican English.[4] The variety originated with Puerto Ricans moving to New York City after World War I,[5] though particularly in the subsequent generations born in the New York dialect region who were native speakers of both English and often Spanish. Today, it covers the English of many Hispanic and Latino Americans of diverse national heritages, not simply Puerto Ricans, in the New York metropolitan area and beyond along the northeastern coast of the United States.

According to linguist William Labov, "A thorough and accurate study of geographic differences in the English of Latinos from the Caribbean and various countries of Central and South America is beyond the scope of the current work", largely because "consistent dialect patterns are still in the process of formation".[2] Importantly, this East Coast Latino ethnolect is a native variety of American English and not a form of Spanglish, broken English, or interlanguage, and other ethnic American English dialects are similarly documented.[6] It is not spoken by all Latinos in this region, and it is not spoken only by Latinos.[1] It is sometimes spoken by people who know little or no Spanish.

  1. ^ a b Newman, Michael. "The New York Latino English Project Page." Queens College. Accessed 2015.
  2. ^ a b Labov, William; Ash, Sharon; Boberg, Charles (2006). The Atlas of North American English, Berlin: Mouton-de Gruyter, p. 24.
  3. ^ Slomanson & Newman (2004:214)
  4. ^ Wolfram, Walt (1974) Sociolinguistic Aspects of Assimilation: Puerto Rican English in New York City Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics ISBN 0-87281-034-8
  5. ^ Newman, Michael (2010). "Focusing, implicational scaling, and the dialect status of New York Latino English". Journal of Sociolinguistics, 14: 210.
  6. ^ Zacarian, Debbie (2012). Mastering Academic Language: A Framework for Supporting Student Achievement. Corwin Press p. 16.