Linguistic cohabitation of Spanish and English in the United States

Abstract

The study of speech communities characterized by language contact has been a major goal ofmodern sociolinguistics. However, the term, linguistic cohabitation is best used to describe thecoexistence of Spanish with the English language in the United States. This paper looks at thelinguistic outcomes of this cohabitation from the perspective of borrowing and substratuminterference. The insights gained reveal that the co habitation of Spanish and English in the US isbased on socio-historical and demographic factors whose relevance demystifies the myth of theUnited States as the melting pot for other languages other than English, and aligns its linguisticpanorama with the language situation in many other parts of the world in the era of continuousimmigration and globalization.