University of Iowa

While on sabbatical leave in Puerto Rico recently, I noticed that islanders use some words that are peculiar to the island and might prove interesting to others. Many mainlanders have the mistaken idea that Puerto Rican Spanish is mostly influenced by American English. This collection of items shows that the dialect has its own vibrant existence not particularly dependent upon Anglo language and culture.

Money. Puerto Rico is a uniquely self-contained Spanish-speaking community on a small island whose monetary system is exclusively U. S. mint and coinage. Islanders have dubbed each U. S. coin with its own name: the quarter is a peseta, the dime is a sencillo or levita, a nickel is a vellón, and a penny is a chavo.

Puerto Ricans may refer to dólares, but peso is much more frequent. The word peseta is borrowed from the term for the basic monetary unit of Spain and contains a quasi-diminutive morph -eta. This was probably instrumental in firmly establishing the equivalence dollar:quarter-peso:peseta. Perhaps contributing to this usage is the Cuban use of the word peseta, which refers to the twenty-cent coin of that country.

The word vellón («nickel») is used both in Puerto Rico and Panama (Smith). This usage probably derives from the metallic composition of the coin, which is copper and nickel. According to Smith and Williams, vellón is a copper-silver alloy. Álvarez Nazario mentions that vellón is a clipped form of the phrase real (de) vellón, probably deriving from its metallic composition.

In the western part of the island, vellón de cinco is «nickel», and vellón de diez is «dime», but when used simply as vellón, the word refers to a dime. The dime is usually called a sencillo or levita elsewhere. The word sencillo might be a vestige of the fact that it is the smallest silver coin (the most «simple» one) whose value was, before that, determined by its weight. Álvarez Nazario attributes the word to the phrase real sencillo, or «one (simple) real», as opposed to dos reales, or «two bits».

The word for «penny» is chavo. In addition to its meaning denoting the coin, the plural chavos refers both to cents (in change) as in cuesta tres pesos treinta chavos, and in slang is the equivalent of English «bread», «dough», or Mexican lana: Lo compraría pero no tengo los chavos. Moliner calls this use of chavo a clipped form of ochavo, «moneda de metal de poco valor; ... Se usa en frases como sin un chavo, no tener un chavo...». Mexican chavo, by the way, means «children, kids» and comes from chaval, a Gypsy word (Corominas).

Eyeglasses. Puerto Rican Spanish has narrowed and categorized the meanings of several words that deal with optical devices. «Eyeglasses» used for reading and improving vision are espejuelos. (They may also be called lentes [de prescripción.]) The word anteojos in Puerto Rico means only «binoculars» (as is the case in Cuba). Gafas refer to sunglasses exclusively.

Automobile-related vocabulary. A hubcap is a tapabocinas, but a bocina is either a horn, a loudspeaker on the top of a car to make public announcements, or a speaker on a stereo set. Another very useful word of Puerto Rican coinage is the word for English «ride», as in «Do you want a ride?» In Puerto Rico the word is pon, m.: «¿Quieres (un) pon?» In the Burger King and McDonald's restaurants, the drive-through windows are labeled servicarro and agreement is discarded   —195→   in the announcement Estamos abierto.

In Mexico, when someone wishes to sell his car, he or she paints a dollar (peso) sign on the windows, sometimes accompanied by a telephone number. In Puerto Rico the same effect is attained by the letters CVND, CV, or SV.

Puerto Rican Spanish has taken the concept of marquesina («glass canopy, porch; glass roof, cantilever roof» -Smith: «cover over field tent; [sobre la puerta de un hotel] marquee» -Williams) and uses it as «carport». In the area of mass transportation, Puerto Ricans call buses guaguas, as do the Cubans. The word público refers to one of the licensed private automobiles for hire to specific destinations. You can get almost anywhere on the island in a público for a very reasonable price.

Jewelry. As with eyeglasses, words related to jewelry have narrowed in meaning. Islanders insist that aro refers to a wedding band or a band without a stone. A ring with a stone in Puerto Rico is a sortija. The word anillo is used more in newspaper and television wedding announcements than in casual conversation.

Puerto Rican Spanish clearly separates different kinds of earrings. The word pantalla is the «post» of an earring, a pendiente is a pendant earring only. Arete refers to a round, ring-shaped earring (akin to aro, discussed above). Dormilones (mpl.) are earrings consisting of pearls or silver spheres that are small enough to be comfortable while sleeping.

Food. There are at least two words for «red snapper»: pargo and chillo. Pargo is the base for the name of the town La Parguera, from which ferries leave on moonless nights to go to the Phosphorescent Bay. The town is also famous for its many restaurants, whose main offering, of course, is red snapper. A favorite seafood in many outdoor food stands is jueyes, land crabs. Mabí is a «bebida fermentada hecha con la corteza de este árbol» (Lloréns).

A native food is the yuca, «que tiene raíces tuberosas ... De la yuca se hacía la harina de la cual hacían la cazabe o pan principal» (Henríquez Ureña). The yuca has the appearance and taste of a type of potato or yam.

One cannot find naranjas in Puerto Rico: they are chinas. Malaret indicates that china is also used in Cuba and Venezuela to mean naranja dulce. The word for «straw» with which one drinks one's refresco is a sorbeto. This word, whose origin is Italian sorbetto, is related, apparently, to sorber, to sip.

Weather. Typical of Puerto Rican climate is the vaguada (in other dialects «streambed, watercourse»), an extended period of heavy rain. The onomatopoetic chipi-chipi, «drizzle» is of Andalucian origin, according to Navarro Tomás.

Miscellaneous vocabulary. Santo Domingo and Puerto Rico are, according to Moliner, the two Hispanic areas where the words zafacón (probably from zafar, «adorn, bedeck, clear; lighten [a ship]») is a wastebasket, especially one placed in public areas.

A chiringa (origin obscure) is a kite. The word cocoroco, an adjective meaning «vain, stuck up; brazen» in Chile, is used as a noun in Puerto Rico to mean «big shot, high muckety-muck». The word reperpero is used in Puerto Rico and Santo Domingo to mean «confusion, disorder». Puerto Rico has adopted the word recinto to mean «campus». The University of Puerto Rico has recintos in Río Piedras, Mayagüez (RUM = Recinto Universitario de Mayagüez), and Cayey. Land is measured in cuerdas, which are, according to Moliner, «medida de superficie agraria equivalente a una fanega ... (Puerto Rico)».

On doors leading to public buildings and stores all over the island is the admonition HALE (for jale, from jalar, «pull»). In this case, the consciousness of the aspirate nature of h in Old Spanish, perhaps reinforced by contact with American English and its use of aspirate h, has contributed to the confusion of the graphs j and h.

The word enseres (mpl.) is used for household appliances such as kitchen ranges, washers, dryers, etc. None of my bilingual dictionaries lists the entry enseres under «appliances». Williams defines the term «utensils, household goods».

The word lapachar, a noun meaning «terreno cenagoso o demasiado húmedo» (Moliner), has been converted into a verb meaning «splash or play in puddles», as a child would do after a rain. A word that seems to have been coined due to combining of the cultural and welfare systems of the island and the U.S. is the word envejeciente. The origin of the term is rather clear: it is analogous to adolescente, based on envejecido. Judging from its usage, its meaning is more restricted than the English «senior citizen»: one finds a jardín de envejecientes (c.f. jardín de niños) in some   —196→   towns. American jeans are mahones, a term derived from the name of a port city: «Cierta tela de algodón de muy buena calidad, generalmente de color de canela, que empezó a fabricarse en Nanquín y se traía en los barcos que hacían escala en Mahón» (Moliner).

These are some words that stood out in conversations and in the reading of newspapers and magazines published on the island. The dialect of Puerto Rico continues to be a fascinating mixture of unique usages and a never-ending source of surprise and delight.

Álvarez Nazario, Manuel. La herencia lingüística de Canarias en Puerto Rico. San Juan: Instituto de Cultura, 1972.

Henríquez Ureña, Pedro. Para la historia de los indigenismos. Buenos Aires: Universidad de Buenos Aires, 1938.

Lloréns, Washington. El habla popular de Puerto Rico, 2nd Ed. Río Piedras: Edil, 1971.

Malaret, Augusto. Vocabulario de Puerto Rico. New York: Las Américas, 1955.

Moliner, María. Diccionario de uso del español. Madrid: Gredos, 1971. 2 vols.

Navarro Tomás, Tomás. El español de Puerto Rico. Río Piedras: Universidad de Puerto Rico, 1948.

Smith, Colin. Collins Spanish-English English-Spanish Dictionary. London: Collins, 1972.

Williams, Edwin B. The Bantam New College Spanish & English Dictionary. New York: Bantam Books, 1981.

Hispania [Publicaciones periódicas]. Volume 71, Number 1, March 1988