Forget Spanglish! The New Wave is the ‘Japoñol’
by guest contributor Laura Martinez, originally published at mi blog es tu blog
I love, love these guys.
Peruvian reggaetón trio Los Kalibre is making the Japanese shake their butts with catchy songs and lyrics mixing Spanish and Japanese in what the media is already calling Japoñol. The Peru-born recent Japan immigrants are convinced the Japanese will embrace their music and dump the salsa rhythms, simply because reggaetón it’s easier to dance… and to sing. (Really, how difficult is it to learn the lyrics of Gasolina?)
According to Lando, Dando and Nani, their music gets an inspiration from Rafael, Celia Cruz, Nino Bravo and José Feliciano; the trick, they say, is to mix both languages (Spanish and Japanese) and inventing new forms and verbs. ¡Que Viva el Japoñol!
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of 
gatamala wrote:
I love it!!!
my sis speaks Spanish & is working on her Japanese…hmmmm
Posted 28 Nov 2007 at 8:48 am ¶
dnA wrote:
The idea of Japanol is pretty awsm but my vote for coolest hybrid language is still Ladino, the mixture of Hebrew, Portugese and Spanish that Jewish immigrants from Spain and North Africa speak. Of course, Hebrew is probably the least sexy language on the planet, so Japanol has it all over Ladino there.
No I don’t know how to make the squiggly line thing that goes over the n on my keyboard. And I can’t google it either, because I don’t remember what its called.
Posted 28 Nov 2007 at 9:03 am ¶
deb wrote:
I already have a song on my DAP that mixes reggaeton and Turkish. I might have to check this joint out.
Posted 28 Nov 2007 at 9:32 am ¶
Mireille wrote:
I’ve got Gasonlina stuck in my head now, great.
This, however, looks totally awesome.
Posted 28 Nov 2007 at 12:12 pm ¶
Moishe wrote:
“Hebrew is probably the least sexy language on the planet”
Yeah. That’s not racist at all…
Posted 28 Nov 2007 at 12:35 pm ¶
lunanoire wrote:
The squiggly line is called a tilde.
As a student of both languages, this sounds like fun; both languages use vowels in a similar way, so pronounciation is less of a hurdle. Also, Spanish verbs in the infinitve end in “r” and many Japanese verbs end in “ru”, as well as a frequently used verbs “suru” and “yaru.” It would trip me up sometimes. when going from Spanish class to Japanese class to a different Spanish class one semester in cllege.
Posted 28 Nov 2007 at 1:51 pm ¶
Seattle Slim wrote:
SWEET! I hope it catches on!
Posted 28 Nov 2007 at 3:59 pm ¶
cacy wrote:
I am really, really curious about this fusion. A few months ago I decided to study Japanese. My earlier attempts in foreign language study included Portuguese and Spanish and I can honesly admit I speak both languages horribly. So there I was studying Japanese, trying to work thing sout in my head when I started to mix Portuguese with Japanese. Its, really, really weird but kinda cool.
Posted 28 Nov 2007 at 4:21 pm ¶
Black Strawberry wrote:
EHHEHHHEHEHEHEHEHE my classmates are still trying to get over the fact that Peru has a signifanct Japanese population.
Posted 28 Nov 2007 at 6:53 pm ¶
dnA wrote:
okay wait…what do you call a language that is a mixture of portugese and japanese?!?!?!?
portu-
japan—
I can’t figure it out.
Moishe, I just don’t think Hebrew is sexy. Maybe because it reminds me of my miserable experience in Hebrew school.
Posted 28 Nov 2007 at 8:32 pm ¶
Moishe wrote:
dnA –
I hear what you’re saying, but it struck me as being not that different from “Mexicans just aren’t that handsome” or “Indian people smell like curry” or “Asian music is unintentionally humorous.”
I also didn’t know that you were Jewish — that helps me understand your perspective better. As we all know, I can complain about my mother and no one cares. You complain about my mother, we’ve got a problem…
Shalom.
Posted 29 Nov 2007 at 10:09 am ¶
Wendi Muse wrote:
i feel like calling a language un-sexy isn’t racist because a) language is not inadverdantly connected to race ( i am black, and i speak english. if i were born in brazil, id grow up speaking portuguese. if i grew up in china, i’d speak chinese…either way, my race remains the same, and if one were to say my language wasn’t sexy, it wouldn’t necessarily relate to my race), and b) because certain sounds are not appealing to certain people and it’s completely removed from the speaker. for example, i don’t find english to be a sexy language. in my mind, it’s flat. if someone were to say any sentence in english then one in portuguese, i would prefer the portuguese one because the language has a more rhythmic quality to it. i could blindfolded, not see the person at all, and find the english sentence more boring, even if heidi klum said it.
it WOULD be racist, however, to say something like…spanish is such an ugly language…then follow that with a negative stereotype associated to people whose native language is spanish.
a language can be considered without regard to a people. however when you link the two explicitly, i would be the first one saying it was racist or xenophobic.
re: japanese + portuguese, i would say maybe…
portanese
-or-
japuguese
Posted 29 Nov 2007 at 11:51 am ¶
Ike wrote:
The discussion about the tilde reminded me of when I was a child and I thought I could type an ‘ñ’ by hitting the ‘~’ and the ‘n’ at the same time. The ASCII code is alt+164 on the numpad.
Posted 29 Nov 2007 at 3:46 pm ¶
dnA wrote:
It’s all good Moishe, if I was you I probably would have said the same thing.
Portanese!!!!
Posted 29 Nov 2007 at 8:22 pm ¶