The Lord is My Compadre

OK, this isn't Spanish, but it sure is language and culture.

An article in the Star Ledger yesterday described the Hip-Hop Mass that a local church is holding once a week. Here is the Lord's Prayer from that mass:

The Lord is all that, I need for nothing.

He allows me to chill. He keeps me from being heated and allows me to breathe easy.

He guides my life so that I can represent and give shouts out in His name.

And even though I walk through the Hood of death,

I don't back down for You have my back. The fact that You have me covered allows me to chill.

He provides me with back-up in front of my player-haters and I know that I am a baller and life will be phat. I fall back in the Lord's crib for the rest of my life.

Spanglish version, anyone?

Speaking of Spanglish – and I mean real Spanglish, not code-switching (and not the movie) – I think we are developing a pan-Latino Spanish that is spoken in the United States and that does indeed include many influences from English. And as a friend of mine once noted, if languages didn't change and develop differently in different areas, Spanish-speakers would all still be speaking Latin.