My name is Mario Polanco and my home country is Dominican Republic. My first language is Spanish which forced me to learn a new language (english) after I moved to the U.S, before coming to this country I thought that all of us spanish speakers talked the same and so it would be easy to understand each other since we speak the same language but I was far from the truth. After coming to the U.S i noticed that although the language is the same, our ways of talking were very different and some words which i believed to be another regular word, others did not know it even existed. But what surprised me the most was that the way my community talks is the most different one since we have made up a lot of words which were not known by others outside my community. Like “klk”, “manin”, “jabladol” and many others but i would like to talk about the word “klk” because it is the word that we use the most and the one that has the most meanings behind it which i will talk about as we go on throughout this reading.

“Klk” is a word which is used by my community a lot and it makes sense to us to bring it up in almost every single one of our conversations. This word is most commonly written as “klk” which is just three letters K, L, K but it can also be written as “Queloque”, “qlq” again three letters Q, L, Q, and many more but this are the most common ones, as for the meaning it could mean various things like what’s up“klk”, how are you“klk (with a face expression)”, what’s up with you“klk con tigo”, what do you want “klk (with a tone)” and much more, this word can fill in for a lot of other words all depending in the situation, sentence, physical expression and face expression. The reason why the word is important to us is because it is something that we have used for a very long time now and although we have no problem with others using the words, it would be like an insult if someone were to try and make it their own or try to change the meaning of what i would call “our word”. Something which people should be aware of while using this word is that, because of all of the different meanings behind the word it should be used at the right time with the right words in order to get the right message across and so it does not get misinterpreted.

Since we were the ones who made up or created this word, this word is something which we believe identifies us, this word is what lets everyone know where we come from as well as our nationality just by a simple greeting “klk”. This actually happens very often, people would say “hey you dominican right?” all because of the way we greet them and it is something which in some way makes us proud because it shows us that we are not all the same and that just like other communities we are also different in many ways and we are happy to have words which we can identify our community and that tells us apart from others.

If i had to publish this writing i would not have a specific community in mind, instead i would want everyone to be able to read it, no matter the community or the language which they speak because it could explain a lot as of why is it that my community/Dominicans use that word so often, because people who are new to the word or that hang around with my community they would sometimes try to make fun of us for constantly using the word without knowing that we use it because it comes natural to us and it is something which we grew with and so we find it short and comfortable to use.

This word doesn’t have to be used in a specific time, place or with a specific person, this word is used whenever it feels right. This is used as a everyday word but mostly used when talking to someone you don’t happen to have professional relationship with for example, when in a interview or when giving a presentation although it is not offensive, it is not a very professional word to use, although you can use it anywhere, anytime and with whomever you want, it is less commonly used when wanting to be professional. But even if it is not professionally used, When used with a friend this would show them respect and comfort which makes it a friendly word for my community although it is misunderstood by other communities because to them is is a very “ugly word” and according to them it does not sound “friendly”, this is the reason why it is most commonly used within the communities because it sometimes bring unwanted conflict and it makes us uncomfortable because we have to change our way of speaking.

Some examples of people using this word in the U.S outside out of our community which stops us from being able to talk comfortably with words like “klk” and others like “manin”, and “pana” etc, would be when first meeting a person unlike in the Dominican Republic we are scared that the person would misunderstand our words and think of us as a impolite community, while within my community we would be able to use it without any problem.