Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T05:40:24.578Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Creole origin for Barlovento Spanish? A linguistic and sociohistorical inquiry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 May 2008

MANUEL DÍAZ-CAMPOS  and
J. CLANCY CLEMENTS
MANUEL DÍAZ-CAMPOS
Affiliation:
Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Indiana University, Ballantine Hall 857, 1020 East Kirkwood Avenue, Bloomington, IN 47405-7103, [email protected]
J. CLANCY CLEMENTS
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, Indiana University, [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

McWhorter challenges the validity of the limited access model for creole formation, noting that “the mainland Spanish colonies put in question a model which is crucial to current creole genesis.” His thesis is that in the Spanish mainland colonies the disproportion between the Black and White populations was enough for the emergence of a creole language. This article focuses on one colony, Venezuela, and argues that Africans there had as much access to Spanish as they did in islands such as Cuba. Based on this fact, the relevant linguistic evidence is analyzed. The most important contribution of this study is the discussion of the Spanish crown's monopolization of the slave trade, which kept the Black/White ratio relatively low in certain Spanish colonies until the end of the 18th century. Until now, this part of the puzzle has been absent in the discussion of the missing Spanish creoles.

Keywords

Creoleslanguage contactlimited access modelVenezuelan Spanish
Type
Research Article
Information
Language in Society , Volume 37 , Issue 3 , July 2008 , pp. 351 - 383
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Acosta Saignes, Miguel (1967). Vida de los esclavos negros en Venezuela. Caracas: Hesperides.Google Scholar
Álvarez, Alexandra, & Obediente, Enrique (1998). El español caribeño: Antecedentes sociohistóricos y lingüísticos. In Perl, Matthias & Schwegler, Armin (eds.), América negra: Panorámica actual de los estudios lingüísticos sobre variedades hispanas, portuguesas y criollas, 40–61. Madrid: Iberoamericana.Google Scholar
Arcila Farías, Eduardo (1946). Economía colonial de Venezuela. Pánuco, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica.Google Scholar
Ascencio, Michaelle (2001). Entre Santa Bárbara y Shangó: La herencia de la plantación. Caracas: Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Sociales Universidad Central de Venezuela.Google Scholar
Bickerton, Derek (1981). Roots of language. Ann Arbor, MI: Karoma.Google Scholar
Brito Figueroa, Federico (1961). La estructura social y demográfica de Venezuela colonial. Caracas: Venevas.Google Scholar
Brito Figueroa, Federico (1963). La estructura económica de Venezuela colonial. Caracas: Instituto de Investigaciones, Facultad de Economía, Universidad Central de Venezuela.Google Scholar
Castillo Lara, Lucas (1981). Apuntes para la historia colonial de Barlovento. Caracas: Academia Nacional de la Historia.Google Scholar
Cedergren, Henrietta (1973). The interplay of social and linguistic factors in Panamá. Dissertation, Cornell University.Google Scholar
Cepeda, Gladys (1995). Retention and deletion of word-final {s} in Valdivian Spanish. Hispanic Linguistics 6:329–53.Google Scholar
Chaudenson, Robert (2001). Creolization of language and culture. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Clements, J. Clancy (forthcoming). The linguistic legacy of Spanish and Portuguese: Colonial expansion and language change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collier, Simon; Skidmore, Thomas; & Blakemore, Harold (1992) (eds). The Cambridge encyclopedia of Latin America and the Caribbean. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Curtin, Phillip (1969). The Atlantic slave trade: A census. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
De la Cruz, Josefina (1978). La sociedad dominicana de finales de siglo a través de la novela. Santo Domingo: Cosmos.Google Scholar
Díaz-Campos, Manuel (1998). The trace of African languages in Latin American Spanish: A study of the Spanish variety spoken in Barlovento, Venezuela. Ms., Ohio State University, Department of Spanish and Portuguese.Google Scholar
Díaz-Campos, Manuel, & Clements, J. Clancy (2005). Mainland Spanish colonies and creole genesis: The Afro-Venezuelan area revisited. In Sayahi, Lotfi & Westmoreland, Maurice (eds.), Selected proceedings of the second workshop on Spanish sociolinguistics, 41–53. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
Dohotaru, Puica (1998). {s} final de sílaba y de palabra en el habla juvenil habanera. Anuario de Lingüística Hispánica 14:149–67.Google Scholar
Eltis, David; Behrendt, Stephen; Richardson, David; & Klein, Herbert (eds.) (1999). The transatlantic slave trade: A database in cd-rom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fuentes Guerra, Jesús, & Schwegler, Armin (2005). Lengua y ritos del Palo Monte Mayombe: Dioses cubanos y sus fuentes africanas. Madrid: Iberoamericana.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
García, Jesús (1990). África en Venezuela: Pieza de indias. Caracas: Lagoven.Google Scholar
Henríquez Ureña, Pedro (1921). Observaciones sobre el español de América. Revista de Filología Española 17:277–84.Google Scholar
Hernández Alonso, César (1996). Castilla la Vieja. In Alvar, Manuel (ed.), Manual de dialectología hispánica: El español de España, 197–202. Barcelona: Ariel Lingüística.Google Scholar
Hoetink, Harry (1972). El pueblo dominicano 1850–1900. Santiago de los Caballeros: Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra.Google Scholar
Kany, Charles (1945). American-Spanish syntax. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kuczynski, Robert (1936). Population movements. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Lafford, Barbara (1986). Valor diagnóstico-social del uso de ciertas variantes de /s/ en el español de Cartagena, Colombia. In Páez, IrasetGuitart, Jorge & Cedeño, Rafael Núñez (eds.), Estudios sobre la fonología del español del Caribe, 53–75. Caracas: La Casa de Bello.Google Scholar
Laurence, Kemlin (1974). Is Caribbean Spanish a case of decreolization? Orbis 23:484–99.Google Scholar
Laviña, Javier (1989). Doctrina para negros. Barcelona: Sendai.Google Scholar
Lipski, John (1989). The speech of the negros congos of Panama. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lipski, John (1993). On the non-creole basis for Afro-Caribbean Spanish. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press.Google Scholar
Lipski, John (1994a). Latin American Spanish. London & New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Lipski, John (1994b). A new perspective on Afro-Dominican Spanish: The Haitian contribution. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press.Google Scholar
Lipski, John (1998). El español bozal. In Perl, Matthias & Schewgler, Armin (eds.), América negra: Panorámica actual de los estudios lingüísticos sobre variedades criollas y afrohispanas, 293–327. Frankfurt: Vervuert.Google Scholar
Lipski, John (2000). Bozal Spanish: Restructuring or creolization? In Schneider, Edgar W. & Neuman-Holzschuh, Ingrid (eds.), Degrees of restructuring in creole languages, 55–83. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Lipski, John (2005). A history of Afro-Hispanic language. Five centuries, five continents. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lombardi, John (1976). People and places in colonial Venezuela. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Lorenzino, Gerardo (1998). Introducción. In Perl, Matthias & Schwegler, Armin (eds.), América negra: Panorámica actual de los estudios lingüísticos sobre variedades hispanas, portuguesas y criollas, 26–39. Frankfurt: Vervuert.Google Scholar
Mariñez, Pablo (1986). Relaciones dominico-haitianas y raíces histórico culturales africanas en la República Dominicana: Bibliografía básica. Santo Domingo: Editora Universitaria.Google Scholar
McWhorter, John (1995). The scarcity of Spanish-based creoles explained. Language in Society 24:213–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McWhorter, John (1997). Towards a new model of creole genesis. New York: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
McWhorter, John (2000). The missing Spanish creoles: Recovering the birth of plantation contact languages. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Megenney, William (1985). África en Venezuela: su herencia lingüística y cultura literaria. Montalbán 15:3–56.Google Scholar
Megenney, William (1989). Black rural speech in Venezuela. Neophilologus 73:52–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Megenney, William (1999). Aspectos del lenguaje afronegroide en Venezuela. Frankfurt: Vervuert.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moreno-Fernández, Francisco (1996). Castilla la Nueva. In Alvar, Manuel (ed.), Manual de dialectología hispánica: El español de España, 213–29. Barcelona: Ariel Lingüística.Google Scholar
Moreno-Fernández, Francisco (1996–1997). La variación de /s/ implosiva en las hablas andaluzas: Análisis cuantitativo. Anuario de Lingüística Hispánica 12:939–57.Google Scholar
Mosonyi, Esteban Emilio; Hernández, María; & Alvarado, Elizabeth (1983). Informe preliminar sobre la especificidad antropolingüística del luango de Barlovento. In Actas del III Encuentro de Lingüistas, 159–67. Caracas: Instituto Universitario Pedagógico de Caracas.Google Scholar
Moya Pons, Frank (1978). La dominación haitiana 1822–1844. Santiago de los Caballeros: Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra.Google Scholar
Otheguy, Ricardo (1973). The Spanish Caribbean: A creole perspective. In Baley, Charles-James N. & Shuy, Roger W. (eds.), New ways of analyzing variation in English. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Parodi, Claudia (2001). Contacto de dialectos y lenguas en el Nuevo Mundo: La vernacularización del español de América. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 149:33–53.Google Scholar
Perl, Matthias (1987). “Habla bozal” – eine spanisch-basierte Kreolsprache? In Perl, Matthias (ed.), Beiträge zur Afrolusitanistik und Kreolistik, 1–17. Berlin: Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR.Google Scholar
Poplack, Shana (1980). Deletion and disambiguation in Puerto Rican Spanish. Language 56:371–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rodríguez Demorizi, Emilio (ed.) (1973). Documentos para la historia de la República Dominicana volume 1. Ciudad Trujillo, Dominican Republic: Montalvo.Google Scholar
Ruíz-Sánchez, Carmen (2004). El comportamiento de la /s/ implosiva en el habla de Caracas. Boletín de lingüística 21:48–65.Google Scholar
Schwegler, Armin (1996). La doble negación dominicana y la génesis del español caribeño. Hispanic Linguistics 8:247–315.Google Scholar
Schwegler, Armin (1998). Palenquero. In Perl, Matthias & Schwegler, Armin (eds.), América negra: Panorámica actual de los estudios lingüísticos sobre variedades criollas y afrohispanas, 220–91. Frankfurt: Vervuert.Google Scholar
Schwegler, Armin (1999). Monogenesis revisited: The Spanish perspective. In Rickford, John & Romaine, Suzanne (eds.), Creole genesis, discourse and attitudes: Studies celebrating Charlene Sato, 235–62. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwegler, Armin (2002). Review of The missing Spanish creoles: Recovering the birth of plantation contact languages, by John H. McWhorter. Language in Society 31:113–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sedano, Mercedes (1990). Hendidas y otras construcciones con ser en el habla de Caracas. Caracas: Universidad Central de Venezuela.Google Scholar
Silva-Corvalán, Carmen (2001). Sociolingüística y pragmática del español. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Terrell, Tracy (1977). Constraints on the aspiration and deletion of final /s/ in Cuban and Puerto Rican Spanish. Bilingual Review/La revista bilingüe 4:35–51.Google Scholar
Terrell, Tracy (1986). Sobre la aspiración y elisión de la /s/ en el habla de Caracas, Venezuela. Actas del V Congreso Internacional de la ALFAL, 661–71. Caracas: Universidad Central de Venezuela.Google Scholar
Tinhorão, José Ramos (1997). Os negros em Portugal: Uma presença silenciosa. Lisbon: Caminho.Google Scholar
Troconis de Veracoechea, Ermila (1969). Documentos para el estudio de los esclavos negros en Venezuela. Caracas: Academia Nacional de la Historia.Google Scholar
Vida-Castro, Matilde (2004). Estudio sociofonológico del español hablado en la ciudad de Málaga. Alicante, Spain: Universidad de Alicante.Google Scholar
Wagner, Max (1924). El español de América y el latín vulgar. Cuadernos del Instituto de Filología 1:45–110.Google Scholar
Waldron, Kathleen (1977). A social history of a primate city: The case of Caracas 1750–1810. Dissertation, Indiana University.Google Scholar