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In:Language Contact in Africa and the African Diaspora in the Americas: In honor of John V. Singler
Edited by Cecelia Cutler, Zvjezdana Vrzić and Philipp Angermeyer
[Creole Language Library 53] 2017
► pp. 49–78

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The African diaspora in Latin America

Linguistic contact and consequences

Published online: 12 July 2017
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https://doi.org/10.1075/cll.53.03guy
Some 60% of the Atlantic slave traffic was directed to Luso-Hispanic America, principally Brazil, Cuba, Hispaniola, Colombia, etc., where people of African ancestry still form substantial majorities in some areas. This paper examines the linguistic consequences of this massive contact between Africans and Europeans. In colonial times, non-native and pidgin/creole varieties clearly existed in Latin America (cf. Palenquero, Papiamentu, Cuban habla bozal). In contemporary Latin America, people of African ancestry tend to be the defining speakers of nonstandard varieties whose linguistic characteristics are best explained in terms of a history of contact and/or creolization. Overall, popular Latin American Spanish and Portuguese appear to have been significantly influenced by Afro-European language contact.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The historical presence of creoles in Latin America
  • 3.The contemporary situation: Vernacular varieties of Spanish and Portuguese
  • 4.Phonological reductions
  • 5.Morphosyntactic variation
    • 5.1Nominal agreement
    • 5.2Verbal agreement
    • 5.3Negative repetition
  • 6.The problem of explanation
    • 6.1European sources for popular American varieties
    • 6.2Spontaneous innovation
    • 6.3Language contact
    • 6.4African sources
    • 6.5Initial position plural marking
    • 6.6Adult learner strategies
  • 7.The apparent dearth of creoles in contemporary Latin America
    • 7.1Duration of slavery, language contact and linguistic assimilation
    • 7.2Ratio of Africans to Europeans
    • 7.3The social conditions of slavery
    • 7.4The source languages
  • 8.A crucial case: Afro-Bolivian Spanish
  • 9.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
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