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Article published In: Language Ecology
Vol. 1:2 (2017) ► pp.213–241

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Chocó Spanish and the Missing Spanish Creole debate

Sociohistorical and linguistic considerations to solve the puzzle

 | The University of Texas at Austin | Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies | Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies | Foro Latinoamericano de Antropología del Derecho
Published online: 12 January 2018
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https://doi.org/10.1075/le.1.2.05ses
Abstract
This study offers a linguistic and sociohistorical analysis of Chocó Spanish (CS), an Afro-Hispanic variety spoken in the Pacific lowlands of Colombia by the descendants of the slaves taken to this region to work in gold mines during the colonial era. This research also tackles the many questions arising from the much-debated origins of the Afro-Hispanic Languages of the Americas (AHLAs) ( 2000. The Missing Spanish Creoles. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; 2005. A History of Afro-Hispanic Language: Five Centuries and Five Continents. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). It provides an account of the evolution of CS that is rooted in the recently proposed Legal Hypothesis of Creole Genesis ( 2015. Afro-Peruvian Spanish: Spanish Slavery and the Legacy of Spanish Creoles. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 2017a. The Legal Hypothesis of Creole genesis: Presence/ absence of legal personality, a new element to the Spanish Creole debate. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 32(1): 1–47. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). In so doing, this article tests to what extent such a hypothesis makes valid predictions for a variety like CS, which developed in a region described by many as ‘remote’ and ‘on the frontier’ (cf. Whitten, N. 1974. Black Frontiersmen. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Sharp, F. 1976. Slavery on the Spanish Frontier. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), thus far away from legal courts and where law was not likely to be properly enforced.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Choco Spanish morphosyntax
  • 3.The Afrogenesis Hypothesis and the Department of Chocó
  • 4.Black slavery in the Pacific lowlands of Colombia
    • 4.1The conquest of the region (1500–1680)
      • 4.1.1 Cuadrillas in Popayán circa the 1680s
    • 4.2Mineral exploitation and the end of slavery (1680–1851)
  • 5.The Legal Hypothesis of Creole Genesis
  • 6.Chocó as a testing ground for the Legal Hypothesis of Creole Genesis
  • 7.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (50)
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Korfhagen, David, Rajiv Rao & Sandro Sessarego
2021. Declarative intonation in four Afro-Hispanic varieties. In Aspects of Latin American Spanish Dialectology [Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics, 32], ► pp. 155 ff. DOI logo

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