Should Dominican Spanish be its own language like Haitian Creole?

souljanyn3 · Feb 8, 2008

What do you think, I mean Dominican Spanish is significantly different from Spanish like Haitian creole is significantly different from French...should it become its own language at an official status It has alot of African and Native American Arawak/Taino wrods in it as well as variations of english words to create a new language spoken within both the nation and immigrants from the nation...I think it should, here are few examples I have collected from othe threads and sources:

Taino--------------------------
Aji = n : Hot Pepper.
Anacaona = n : Golden Flower.
Areito = n : A Traditional Dances with spoken historic songs.
Arepa = n : Corn Cake.
baguada= tropical storm
Bara = n : Kill or Death, also a whip.
Barbacoa = n : A Stand, a four legged stand, made of sticks, used in the cooking process of roasting meat.
Batata = n : Sweet Potato.
Bohio = n : small square house (typical countryside homes).
Cocuyo = n : Small Lighting Bug, with a blueish light, they come out at night.
Colibri = n : Hummingbird.
Cana = n : Any number of Palmetto trees (A type of palmetto are the palms that line the malecon of Santo Domingo)
Ceiba = n: Silkcotton Tree (These are gigantic trees visible in the Cibao valley especially, many are upwards of 300 years old!)
Canoa = n : Small Boat.
Cacike = n : Chief.
Catey or Katey = n : Disturb, bother.
Cibao = n : Stone Mountains (today Cibao is the name of the valley, not the mountain range which Cordillera Central)
Conuco= plot of cultivated land or small farm
Cojiba = n : Rolled Tabacco
Cucubano = n : Large Lighting Bug.
Choreto = n : Abundance.
Guaraguao = n : Red Tailed Hawk.
Guama = n : Large Shade Tree, a fruit Tree.
Guagua = n : Bus or Car, a form of transit.
Guajey = n : Gord Scraper also known as a Guira.
Guayo = n : Grater.
Hamaca = n : Hanging Bed.
Hutia = n : Rat like roden, native to Hispaniola.
Iguana = n : Large Green Lizard.
Jaiba = n : River Crab or Freshwater Crayfish River.
Jicotea = n : Land Turtle.
Jibaro = n : Man of the Forest.
Manati = n : Sea Cow.
Mabi = n : A Fruit tree.
Maraca = n : Gord Rattle, Musical Instrument made of Higuera gord.
Macu = n : Big Eyes.
Maco = n: Frog.
Maguey = n : Big Sun, a Drum. (See the word Mayohuacan).
Manicato = n : A Bold person, valiant of a good heart.
Mime = n : Little Fly.
Mucaro = n : Owl.
Naiboa = n : The poisonous juice of the Yuca brava.
Nana = n : Girl. (Dominicans often say Nena as oppose to Nana).
Sabana = n : Big Valle or Large Plain.
Sanaco = n : Clown, Dope or Stupid.
Tabacu = n : Tabacco.
Tiburon = n : Shark.
Yagua = n: A small palm native to Hispaniola.
Yabisi = n : Tree.

English---------------------------------
Chicle - chicklet
duble buble - Dubble Bubble (gum)
cote - Kotex
Camelia - Maxi Pad
guachiman - Watchman
domplin - Dumplin
Jipeta - Jeep (SUV)
Selofen - Rinse from Sebastian called Chelophen (sp?) now every rinse from any maker is called that.
Kachu - Ketchup
cloro - Clorox or any bleacher
panckei - panckakes
siro - sirup
chirio - Cheerios or any cereal
Suera - Sweater
Cou - Coat
pocon - popcorn
wiki - wiski
Tro - Truck (used mostly by dominicanyorks)
play - baseball field
beibol - beisball
mycroway - Microwave
Osesio - Obsesion (male cologne)
dona - doughnut
Madona - Mc. Donalds
Happy mio - Happy Meal
bi ma - Big Mac
nitendo - Nintendo
tenni - tennis shoes

African--------------------
Toto= Vagina
Bembe= Lips
Mangu= Mashed Plantains
Kongo= an afro-caribbean religion in DR
Cola?=vagina, ass? in the Ewe language of Togo in West Africa(which by the way practice voodoo) cola means vagina...
By the way there are MANY more...

montreal · Feb 8, 2008

Most of those taino words are used in all Latin American countries, not just the Dominican Republic. Remember they came from Venezuela and spread their language around by travelling quite a bit.

Haitian creole is NOTHING like french. Some words are the same. It cannot be compared to the difference between Dominican Spanish and say Columbian Spanish. Dominicans do have words that are not used in the rest of latin america (of which most are usually also used in PR). This also occurs in Cuba, Argentina.... but the biggest difference is in pronunciation. I would compare it more to the difference between the french spoken in France and Canada (god knows I don't understand half the words coming out of a Frenchman's mouth) or the English spoken in France and the US.

Chirimoya · Feb 8, 2008

No comparison. A French speaker has to learn Kreyol. A non-Dominican Spanish speaker encountering Dominican Spanish for the first time has no more difficulty than a British English speaker going to Australia.

fightfish · Feb 8, 2008

I agrreeChirimoya, the Spanish is the same with some exceptions. Beans in Mexico are frijoles, in the D:R: habituelas for example. But 99% are the same except for slang.

NALs · Feb 8, 2008

Even though the potential "life" of this thread has been cut short, I still think this thread should be in the Spanish 101 forum.

And no, Dominican Spanish is not its own language much in the same manner that Mexican Spanish, Puerto Rican Spanish, Cuban Spanish, Colombian Spanish, Argentinian Spanish, etc. are not their own languages either.

There might be some differences in syntax and phonetics of a few words, but those are minor differences. In written form, Dominican Spanish is indistinguishable from the Spanish of anywhere else.

Haitian Kreyol is the complete opposite of what has been stated here.

-NALs

Rocky · Feb 8, 2008

I don't get it.
A lot of those words are the common Spanish translation, and not exclusive to the DR, like tibur?n, batata, sabana, colibri, manatee, iguana, etc and some are mistranslated, like ajie means a pepper, not a hot pepper.
I think someone needs some Spanish lessons.

higuey84 · Feb 8, 2008

hey rocky,
i was reading in an very intersting article that a lot of dominican words come from our taino heritages. apparently it was discovered that not all "TAINOS" were dead, apparently some of them went to the woods to hide with some "Africans", the Taino culture is really strong in dominican republic. go to this link: La sobrevivencia de la cultura Taina en la Republica Dominicana
as a dominican, i freaked out. there's a lot more about my history and culture to learn.

fightfish · Feb 8, 2008

As and American, I am certain that is true for myself as well. In Mexico, my family has a live-in maid/nanny, who says that when she goes home to her province, everyone speaks their indian language, not spanish. Different country, obviously, but it shows how native language can survive and even remain in the forefront of languages used. She has taught me a few words, but my brain is only good for two languages!

puertoplataexpat · Feb 8, 2008

Hi everyone,
My Spanish is a little rusty...but discussions like this bring the memories and Dominican Spanish straight back to me.
I don't think Dominican Spanish is a language in its own right, but let me add, I do have more difficulty understanding "European" Spanish, probably because I have become accustomed to "Latin" Spanish...the accent being very different.

Thankyou higuey84 for the great link.....will study it at length later.
My kids are 1/2 Dominican, and although their father looks more African, many of his family have "Indian features".
It will be nice to give my kids an insight to the culture of their forefathers.

SuperConejo · Feb 8, 2008

Interesting thread

I think that it depends on the part of d.r, in the main cities of D.R, its less creolized then in the countryside, in the deep isolated dominican countryside there are some towns and families that definetely can classify as their own language. I compare it like this.
Haitian Kreyol is as Creolized as Jamaican Patois
and Dominican Spanish is as Creolized as Southern Afro-american english.
In other words all of them are creolized but to different extencts, Haitian kreyol has more grammar rules from African languages, then all of them. Haitian kreyol also has a good amount of Taino in it as well, like Dominican spanish.

I'll add some African words to that list.
?ame
malanga
?ampear
?ato
?o?o
bongo
musongo
sarandunga
bomba
kikonde
kalunga
simbi
ogun balenyo
fufu
san (jugar un san)
guineo
guinea
kambumbo
?angotarse
?e?e
Mu?unga
guedeh
zumbar,
mango
mongo

And there are more that are probably not even documented, and used in these countrysides, the same can be said for the hundreds if not thousands of taino words that are used in common countryside lingo. PLEASE don't call it slang, these are real words with real meanings, they are NOT made up. By the way most of these African words i listed are either Igbo or Kongo, which was the main ethnic groups bought to D.R. This is why Dominican spanish is so close to Coastal Venezeulan spanish of Barlovento and other highly African areas of venezuela, also very close to the spanish spoken in Santiago, Cuba where there were thousands of Haitians after the revolution that were forced to cuba by the french. Afro-puertoricans from Loiza, Mayaguez also sound alot like Dominicans, u can go around meeting people from these areas and you will notice they cluster the most with dominican speech.

souljanyn3 · Feb 9, 2008

Well do you understand that the grammer is different to an extent and different words are used, you compare it to venezuela but why dont you compare it to spanish spoken in Mexico, Argentina, Peru, Spain, and Chile. It has alot of contributations from other languages like Arawak,Ewe,Wolof, English and others as well as Haitian Creole and French. If it was a small contributation than I would say ok no, but they affect everyday life including schools, churchs and the government also take note that Haitian Creole wasnt made official until 1980 so it took them that long to consider it a language/dialect of its own...why not call it Dominican Patwa, Dominican Creole or Dominican Spanish Creole. I'm saying that its significantly different from Spanish from Spain where it originated like Haitian Creole is significantly different from French from France and as Jamaican Creole is significantly different from Enlish in England where it originated, think of it as a branch of Spanish that became its own with a mixture of other languages.

SuperConejo · Feb 9, 2008

I agree souljanyn3, i was just showing the different levels of creolization, in the same light, Americans from the Southern part of the united states have long wanted to canonize their "dialect" as a language, and i think that its different enough to be recognized this way. I have seen linguistic papers of that classify Dominican spanish in the group of "new world creoles". Its all really up to the people, and the biggest problem we face to make this happen in D.R is that people are ashamed of the way they speak for the most part. To be "educated" starts to mean to forget their way of speaking and adopt something akin closer to Castillian. There is something funny that happens when this attempt is made, and its very common in some other spanish speaking African-descendants, its called Hyper Correction. For example

Dominican Spanish: toy Hablando Fino
Castillian: Estoy Hablando fino
Hyper-Correction: toys hasblando fisno

notice the s'es are put into random places, in an attempt to imitate castillian spanish.
Until our people recognize they posses a beautiful way of speaking, in specifically the raw countryside way of speaking, until this is seen as "educated" this will never happen in D.R, and as time goes on these ways of speaking will become increasingly more castillian. I am sure that at one time the Maroons of D.R, the Zambos and other isolated groups spoke languages as creolized if not more creolized then haitain kreyol. It has been time and integration of these societies into the spanish controlled urban areas that has de-creolized common dominican spanish.

Rocky · Feb 9, 2008

SuperConejo said:
To be "educated" starts to mean to forget their way of speaking and adopt something akin closer to Castillian.

I have never heard any Dominican ever come even close to speaking Castellano, and I thank God for that, as that lisp they have is really ugly to the ears, like nails on a blackboard.

souljanyn3 · Feb 9, 2008

I agree with you superconejo but Its up to the government to try to make the people understand and create change, but thats a whole different issue...and yeah people are ashamed i can tell by some of the replys in this thread but like you said it is a wonderful way of peach that shows our history and the creation of a new language with essence in Africa, Europe and North America(DR)...I mean but this can add power and identity to the dominican people that they created a new culture and languge...by the way where did you get the African words from I would like to learn more same for Taino words...thanks...

souljanyn3 · Feb 9, 2008

and to add just like Haitian Creole Dominican Spanish has a different way of speach than its mother tounge e.i:

Dominican Spanish: To' Ta Bien?
Spanish: Esta Todo Bien?

Dominican Spanish: Ay! que Caloi Hace!
Spanish: Hace mucho Calor!

Dominican Spanish: No me dijo el.
Spanish: El me dijo no.

as you see the sentence structure is more like the one of the Arawak language(where in almost all cases the object/person is last and after the Verb) not like the Spanish Language in a sense, and you see the Arawak in the "Caloi" and the African in the expression "Ay!" at the start of the sentence.

also like Haitian Creole(though very little) Arabic and chinese(mostly Cantonese) words can be heard in the mix making it even more diverse...

SuperConejo · Feb 10, 2008

Some of the African words i got are from this great dominican dictionary, the BEST one i seen online, i know of their african origin through research and its very obvious because Cuban Igbo,Kongos an Yorubas use the same words in their ceremonies. Dominicanismos, this dictionary kicks ass, save it if you can, i already saved a local copy to my hard drive. I also got some of the african words from a book in the library that has a big list of African words used in the diaspora, from jamaica, d.r, cuba, brazil, haiti, u.s, colombia, venezuela, etc. Another way to verify the africanity of some words is to see maps of Angola, Congo, Nigeria, Zaire, Gabon, you will find some of them as city or river names. I am not the best source for the taino names, the BEST person to ask is Baracutay to find him read over the taino thread carefully, he can list many of them.

As far as the governemnt initating this step, its more likely that D.R will have running electricity 24/7 then this happening. The government is working for the interest of the elite, most of which are of Spanish, although some can be lebanese or afro. In the end this group of elite's tries its HARDEST to make D.R a mirror image of spain, and since they have economic control of the island, its not easy to disoldge them, we've been trying for the past 500 years = ).

In my opinon this movement has to start within us the common working class dominican, and those of us who are proud of our way of speaking should help change the curriculum of the country, perhaps by publishing a dictionary of dominican spanish, then the next step would be to start teaching the children this, as they are the future of hte country, the adults will be more hardheaded about it.

souljanyn3 · Feb 10, 2008

your right in all superconejo...So what are the criteria that has to fit a language in order to be a "Creole"?....because if it fits all the criteria than something has to be done, some action has to be taken...

SuperConejo · Feb 10, 2008

The criteria is very lose, i'm not a linguist so i dont know for sure. But some linguist like John M Lipsky have called it a creole, this is a quote from one of his publications,

Megenney was the first scholar to situate Afro-Dominican language within the broader arena of
creole languages, and to offer a systematic comparison with manifestations of Afro-Hispanic linguistic
contact elsewhere in Latin America. The present study will capitalize on his careful scrutiny of
Dominican linguistic facts, although arriving at different conclusions regarding the proper place of
Dominican Spanish within the sphere of Afro-Hispanic language

of course we know as a whole dominican spanish would be a Afro-Taino kreyol,

This is another quote from his publicatoin in spanish.

Megenney, Gonz?lez y Benavides y tambi?n
Lorenzino (1993) han colocado el tema del lenguaje afrodominicano dentro del marco de las
lenguas criollas

Me and you might not have alot of say, but the linguist listed might, and if enough of these respected linguist publish books and do more studies on Dominican language it can be a reality. There was even one ethnographer/linguist named Katherine green who recorded a family in D.R who spoke an uninteligeble language that was not related to dominican spanish or haitian kreyol, i will try to find the quote. Who knows there might be a full afro or afro-taino language in the countryside.

souljanyn3 · Feb 10, 2008

Thanks superconejo...I have heard that in San Fransisco de macoris there is a village where they speak an odd language that is really close related to Arawak(Taino) and far from Spanish and the fact that the Macorix indians(Taino tribe living in the area right before the spanish came) lived around those mountinous areas makes me beleive that there is a Afro-Arawak and Afro speaking peoples in the countrysides and Haitian border...and I wouldnt be suprised if people from there have one full Taino Great grand parent or even grand parent...let me not forget the HUGE possiblity of them having Maroon(African escaped slave that escaped to the mountains) parents that has learned the Arawak language from the Tainos when they escaped to the mountins and returned once spanish rule was over and has raised there children in traditional African and Taino fashon...

SuperConejo · Feb 10, 2008

I am from san francisco de macoris = ). Where did you read this, it sounds very interesting. I do notice alot of my family members have unique ways of speaking, for example in a sentence they may use Afro and Taino words at the same time.

"Veme a bucai ei kambumbo mamei"

From what i understood from Baracutay the Macorix didnt speak the same language as the other Tainos, but rather their own distinct language, and they even had bilingual translators to communicate with other natives on the island.
Mountainous areas make perfect regions of isolation or development or retention of languages.

Should Dominican Spanish be its own language like Haitian Creole?

New member

Bronze

Well-known member

New member

Economist by Profession

Honorificabilitudinitatibus

New member

New member

New member

New member

New member

New member

Honorificabilitudinitatibus

New member

New member

New member

New member

New member

New member

New member