As a continuation to the previous thread I did some more reading. Firstly though, apologies to the linguists and educators (Lesley D, Norma Rosa and others). We sure walked roughshod through your area of scholarship with little understanding, no preparation and even less respect for the body of work. In my own defense, I was simply dealing with what I perceived as gross stereotyping. With no knowledge of linguistics or critical analysis in the field, all that I had to counter this was my own level of knowledge of the 'socio-' factors - and I used that, liberally sprinkled with some debating skills. Obviously that is not sufficient and I would have preferred a different way.
Perhaps I can redeem myself with this 'for dummies' piece.
With a little more reading, I came across an Excerpt of the Introduction to a book by John M. Lipski - A History of Afro-Hispanic Language: Five Centuries, Five Continents, First published 2005.
For the non-linguists and uninitiated amongst us, I think this excerpt of the introduction makes a fine and appropriate starting point to what I've quickly realized is a vast, interesting and demanding field of study. It is easy to read, readily available on the internet, free of technical linguistic jargon and hey presto, perhaps even correct. Although not specifically Dominican Republic oriented, it educates on the overall influence of African Languages in the Spanish Americas. The link to the excerpt follows below.
It is clear from this short excerpt that there are great obstacles to the study of what is termed 'Afro-Hispanic'.
Not by design, but by sheer luck, two of the same basic ideas that I pounded down in yesterday's thread, are included here. The first is that 'African' is not a language and the second is that the view towards Africans by the colonialists was generally demeaning and racist. Amongst others, the author shows these two factors as obstacles to the proper study of 'Afro-Hispanic', as the following two paragraphs show:
"... Africans in Latin America usually did not enjoy the possibility of a shared common language. More by circumstance than by deliberate design, slaving ships typically picked up loads of slaves from several West African ports before traversing the Atlantic, and a shipment of slaves could contain speakers of a dozen mutually unintelligible languages. Moreover, at least six major African language families were involved in the Afro−Hispanic mix (Atlantic, Mande, Kru, Kwa, Congo−Benue and Bantu), each of which has totally different structures, and which share almost no common denominators at all. A typical heterogeneous group of Africans acquiring Spanish could not use loan−translations from their native languages that would be widely understood by Africans of different backgrounds."
In other words, it was kinda like the tower of babel.
The second issue that I had yesterday, was sheer racism in colonial times, that, by ignorance, we perpetuate even today. This piece says that material to study the influence of African Languages on Spanish today is very scarce. What there is, is not serious. Besides the fact that the way the slaves spoke was never considered worthy of study, "Nearly all indications of Afro−Hispanic speech are embedded in humorous or satirical literature." The Americans amongst us certainly understand this as they must have in their collective memory examples of little skits, poems and stories that demean the original African slaves. We learnt from yesterday's thread about the bozales. I wonder if anyone went to check out what this means? "The word bozal originally meant ?savage? or ?untamed horse,? and ultimately came to refer to the halting Spanish or Portuguese spoken by Africans. This term rapidly dropped from usage in Spain once the population of African−born slaves dwindled, but it continued in the Spanish Caribbean ? particularly Cuba ? well into the twentieth century." It behooves us all to understand and know this, as those that do not understand history are doomed to repeat it. (Who said that originally?)
In addition to these two ideas which I am picking up from yesterday, the piece speculates that it may have been possible for an Afro-Spanish, similar to an Afro-English to have existed at some point in time. The author then goes on to give an overview of why this Afro-Spanish did not develop. A short passage in the overview deals with the issue of possible development of a creole and at last I learnt what that means: "... a completely restructured offspring of Spanish ? the native language of a significant speech community".
As this is the introduction to a much larger book, the piece talks about the words that were brought to to Spanish by the Africans. It seems to me that it is easier for linguists to trace specific words but there is greater difficulty to define "possible African contributions to Spanish American syntax and phonetics". The book itself attempts to detail the study of the "permanent imprint ? other than purely lexical ? the totality of Afro−Hispanic linguistic manifestations" that are left upon the Spanish language.
So, I hope that this introduction to the introduction piece will redeem me in the eyes of the scholars and will give everyone else some food for thought. It is also quite clear that to understand the influence of any African language on Dominican Republic Spanish, one first has to have a methodology, and then a very clear overview of the overall migration of African Languages and Language Families, what they were, where they landed, for how long, how openly used or suppressed, and together with all of that, one has to have a handle on how Spanish as a language developed overall in order to place the two (or many) 'language streams' properly against the historical backdrop.
A History of Afro-Hispanic Language - Cambridge University Press
Btw, as a last comment, apparently upwards of 10,000 slaves reached the Dominican Republic. Many were freed quite earlier than compared to other slavery populations. I don't think one can read about the influence of African Languages in Spanish without reading about slavery. Here is a fine and a quick overview. Slave Routes - Americas and Carabbean
Perhaps I can redeem myself with this 'for dummies' piece.
With a little more reading, I came across an Excerpt of the Introduction to a book by John M. Lipski - A History of Afro-Hispanic Language: Five Centuries, Five Continents, First published 2005.
For the non-linguists and uninitiated amongst us, I think this excerpt of the introduction makes a fine and appropriate starting point to what I've quickly realized is a vast, interesting and demanding field of study. It is easy to read, readily available on the internet, free of technical linguistic jargon and hey presto, perhaps even correct. Although not specifically Dominican Republic oriented, it educates on the overall influence of African Languages in the Spanish Americas. The link to the excerpt follows below.
It is clear from this short excerpt that there are great obstacles to the study of what is termed 'Afro-Hispanic'.
Not by design, but by sheer luck, two of the same basic ideas that I pounded down in yesterday's thread, are included here. The first is that 'African' is not a language and the second is that the view towards Africans by the colonialists was generally demeaning and racist. Amongst others, the author shows these two factors as obstacles to the proper study of 'Afro-Hispanic', as the following two paragraphs show:
"... Africans in Latin America usually did not enjoy the possibility of a shared common language. More by circumstance than by deliberate design, slaving ships typically picked up loads of slaves from several West African ports before traversing the Atlantic, and a shipment of slaves could contain speakers of a dozen mutually unintelligible languages. Moreover, at least six major African language families were involved in the Afro−Hispanic mix (Atlantic, Mande, Kru, Kwa, Congo−Benue and Bantu), each of which has totally different structures, and which share almost no common denominators at all. A typical heterogeneous group of Africans acquiring Spanish could not use loan−translations from their native languages that would be widely understood by Africans of different backgrounds."
In other words, it was kinda like the tower of babel.
The second issue that I had yesterday, was sheer racism in colonial times, that, by ignorance, we perpetuate even today. This piece says that material to study the influence of African Languages on Spanish today is very scarce. What there is, is not serious. Besides the fact that the way the slaves spoke was never considered worthy of study, "Nearly all indications of Afro−Hispanic speech are embedded in humorous or satirical literature." The Americans amongst us certainly understand this as they must have in their collective memory examples of little skits, poems and stories that demean the original African slaves. We learnt from yesterday's thread about the bozales. I wonder if anyone went to check out what this means? "The word bozal originally meant ?savage? or ?untamed horse,? and ultimately came to refer to the halting Spanish or Portuguese spoken by Africans. This term rapidly dropped from usage in Spain once the population of African−born slaves dwindled, but it continued in the Spanish Caribbean ? particularly Cuba ? well into the twentieth century." It behooves us all to understand and know this, as those that do not understand history are doomed to repeat it. (Who said that originally?)
In addition to these two ideas which I am picking up from yesterday, the piece speculates that it may have been possible for an Afro-Spanish, similar to an Afro-English to have existed at some point in time. The author then goes on to give an overview of why this Afro-Spanish did not develop. A short passage in the overview deals with the issue of possible development of a creole and at last I learnt what that means: "... a completely restructured offspring of Spanish ? the native language of a significant speech community".
As this is the introduction to a much larger book, the piece talks about the words that were brought to to Spanish by the Africans. It seems to me that it is easier for linguists to trace specific words but there is greater difficulty to define "possible African contributions to Spanish American syntax and phonetics". The book itself attempts to detail the study of the "permanent imprint ? other than purely lexical ? the totality of Afro−Hispanic linguistic manifestations" that are left upon the Spanish language.
So, I hope that this introduction to the introduction piece will redeem me in the eyes of the scholars and will give everyone else some food for thought. It is also quite clear that to understand the influence of any African language on Dominican Republic Spanish, one first has to have a methodology, and then a very clear overview of the overall migration of African Languages and Language Families, what they were, where they landed, for how long, how openly used or suppressed, and together with all of that, one has to have a handle on how Spanish as a language developed overall in order to place the two (or many) 'language streams' properly against the historical backdrop.
A History of Afro-Hispanic Language - Cambridge University Press
Btw, as a last comment, apparently upwards of 10,000 slaves reached the Dominican Republic. Many were freed quite earlier than compared to other slavery populations. I don't think one can read about the influence of African Languages in Spanish without reading about slavery. Here is a fine and a quick overview. Slave Routes - Americas and Carabbean
