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Hispanic Contact Linguistics: Theoretical, methodological and empirical perspectives
Edited by Luis A. Ortiz López, Rosa E. Guzzardo Tamargo and Melvin González-Rivera
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 22] 2020
► pp. 43–60

Chapter 2
Chocó Spanish

An Afro-Hispanic language on the Spanish frontier

| University of Texas at Austin | Freiburg Institute for Advances Studies | Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies | Foro Latinoamericano de Antropología del Derecho | Institut Universitari de Drets Humans de la Universitat de València

This paper presents sociohistorical and linguistic data to cast light on the origin and nature of Chocó Spanish (CS), an Afro-Hispanic dialect spoken in the Pacific lowlands of Colombia. This research suggests that neither the Decreolization Hypothesis (Granda, 1977; Schwegler, 1991a, 1991b) nor the Afrogenesis Hypothesis (McWhorter, 2000) can account for the phenomena encountered in contemporary CS. Conversely, the present study indicates that the grammatical elements found in this dialect may be better analyzed as the result of advanced second language acquisition strategies, which were conventionalized at the community level in a sociohistorical context in which black captives had relatively good access to the colonial language.

Keywords: Chocó Spanish, Decreolization Hypothesis, Afrogenesis Hypothesis, Spanish Creole debate, black slavery
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The place of Chocó Spanish in the Spanish creole debate
  • 3.Chocó Spanish “creole-like” features
  • 4.Sociohistorical factors with linguistic consequences: Black slavery in the Chocó
    • 4.1Spanish conquest and mineral exploitation (1500–1851)
    • 4.2End of slavery and underdevelopment in present-day Chocó
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 14 February 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.22.02ses
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