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

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
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) (McWhorter 2000; Lipski 2005). It provides an account of the evolution of CS that is rooted in the recently proposed Legal Hypothesis of Creole Genesis (Sessarego 2015, 2017a). 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 1974; Sharp 1976), thus far away from legal courts and where law was not likely to be properly enforced.
Keywords: Chocó Spanish, Spanish Creoles, Legal Hypothesis of Creole Genesis
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
Published online: 12 January 2018
https://doi.org/10.1075/le.1.2.05ses
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