Individual and Group Differences in the Production of Lengua Palenquera
Open Access
- Author:
- Spang, Mary Elisabeth
- Area of Honors:
- Interdisciplinary in Linguistics and Spanish
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Arts
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- John Lipski, Thesis Supervisor
Lisa A Reed, Thesis Honors Advisor
Paola Eulalia Dussias, Faculty Reader - Keywords:
- Lengua
Palenquera
creole
linguistics
sociolinguistics - Abstract:
- The Afro-Colombian village of San Basilio de Palenque, formerly known as the Palenque de San Basilio, was established in the 17th century on Colombia’s Atlantic coast by Africans and their descendants who escaped from bondage from Cartagena de Indias. The residents still speak a Spanish-based Creole language, Palenquero, called Lengua by local speakers. This language was formed by these maroons, and until recently has been negatively stigmatized by outsiders such that many Palenqueros stopped speaking the language and would not teach it to their children (Schwegler & Morton 2003; Del Castillo 1984: 89; Friedeman & Patiño 1983: 188-191). Although Palenquero has a history of being sociolinguistically marginalized, it has now been studied by linguists with an ethnographic approach. However, internal sociolinguistic divisions have not yet been studied. This study examines Lengua Palenquera as a “full” language, irrespective of its past, while looking for the type of sociolinguistic variation found in any community. The hypothesis is that language revitalization efforts, including teaching of LP, have led to the creation of sociolinguistic differences within the community. Recent language revitalization efforts have led to a heightened metalinguistic awareness on the part of the Palenquero language teachers, and their activist interventions are apparently producing community-wide sociolinguistic effects. These sociolinguistic differences may include exposure to classes in LP taught by Palenquero activists, how speakers acquired LP, where they currently speak the language, and age at the time of testing. To examine these questions, two experimental tasks were completed with a group of LP/Spanish bilinguals. Participants of various ages and educational experiences demonstrated word choice preferences between Spanish cognates and more canonically Lengua words. Additionally, participants were asked to translate Spanish sentences into Lengua. Preliminary results demonstrate lexical and grammatical variation within Lengua Palenquera based on potential sociolinguistic factors. Because Palenque is such a small community with a total population of about 3500 people, it is not generally assumed that it will exhibit significant sociolinguistic variation (unless the culture requires it, such as different speech patterns between men and women, or different castes).