Language Identification in Lengua Palenquera and Spanish
Open Access
- Author:
- Herman, Gabrielle
- Area of Honors:
- Spanish
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Arts
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- John Lipski, Thesis Supervisor
John Lipski, Thesis Honors Advisor
Paola Eulalia Dussias, Faculty Reader - Keywords:
- Language Identification
Spanish
Palenquero
Colombia
Linguistics - Abstract:
- In the small village of San Basilio de Palenque, Colombia, many residents speak Spanish and Lengua Palenquera, a creole language with influences from Spanish and the African Kikongo language. Lengua Palenquera and Spanish are two very similar, yet mutually unintelligible languages. One major question that surrounds these two languages is how do speakers of the two languages distinguish between them? The goal of this research project was to determine if certain phonetic traits help speakers identify the language being spoken. The two languages share many similarities in their lexicon, however the distinct traits of Lengua Palenquera are expected to make language identification easier. Two experiments were conducted to identify the impact of these traits on language identification. The first experiment focused on the intonation pattern of Lengua Palenquera, using low-pass filtered stimuli. The goal of this experiment was to determine if individuals would be able to identify a language solely based on the intonation or rhythm of the language. In the second experiment, participants listened to pairs of words and were asked to determine if they came from the same or different languages, based on the presence or absence of the unique phonetic traits of Lengua Palenquera. The results from both experiments supported the hypotheses that the unique intonation and phonetic traits of Lengua Palenquera are beneficial for language identification.