Palenquero

Last updated
Palenquero
Native to Colombia
Region San Basilio de Palenque
Ethnicity6,637 (2018) [1]
Native speakers
2,788 (2005) [2]
Spanish Creole
  • Palenquero
Latin (Spanish alphabet)
Official status
Official language in
The Colombian constitution recognizes minority languages as "official in their territories." [3]
Language codes
ISO 639-3 pln
Glottolog pale1260
ELP Palenquero
Linguasphere 51-AAC-bc
Colombia - Bolivar - Mahates.svg
Map highlighting Mahates municipality, where Palenque is located

Palenquero (sometimes spelled Palenkero) or Palenque (Palenquero : Lengua) is a Spanish-based creole language spoken in Colombia. It is believed to be a mixture of Kikongo (a language spoken in central Africa in the current countries of Congo, DRC, Gabon, and Angola, former member states of Kongo) and Spanish. However, there is not sufficient evidence to indicate that Palenquero is strictly the result of a two-language contact. It could also have absorbed elements of local indigenous languages. [4]

Contents

Palenquero is considered to be the only surviving Spanish-based creole language in Latin America. [5] In 2018 more than 6,600 people spoke this language. [1]

It is primarily spoken in the village of San Basilio de Palenque, which is southeast of Cartagena, and in some neighbourhoods of Barranquilla. [6]

History

The formation of Palenquero is recorded from the 17th century with the dilution of the Spanish language and the increase of maroon activity. [7] Existing records dating from the era of Cartagena’s slave trade allude to the pidgin from which Palenquero evolved. As illustrated in the ethnographic text of De Instauranda Aethiopum Salute (1627), the priest Alonso de Sandoval refers to the ‘corruption of our Spanish language’ commonly spoken amongst African slaves. [7] Palenquero's origins are unclear; it was not referred to in print until 1772. [7]

Palenque de San Basilio

Palenque de San Basilio or San Basilio de Palenque is the village from which Palenquero originated from and in which it is most commonly spoken in the 21st century.

The village was formed in the early 17th century to the south of Cartagena by fugitive slaves who escaped from surrounding districts, under the leadership of Benkos Biohó. [6] The dissolution of the Spanish language intensified as maroons settled in armed fortified territories. The Palenqueros maintained their physical distance from ethnic Europeans as a form of anti-colonial resistance but they likely intermarried with indigenous women. They developed a creole based mostly on their own African languages and Spanish.

In the early 20th century, residents of this area were noted as having been bilingual in both Palenquero and Spanish. A 1913 document noted that residents of Palenque de San Basilio had a 'guttural dialect that some believe to be the very African language, if not in all its purity at least with some variations'. [8]

Decline

For almost two decades in the 21st century, Palenquero has been classified as an endangered language. Although it is spoken in parallel with Spanish, the latter has dominated the regular linguistic activity of Palenque de San Basilio. Some 53% of residents are unable to speak Palenquero.

The decline of Palenquero can be traced to the establishment of sugar and banana plantations. Many natives left the village in order to find work either in the Panama Canal or the Department of Magdalena. [6] There they came into contact with other languages. In the 20th century, with the introduction of a standard Spanish educational system, Spanish became the supra regional prescriptive speech, and Palenquero was often criticized and mocked. [9]

Racial discrimination against people of ethnic African descent added to the decline of Palenquero. Some parents did not feel comfortable continuing to teach their children the language. [10]

Revitalization

With its legacy of cultural resistance, Palenquero has survived since the early 17th century despite the many challenges. In recent years, scholars and activists have encouraged teaching and use of Palenquero, and native speakers are encouraged. [11] Three major events have contributed to the revived interest in the Palenquero creole:

Antonio Cervantes

Antonio Cervantes, also known as Kid Pambelé, is an internationally recognized boxing champion born in Palenque de San Basilio. After he won the 1972 world Jr. Welterweight championship, local residents took pride in both the village and Palenquero as a language. As result, Palenque de San Basilio attracted interest by many journalists and politicians. [9] It has continued to attract cultural and foreign attention.

UNESCO Heritage of Humanity

In 2005, Palenque was declared by the United Nations to be a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. The recognition has led to appreciation for Palenquero culture. Films, documentaries and music festivals have brought more attention to the community. [9] These type of cultural programs have successfully appealed to Colombian youth, who otherwise were not interested in Palenquero.

Academic Interest

Beginning in 1992, the educational system in Palenque de San Basilio started reintroducing Palenquero in the curriculum. Children resumed learning Palenquero, as it was introduced in preschool, and they continued to learn it in advancing grades. Parents and grandparents were encouraged to use the language at home, and classes were opened for adults. A fully equipped cultural centre was constructed to promote the language and culture. [9]

Additionally, academic research, conferences and activism have increased the desirability of Palenquero. There is new energy to continue to pass it down generations.

Language distinctions

Grammar

Similar to several other creole languages, Palenquero grammar lacks inflectional morphology. Nouns, adjectives, verbs and determiners are almost always invariant. [12]

Gender

Grammatical gender is non-existent, and adjectives derived from Spanish default to the masculine form: lengua africano ‘African language’. [12]

Plurality

Plurality is marked with the particle ma. (for example: ma posá is "houses"). This particle is believed to derive from Kikongo, a Bantu language, and is the sole Kikongo-derived inflection present in Palenquero. [13] The younger speakers of Palenquero utilize ma for plurality more so than the speakers that came before them.

This particle is usually dropped with cardinal numbers greater than two: ma ndo baka "two cows" but tresi año "13 years". [12]

Palenquero pronouns [12]
NumberPersonNominativeSource
Singular1stíuncertain
yoyo
2ndbovos
3rdeleele
Plural1stsutonosotros
2ndutereustedes
enu (formerly archaic)African origin
3rdanéBantu origin

Verbs

Copula

Palenquero has four copulas: e, ta, jue, and senda. E roughly corresponds to ser in Spanish and is used for permanent states, and ta is similar to the Spanish estar in that it used for temporary states and locatives. Jue is used as a copula for nouns and senda is only found with predicative nouns and adjectives referring to permanent states. [14]

Examples: [15]

  • Boémamá mí nu (You are not my mother)
  • Mujé míjuenegra i yojuenegro (My wife is black and I am black)
  • I tansendádotó (I will be a doctor)
  • Ese mujétangolo (That woman is fat)

Vocabulary

Some 300 words of African origin have been identified in Palenquero, [16] with many believed to originate in the Kikongo language. A comprehensive list and proposed etymologies are provided in Moñino and Schwegler's "Palenque, Cartagena y Afro-Caribe: historia y lengua" (2002). Many of the words that come from African origin, include plant, animal, insect and landscape names. [6] Another handful of words are believed to originate from Portuguese (for example: mai 'mother'; ten 'has'; ele 'he/she'; bae 'go').

Sample words in Palenque
PalenqueSpanishEnglish
burúdineromoney
ngombeganadocattle
ngubácacahuetepeanut
posácasa. Compare posada house
tamboretambordrum
maimadre. Compare mãe .mother
bumbilobasuragarbage
cheparopaclothing
chitiáhablarto speak
ngainagallinachicken
tabacotabacotobacco
hemanohermanobrother
ondedondewhere
puetapuertadoor
ngologordofat
floflorflower
monániñochild
ceddocerdopig
cateyanocastellanoSpanish
forateroforasterooutsider
kusacosathing, stuff
cuagrobarrioneighborhood

Sample

The Lord's Prayer in Palenquero
PalenqueroSpanish
Tatá suto lo que ta riba cielo,
santificaro sendá nombre si,
miní a reino sí,
asé ño voluntá sí,
aí tiela cumo a cielo.
Nda suto agué pan ri to ma ría,
peddona ma fata suto,
asina cumo suto a se peddoná,
lo que se fatá suto.
Nu rejá sujo caí andí tentación nu,
librá suto ri má. Amén.
Padre nuestro que estás en el cielo,
santificado sea tu nombre.
Venga a nosotros tu Reino.
Hágase tu voluntad,
así en la tierra como en el cielo.
Danos hoy nuestro pan de cada día.
perdona nuestras ofensas,
como también nosotros perdonamos
a los que nos ofenden.
no nos dejes caer en la tentación,
y líbranos del mal. Amén.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spanish-based creole languages</span> Creole language family

A Spanish creole, or Spanish-based creole language, is a creole language for which Spanish serves as its substantial lexifier.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kongo language</span> Bantu language of west-central Africa

Kongo or Kikongo is one of the Bantu languages spoken by the Kongo people living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the Republic of the Congo, Gabon, and Angola. It is a tonal language. The vast majority of present-day speakers live in Africa. There are roughly seven million native speakers of Kongo in the above-named countries. An estimated five million more speakers use it as a second language.

The Jakaltek (Jacaltec) language, also known as Jakalteko (Jacalteco) or Poptiʼ, is a Mayan language from the Q’anjob’alan-chujean branch spoken by the Jakaltek people in some municipalities in the state of Chiapas, Mexico and the municipality of Jacaltenango in the department of Huehuetenango, Guatemala in the border between both countries. Jakaltek is closely related with the Q'anjob'al and Akatek language and more distantly related with the Tojol-ab'al, Chuj and Mocho'. In Mexico it is also known as Ab'xub'al.

Champeta, also known as terapia, is a musical genre and dance that originated in the Caribbean coast of Colombia in the early 1980s. It developed from an earlier style termed chalusonga, which originated in Palenque de San Basilio in the mid-1970s. Chalusonga was a combination of Colombian chalupa and Afro-Cuban percussive music popularized by Estrellas del Caribe. When their music reached Cartagena de Indias, it evolved into champeta, which became a movement and identity among Afro-Colombians. It shows influences from African colonial settlements and from contemporary African culture, particularly from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Palenque was a Maya city state in southern Mexico that flourished in the 7th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Media Lengua</span> Mixed Kichwa–Spanish language of Ecuador

Media Lengua, also known as Chaupi-shimiChaupi-lengua, Chaupi-Quichua, Quichuañol, Chapu-shimi or llanga-shimi, is a mixed language with Spanish vocabulary and Kichwa grammar, most conspicuously in its morphology. In terms of vocabulary, almost all lexemes (89%), including core vocabulary, are of Spanish origin and appear to conform to Kichwa phonotactics. Media Lengua is one of the few widely acknowledged examples of a "bilingual mixed language" in both the conventional and narrow linguistic sense because of its split between roots and suffixes. Such extreme and systematic borrowing is only rarely attested, and Media Lengua is not typically described as a variety of either Kichwa or Spanish. Arends et al., list two languages subsumed under the name Media Lengua: Salcedo Media Lengua and Media Lengua of Saraguro. The northern variety of Media Lengua, found in the province of Imbabura, is commonly referred to as Imbabura Media Lengua and more specifically, the dialect varieties within the province are known as Pijal Media Lengua and Angla Media Lengua.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Caribbean region of Colombia</span> Northern part of Colombia

The Caribbean region of Colombia or Caribbean coast region is in the north of Colombia and is mainly composed of 8 departments located contiguous to the Caribbean. It's the second most populated region in the country after Andean Region with approximately 11 million residents according to the Colombian Census 2018. The area covers a total land area of 110,000 km2 (42,000 sq mi), including the Archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina in the Caribbean Sea.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Languages of Angola</span>

Portuguese is the only official language of Angola, but 46 other languages are spoken in the country, mostly Bantu languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Languages of Colombia</span>

Around 99.2% of Colombians speak the Spanish language. Sixty-five Amerindian languages, two Creole languages, the Portuguese language and the Romani language are also spoken in the country. English has official status in the San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina Islands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mahates</span> Municipality and town in Bolívar Department, Colombia

Mahates is a river town and municipality located in the Bolívar Department, northern Colombia. The town of Mahates was founded on April 17, 1533 by Spanish conquistador Pedro de Heredia.

A lexifier is the language that provides the basis for the majority of a pidgin or creole language's vocabulary (lexicon). Often this language is also the dominant, or superstrate language, though this is not always the case, as can be seen in the historical Mediterranean Lingua Franca. In mixed languages, there are no superstrates or substrates, but instead two or more adstrates. One adstrate still contributes the majority of the lexicon in most cases, and would be considered the lexifier. However, it is not the dominant language, as there are none in the development of mixed languages, such as in Michif.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">San Basilio de Palenque</span> Village in Colombia

San Basilio de Palenque or Palenque de San Basilio, often referred to by the locals simply as Palenke, is a Palenque village and corregimiento in the Municipality of Mahates, Bolivar in northern Colombia. Palenque was the first free African town in the Americas, and in 2005 was declared a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.

Equatoguinean Spanish is the variety of Spanish spoken in Equatorial Guinea. This is the only Spanish variety that holds national official status in Sub-Saharan Africa. It is regulated by the Equatoguinean Academy of the Spanish Language and is spoken by about 90% of the population, estimated at 1,170,308 for the year 2010, all of them second-language speakers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Benkos Biohó</span> Kongo royal and Colombian slave rebel

Benkos Biohó, also known as Domingo Biohó was a Mandinka and South American leader who escaped from the slave port of Cartagena with ten others and founded San Basilio de Palenque, then known as the "village of the maroons", located in what is now Northern Colombia. In 1713 it became the first free village in the Americas by decree from the King of Spain, when he gave up sending his troops on futile missions to attack their fortified mountain hideaway.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Panamanian Spanish</span> Dialect

Panamanian Spanish is the Spanish language as spoken in the country of Panama. Despite Panama's location in Central America, Panamanian Spanish is considered a Caribbean variety.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Evaristo Márquez</span>

Evaristo Márquez, was a Colombian actor and herdsman best known for his role as José Dolores in the film Burn!, acting alongside Marlon Brando under the direction of Gillo Pontecorvo.

Bozal Spanish is a possibly extinct Spanish-based creole language or pidgin that may have been a mixture of Spanish and Kikongo, with Portuguese influences. Attestation is insufficient to indicate whether Bozal Spanish was ever a single, coherent or stable language, or if the term merely referred to any idiolect of Spanish that included African elements.

Race and ethnicity in Colombia descend mainly from three racial groups—Europeans, Amerindians, and Africans—that have mixed throughout the last 500 years of the country's history. Some demographers describe Colombia as one of the most ethnically diverse countries in the Western Hemisphere and in the World, with 900 different ethnic groups. Most Colombians identify themselves and others according to ancestry, physical appearance, and sociocultural status. Social relations reflect the importance attached to certain characteristics associated with a given racial group. Although these characteristics no longer accurately differentiate social categories, they still contribute to one's rank in the social hierarchy. A study from Rojas et al. involving 15 departments determined that the average Colombian has a mixture of 47% Amerindian, 42% European, and 11% African. These proportions also vary widely among ethnicities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slavery in Cartagena</span>

Cartagena has a long history with slavery, that ranges from the 1500s to the early 1800s. It was one of three Spanish ports allowed to take in slave shipments in the Spanish Americas, and was one of the most popular. This led to an economy based on labor of African slaves. This also made Cartagena a place with rich African heritage and racial discourse, including the Cartagena witch trials and conflicts with neighboring maroon villages. Many ladinos became ship workers, and later these ship workers fought for independence from Spain starting in 1810. After freedom was decreed in 1821 the new government decided on manumissions and freed births to gradually end slavery.

References

  1. 1 2 DANE (6 November 2019). Población Negra, Afrocolombiana, Raizal y Palenquera: Resultados del Censo Nacional de Población y Vivienda 2018 (PDF) (in Spanish). DANE. Retrieved 2020-05-11 via dane.gov.co.
  2. Ministerio de Cultura (2010). Palenqueros, descendientes de la insurgencia anticolonial (PDF) (in Spanish). p. 2 via mincultura.gov.co.
  3. Title 1, Article 10. http://confinder.richmond.edu/admin/docs/colombia_const2.pdf Archived 2011-09-27 at the Wayback Machine
  4. Parkvall, Mikael; Jacobs, Bart (2020). "Palenquero Origins: A Tale of More than Two Languages". Diachronica. 37 (4): 540–576. doi:10.1075/dia.19019.par. S2CID   225778990.
  5. Romero, Simon (2007-10-18). "San Basilio de Palenque Journal - A Language, Not Quite Spanish, With African Echoes - NYTimes.com". www.nytimes.com. Retrieved 2010-02-13.
  6. 1 2 3 4 Bickerton, Derek; Escalante, Aquilas (January 1970). "Palenquero: A Spanish-based creole of northern Colombia". Lingua. 24: 254–267. doi:10.1016/0024-3841(70)90080-x. ISSN   0024-3841.
  7. 1 2 3 Dieck, Marianne (2011). "La época de formación de la lengua de Palenque: Datos históricos y lingüísticos" [The Formation Period of the Palenquero Language]. Forma y Función (in Spanish). 24 (1): 11–24. OCLC   859491443.
  8. Lipski, John (2018). "Palenquero vs. Spanish negation: Separate but equal?". Lingua. 202: 44–57. doi:10.1016/j.lingua.2017.12.007. ISSN   0024-3841.
  9. 1 2 3 4 Lipski, John M. (2012). "Free at Last: From Bound Morpheme to Discourse Marker in Lengua ri Palenge (Palenquero Creole Spanish)". Anthropological Linguistics. 54 (2): 101–132. doi:10.1353/anl.2012.0007. ISSN   1944-6527. S2CID   143540760.
  10. Hernández, Rubén; Guerrero, Clara; Palomino, Jesús (2008). "Palenque: historia libertaria, cultura y tradición". Grupo de Investigación Muntú.
  11. Lipski, John M. (2020-06-03). "What you hear is (not always) what you get: Subjects and verbs among receptive Palenquero-Spanish bilinguals". Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism. 10 (3): 315–350. doi:10.1075/lab.17083.lip. ISSN   1879-9264. S2CID   149952479.
  12. 1 2 3 4 Mackenzie, Ian. "Palenquero".
  13. McWhorter, John H. (2011-06-30). Linguistic Simplicity and Complexity: Why Do Languages Undress?. Walter de Gruyter. p. 92. ISBN   9781934078402.
  14. Ledgeway, Adam; Maiden, Martin (2016-09-05). The Oxford Guide to the Romance Languages. Oxford University Press. p. 455. ISBN   9780191063251.
  15. Moñino, Yves; Schwegler, Armin (2002-01-01). Palenque, Cartagena y Afro-Caribe: historia y lengua (in Spanish). Walter de Gruyter. p. 69. ISBN   9783110960228.
  16. Moñino, Yves; Schwegler, Armin (2013-02-07). Palenque, Cartagena y Afro-Caribe: historia y lengua (in Spanish). Walter de Gruyter. p. 171. ISBN   9783110960228.