Afro-Hispanic Linguistic Remnants in Mexico

The Case of the Costa Chica Region

Autor: Rosas Mayén, Norma
Editor: Iberoamericana Vervuert
Colección: Lengua y sociedad en el mundo hispánico
ISBN: 9788491921707
eISBN Pdf: 9783968690940
Lugar de publicación: Madrid , España
Año de publicación: 2021
Páginas: 189

Descripción

In the last decades, the study of Afro-Spanish varieties that developed during the Colonial period in the Americas has seduced many scholars. The analysis of these Afro-Hispanic speech patterns is crucial to determine their creolized or non-creolized status, as well as to understand the scarcity of the Spanish-based creoles in the Americas. The present study contributes to this linguistic field by analyzing the current speech of the Afro-Mexicans of the Costa Chica region, one of the largest Afro-Mexican enclaves, while proposing a Rhizomatic Linguistic Model to interpret data derived from contact situations. This investigation not only accounts for the Afro-Hispanic linguistic remnants of this Spanish variety, but also examines the current linguistic characteristics and sociolinguistic status of this speech area on the brink of extinction. In addition, this book advocates on behalf of those Costa Chica Afro-Mexican communities that have been stigmatized and customarily ignored in Mexico’s nation-state politics.

Cover
Title page
Copyright page
Contents
Chapter 1. Introduction
Chapter 2. Creole Genesis and the Rhizomatic Linguistic Model
- 2.1. Theoretical perspectives encompassing creole etiology
  - 2.1.1. The continuum model (Hall 1962)
  - 2.1.2. The Language Bioprogram Hypothesis (Bickerton 1981)
  - 2.1.3. The Theory of Relexification (Lefebvre 1998)
  - 2.1.4. Approximation Theory (Chaudenson 2001)
  - 2.1.5. Complementary Theory (Mufwene 2001)
  - 2.1.6. The Afrogenesis Hypothesis (McWhorter 2000)
  - 2.1.7. Neurobiological Hypothesis (Zimmermann 2006)
    - 2.1.7.1. Principle of neurobiological constructivism
    - 2.1.7.2. The neurobiological construction of a creole language
  - 2.1.8. The Legal Hypothesis of Creole Genesis (Sessarego 2017)
- 2.2. To be or not to be, the Spanish-based creole deliberation
  - 2.2.1. Chaudenson’s arguments about the lack of Spanish-based creoles in the Caribbean
  - 2.2.2. McWhorter (2000) and the missing Spanish creoles
  - 2.2.3. Creole-genesis and the scarcity of Spanish-based creoles (Lipski 2005)
  - 2.2.4. Enhancing dialogue in the Spanish creole debate (Sessarego 2018)
- 2.3. On the genesis of Papiamentu and the Sephardic linguistic contribution
- 2.4. The Rhizomatic Linguistic Model
Chapter 3. Methodological And Historical Remarks
- 3.1. Study description
  - 3.1.1. Theoretical background and motivation
  - 3.1.2. Aim of the study and research questions
  - 3.1.3. Procedure
    - 3.1.3.1. Phase 1: Pilot study
    - 3.1.3.2. Phase 2: Planned studies
    - 3.1.3.3. Phase 3: Return to the target communities
  - 3.1.4. Subjects
  - 3.1.5. Methodology
    - 3.1.5.1. Participant-observation
    - 3.1.5.2. Open-ended oral interviews
    - 3.1.5.3. Recording and transcription
    - 3.1.5.4. Fieldnotes
- 3.2. A brief documentation of the African presence in Mexico
  - 3.2.1. Afro-Mexico historical remarks
  - 3.2.2. Speculations on the origins of the Costa Chica’s Black population
  - 3.2.3. Collantes and La Boquilla remnants of an African legacy
    - 3.2.3.1. Topographical features
    - 3.2.3.2. Origins of the Black population in La Boquilla
    - 3.2.3.3. Origins of the Black population in Collantes
Chapter 4. Phonological Characteristics of Costeño Spanish
- 4.1. Stop segments
  - 4.1.1. Voiceless stops
  - 4.1.2. Voiced stops
    - 4.1.2.1. The phoneme /b/
    - 4.1.2.2. The phoneme /d/
    - 4.1.2.3. The phoneme /g/
- 4.2. The phoneme /č/
- 4.3. Fricative segments
  - 4.3.1. The phoneme /f/
  - 4.3.2. The phoneme /s/
  - 4.3.3. The phoneme /y/
  - 4.3.4. The phoneme /h/
- 4.4. Nasal segments
  - 4.4.1. The phonemes /m/ and /n/
  - 4.4.2. The phoneme /n/
- 4.5. Liquid segments
  - 4.5.1. Liquid mutation
  - 4.5.2 The phoneme /r/
- 4.6. Archaic and basilectal trends in Costeño Spanish
  - 4.6.1. Vowel variation
  - 4.6.2. Aphaeresis
  - 4.6.3. Syllabic prothesis
  - 4.6.4. Metathesis
  - 4.6.5. Syllable deletion
  - 4.6.6. Monophthongization
- 4.7. Conclusion
Chapter 5. Morphological and Syntactic Characteristics of Costeño Spanish
- 5.1. Morphological features
  - 5.1.1. Verbal morphology
    - 5.1.1.1. Archaic verb forms
    - 5.1.1.2. Instability in the verbal stem
    - 5.1.1.3. Regularization of irregular verb forms
    - 5.1.1.4. Unmarked infinitives
  - 5.1.2. Nominal morphology
    - 5.1.2.1. Deletion of the plural marker
    - 5.1.2.2. Double plural endings
    - 5.1.2.3. Gender instability
    - 5.1.2.4. Diminutives of common words
    - 5.1.2.5. Diminutives of proper names
    - 5.1.2.6. Onomastics
  - 5.1.3. Adjectives and adverbs
  - 5.1.4. Pronominal system
    - 5.1.4.1. Subject pronouns
    - 5.1.4.2. Overt subject pronouns
    - 5.1.4.3. Emphatic reflexive pronouns
    - 5.1.4.4. Possessive doubling
  - 5.1.5. The Costeño locution anta
- 5.2. Syntactic features
  - 5.2.1. Clitics
    - 5.2.1.1. Clitic neutralization
    - 5.2.1.2. Clitic dislocation
  - 5.2.2. Verbal instability
    - 5.2.2.1. Lack of subject-verb agreement
    - 5.2.2.2. Verbal paradigm modification
  - 5.2.3. Deletion of articles
  - 5.2.4. Deletion and modified use of prepositions
  - 5.2.5. Negation-related variation
  - 5.2.6. The para atrás construction
  - 5.2.7. Loss of copula
  - 5.2.8. Conclusions
Chapter 6. Lexical Characteristics of Costeño Spanish
- 6.1. The rhizomatic nature of the Costeño lexicon
- 6.2. Preliminary remarks to the Costeño lexicon
- 6.3. Costeño vocabulary
Chapter 7. Conclusions
References
Appendix. Photo Gallery
List of Tables
- 2.1. Cognitive tasks and conditions
- 2.2. Some representative theories on creole genesis
- 2.3. Differences between Sephardic Papiamentu and Papiamentu
- 2.4. Contrasts between a rhizomatic and an arboric paradigm
- 4.1. Deletion of voiceless stops in coda position word-internally
- 4.2. The deletion of /d/ in word-final and intervocalic position in Costeño Spanish
- 4.3. The mutation of /d/ into [l] in implosive position word-internally
- 4.4. Allophonic distribution of the phoneme /f/ in Costeño Spanish
- 4.5. The behavior of /s/ in word-final position in Costeño speech
- 4.6. Velarization of /n/ in word- and phrase-final position in Costeño Spanish
- 4.7. Lambdacism of /r/ in Costeño Spanish
- 5.1. Possessive doubling in Costeño Spanish
- 6.1. Proportional contributions to Costeño Spanish from other lexicons
List of Figures
- 2.1. Schema of the process of relexification
- 2.2. Undifferentiated Coding Principle
- 2.3. Neurobiological Constructivist Process
- 2.4. Typical phases in the process of language acquisition
- 2.5. Input and output simplification in Creole languages
- 2.6. Bini-Portuguese spoons carved in ivory
- 2.7. Bini-Portuguese spoon with a dual symbolism
- 2.8. Papiamentu Linguistic Rhizome
- 3.1. Subjects’ age percentage
- 3.2. Subjects’ education level
- 3.3. Geographical location of the Afro-Mexican enclaves
- 3.4. Geographical location of the Afro-Mexican communities of the Costa Chica
- 3.5. Geographical location of Collantes, La Boquilla and Puerto Minizo
- 6.1. Costeño lexicon composition
Appendix Figure
- A.1. The Redondo
- A.2. Everybody is ready for the wedding
- A.3. Making tortillas
- A.4. Preparing tichinda tamales
- A.5. Taking a break
- A.6. Removing the corn grains
- A.7. Cuajinicuilapa Department of Health Services
- A.8. Capitán and Capitana
- A.9. The researcher and friends
- A.10. Mama-Came reciting verses
- A.11. A bread-maker
- A.12. The participants of the Devils’ Dance
- A.13. An Afro-Mexican family
- A.14. After lunch time