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A Creole origin for Barlovento Spanish? A linguistic and sociohistorical inquiry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 May 2008

MANUEL DÍAZ-CAMPOS  and
J. CLANCY CLEMENTS
MANUEL DÍAZ-CAMPOS
Affiliation:
Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Indiana University, Ballantine Hall 857, 1020 East Kirkwood Avenue, Bloomington, IN 47405-7103, mdiazcam@indiana.edu
J. CLANCY CLEMENTS
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, Indiana University, clements@indiana.edu
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Abstract

McWhorter challenges the validity of the limited access model for creole formation, noting that “the mainland Spanish colonies put in question a model which is crucial to current creole genesis.” His thesis is that in the Spanish mainland colonies the disproportion between the Black and White populations was enough for the emergence of a creole language. This article focuses on one colony, Venezuela, and argues that Africans there had as much access to Spanish as they did in islands such as Cuba. Based on this fact, the relevant linguistic evidence is analyzed. The most important contribution of this study is the discussion of the Spanish crown's monopolization of the slave trade, which kept the Black/White ratio relatively low in certain Spanish colonies until the end of the 18th century. Until now, this part of the puzzle has been absent in the discussion of the missing Spanish creoles.

Keywords

Creoleslanguage contactlimited access modelVenezuelan Spanish
Type
Research Article
Information
Language in Society , Volume 37 , Issue 3 , July 2008 , pp. 351 - 383
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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