The Spanish of Equatorial Guinea: The dialect of Malabo and its implications for Spanish dialectology 9783111676890, 3484522097, 9783484522091

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BEIHEFTE ZUR ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR ROMANISCHE PHILOLOGIE BEGRÜNDET VON GUSTAV GRÖBER F O R T G E F Ü H R T VON WALTHER VON WARTBURG HERAUSGEGEBEN VON KURT BALDINGER

Band 209

John Μ. Lipski

The Spanish of Equatorial Guinea: the dialect of Malabo and its implications for Spanish dialectology

MAX N I E M E Y E R VERLAG T Ü B I N G E N 1985

CIP-Kurztitelaufnahme der Deutschen Bibliothek Lipski, John

M.:

The Spanish of Equatorial Guinea: the dialect of Malabo and its implications for Spanish dialectology / John M. Lipski. - Tübingen : Niemeyer, 1985. (Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie ; Bd. 209) N E : Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie / Beihefte I S B N 3-484-52209-7

ISSN 0084-5396

© Max Niemeyer Verlag Tübingen 1985 Alle Rechte vorbehalten. Ohne Genehmigung des Verlages ist es nicht gestattet, dieses Buch oder Teile daraus auf photomechanischem Wege zu vervielfältigen. Printed in Germany Satz und Druck: Maisch + Queck, 7016 Gerlingen Einband: Heinr. Koch, Tübingen

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

VII

Chapter one: T H E SPANISH LANGUAGE IN EQUATORIAL GUINEA

1

1.1 Perspectives on Guinean Spanish 1.2 The Republic of Equatorial Guinea 1.3 Linguistic panorama of Equatorial Guinea 1.4 Spanish language abilities in Equatorial Guinea 1.5 Lack of creolization in Guinean Spanish

1 2 5 6 8

Chapter two: M E T H O D O L O G I C A L CONSIDERATIONS

14

2.1 2.2

14 17

The linguistic interviews Phonetic and phonological models

Chapter three: GRAMMATICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF GUINEAN SPANISH

18

3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4

18 19 23 24

Grammatical features of Guinean Spanish Morphological characteristics Syntatic features Conclusions

Appendix

25

Chapter four: GENERAL PHONETIC TENDENCIES

30

4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7

30 30 33 33 34 34 41

Introduction Vowels Diphthongs Semivowel/y/ Semivowel/w/ The consonants Consonant groups V

4.8 4.9

Suprasegmental characteristics Summary

41 43

Chapter five: BEHAVIOR OF LIQUID CONSONANTS

44

5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5

44 44 46 50 56

Importance of liquid consonants for Africanist theories Behavior of / f t Neutralization of hi and Irl Phoneme/l/ Phoneme hi

Chapter six: BEHAVIOR OF WORD-FINAL Inl

60

6.1 6.2 6.3

60 63 65

Variability of word-final Inl Behavior of word-final prevocalic Inl Word-final In/ in the Spanish of Malabo

Chapter seven: BEHAVIOR O F Isl

67

7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4

67 70 76 78

Isl as a dialectological variable Reduction of Isl Isl in the Spanish of Malabo Summary

Chapter eight: LINGUISTIC ASPECTS OF EQUATORIAL GUINEAN RADIO BROADCASTING. . .

79

8.1 8.2 8.3

79 80 81

Sociolinguistic importance of radio broadcasting Radio broadcasting in Equatorial Guinea Sociolinguistic particulars

Chapter nine: GUINEAN SPANISH AND AFRICANIST THEORIES OF SPANISH DIALECTOLOGY

84

9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4

84 84 87 91

The importance of Equatorial Guinean Spanish Zones of African influence in Spain and Latin America Separation of African and Spanish/Canary influence Phonotactic summary

BIBLIOGRAPHY

92

Appendix: TRANSCRIPTIONS OF GUINEAN SPANISH

VI

104

Acknowledgements

A number of individuals and institutions contributed substantially to the success of this research project, and an exhaustive list would be voluminous. Nonetheless, the following deserve special mention, since without their support the realization of the project would not have been possible: the University of Houston, for the Research Enabling Grant which allowed travel and study in Equatorial Guinea; D . Javier Jimenez Ugarte, Consul General of Spain in Houston, who initiated the process of legitimizing my stay in Equatorial Guinea; D . Salvador Bermiidez de Castro, director of the Office of Cooperation with Guinea, in Madrid; D . Enrique Bernaldo Päez, director of Cooperation with Guinea, in Malabo; D . Raimundo Esquerra, councillor of the Spanish Embassy in Malabo and doctor of linguistics; D . Leandro Mbomio, Minister of Culture and Information, Republic of Equatorial Guinea; D . Jose Oliva, First Officer of the Spanish Consulate, Bata; Maria Nsue, journalist, radio announcer and writer; Antimo Esono, director of the library of the Spanish cultural center, Malabo; Fr. Richard Bartlett, Claretian priest, Malabo; D . Jose Maria Valle, director of Spanish Radio and Television, Malabo. Naturally, a primary debt is owed to the scores of Guinean citizens, who allowed themselves to be interviewed, and who helped in numerous other ways. Reasons of protocol preclude listing their names, but the personal memories which they inspired will remain forever. Finally, my gratitude to my wife, Beverly and my daughter, Ursula, for patiently accepting my absences on what must surely have seemed an incomprehensible escapade. For providing a subvention permitting the publiction of this book, grateful thanks are given to the University of Houston and its publications committee.

VII

Chapter one:

The Spanish language in Equatorial Guinea

1.1 Perspectives on Guinean Spanish During the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, the Spanish empire extended over all the continents of the world, and included a territory difficult to comprehend by contemporary standards of colonial administration. The Spanish language came into contact with a great number of indigenous languages, in the Americas, Oceania and Africa. Currently, the Spanish empire properly speaking has been reduced practically to nothing, although the Spanish speaking territories of the world continue to represent one of the largest language groups, and Spanish dialectal diversity has been the subject of scholarly attention for more than a century. Despite the extremely rich and varied bibliography on Spanish dialectology, among the best in the Indo-European family, there are still some lacunae which inhibit the formulation of a comprehensive theory of Spanish dialectology. Spanish is one of the most fertile fields for historical linguistic investigation, since it has been involved in numerous situations of diglossia and bilingualism, and each of the races and cultures has made unique contributions to the evolution of the Spanish language. With an eye toward widening the perspective of Spanish dialectology, the present study will offer some observations on one of the least-known Hispanic dialects, the only Spanish dialect spoken in sub-Saharan Africa, in the Republic of Equatorial Guinea, formerly Spanish Guinea. This dialect was the object of early studies1, but due to a series of social and political problems which impeded the establishment of adequate research programs, received no modern linguistic descriptions until the recent work of Granda (1984a, b), carried out simultaneously with the present study, and obligatory reading for any student of Guinean Spanish. Moreover, the original studies concentrated attention on the native languages of Equatorial Guinea and their impact on metropolitan Spanish, and rarely was Guinean Spanish itself described in detail, except to point out errors and discrepancies. As a consequence, the task of describing Guinean Spanish has a double purpose; on the one hand, it supplies information on one of the least-known dialect areas in the Spanishspeaking world, and on the other hand, it provides documentation on the only

1

Gonzalez Echegaray (1951, 1959), Castillo Barril (1964, 1969).

1

area in the world where the Spanish language has existed in stable bilingualism with sub-Saharan African languages. This latter detail is of utmost importance for Spanish dialectology, since the hypothesis of African influence has figured prominently in treatises on the development of Latin American and even Peninsular Spanish2. The inclusion of materials representing the Spanish of Equatorial Guinea will permit a refined perspective and the separation of theoretical and methodological variables in order to arrive at a more adequate assessment of the African influence on Latin American Spanish. In the following chapters, specific reference will be made to the speech patterns of the capital of Equatorial Guinea, Malabo (formerly known as Santa Isabel) on the island of Bioko (formerly Fernando Poo), this being the principal city and the focal point of all cultural and linguistic influence. The primary thrust of this study will be the phonetic and phonological parameters of Guinean Spanish, since this is the least explored and most controversial area surrounding putative African influence on Latin American Spanish. By way of an introduction, some grammatical and lexical data will be presented, but the major theoretical conclusions will stem from consideration of phonological processes. The collection of field data was carried out during two visits to Equatorial Guinea, the first in the summer of 1983 and the second in the summer of 1984, the latter visit being funded by a Research Enabling Grant awarded by the University of Houston. In addition, numerous Guinean citizens residing in Spain and the Canary Islands generously shared their knowledge of linguistic, social and historical aspects of Equatorial Guinea, and substantially contributed to the establishment of an adequate methodological background to the linguistic surveys. The main surveys were conducted on the island of Bioko, containing the capital and the major government offices, but it was also possible to visit Rio Muni and Annobon Island, and carry out a number of interviews and surveys. It must be kept in mind that the following descriptions of Guinean Spanish are not meant to be exhaustive, but rather represent the first fruits of an ongoing research project designed to fully assess the importance of African Spanish and in particular the Guinean dialects for theoretical Spanish dialectology.

1.2 The Republic of Equatorial Guinea The Republic of Equatorial Guinea, formerly known as Spanish Guinea, is the only nation in sub-Saharan Africa which uses Spanish as a national language, and it is the only former Spanish colony in black Africa. Currently the country consists of the island of Bioko, formerly known as Fernando Poo, the mainland

2

Otheguy (1975), Cuervo (1927), Alvarez Nazario (1974), Naro (1978).

2

enclave of Rio Muni, situated between Cameroon and Gabon, remote Annobon Island, located to the south of the islands of Sao Tome and Principe, and the small islands of Corisco, Elobey Grande and Elobey Chico, off the coast of Rio Muni. The capital is Malabo, located on Bioko Island; it is the largest city in the nation, with nearly 50,000 inhabitants, of the total of about 80,000 inhabitants on the island and about 350,000 in the entire nation. The second largest city and capital of the mainland portion is Bata, with about 35,000 inhabitants. Annobon Island has fewer than 3000 inhabitants, while the smaller islands contain a miniscule population. The surface area of Bioko Island is 2017 km2, while the area of Rio Muni is 26,017 km2.3 Both areas are completely tropical, with fertile soils and one of the world's heaviest annual rainfalls. From the first days of Spanish occupation, the principal agricultural production has been cacao, especially on Fernando Poo but also on the mainland, and secondary crops include coconuts, bananas and coffee, in addition to numerous tuberous vegetables. In comparison with neighboring countries, the standard of living in Equatorial Guinea is rather high; most of the people are poor but few live in absolute misery, given the natural abundance which permits an adequate existence with few modern conveniences. Most Equatorial Guineans are small farmers, fishermen and hunters, or occasional workers on large plantations or industrial instalations. There is virtually no stable electrical supply except in Bata, and Malabo has a precarious system which rarely functions adequately. In the rest of the nation and in many parts of the major cities, the only source of electricity is portable generators, run by scarce and expensive gasoline and Diesel fuel. There are few motorized vehicles in comparison with the total population, and rural transportion is virtually nonexistent except for the occasional 'bush taxi'; in the cities, taxis and some buses operate. The island of Fernando Poo was discovered by a Portuguese navigator of the same name between 1469 and 1471, and was subsequently occupied by the Portuguese. For many years, Fernando Poo was a slaving station for slaves brought from the African continent en route to Europe and the Americas. Together with Sao Tome and Cape Verde, Fernando Poo was one of the factorias or slaving stations which resulted in a certain linguistic and cultural homogenization of slaves from various parts of Africa. The island passed to Spanish hands in 1778, as a result of the San Idelfonso and El Prado Treaties,

3

The following works served as primary sources of information, chosen from among the rich and varied bibliography on Equatorial Guinea: Pdlissier (1964), Servicio Informativo Espanol (1964), Liniger-Goumaz (1979), Nosti Nava (1942), Pujadas (1969), Unzueta y Yuste (1947), Zamora Loboch (1962), Kobel (1976), Sundiata (1972), Baguena Corella (1950), Ayemi (1942), Gonzalez Echegaray (1964), Arazadi (1962), Gobierno Genrai de la Regiön Ecuatorial (1960-68), Terän (1962), RamosIzquierda (1912), Piera (1900), Balmaseda (1861), Madrid (1933), Moreno Moreno (1952).

3

through which Spain ceded to Portugal a portion of Brazil in return for Fernando Poo, Annobon and Rio Muni. Despite this early date of territorial transfer, effective Spanish occupation was not to occur until much later, and in the meantime the British government obtained permission from Spain to use Fernando Poo as a base for an anti-slavery tribunal, founding the city of Clarence, later to be called Santa Isabel. During the 19th century, a number of freed slaves from Sierra Leone and Liberia arrived in Fernando Poo, speaking Creole English and dominating the commercial and social sector. Known as fernandinos, these English-speakers continue to form a small elite group in Malabo, although they have successfully mingled with other residents. A small group of freed Cuban slaves also arrived during this same period, and while they have mixed indistinguishably with other Guineans, were probably responsable for introducing a few Cubanisms into the Guinean Spanish lexicon4. The first real Spanish settlements on Fernando Poo date from 1858, and colonization took place extremely rapidly in comparison with other African and Latin American colonies. Before long a cocoa-planting aristocracy was formed, largely of Catalan origin, and this group came to dominate the principal economic support of the island. In Rio Muni, Spanish settlement was even later, since the numerous boundary disputes with France were not ultimately resolved until 1900. From this date onward Spanish colonization of Rio Muni advanced rapidly, but the first settlements were made on a narrow coastal strip and never penetrated into the interior of the continent, which remained virtually unknown until 1923. Even today, this region is relatively unexplored, and contains tremendous economic and commercial potential as a repository of unmeasured but surely significant natural and human resources. Bata, the capital of Rio Muni, rose to prominence as a port of exportation, and when Spanish Guinea was divided into two provinces, in 1959, Bata became the provincial capital, having jurisdiction as well over the small islands off the coast. Territorial autonomy came about in 1964, and in 1968 Equatorial Guinea received full independence. Unfortunately, the first 11 years of independent existence were marred by a cruel and xenophobic regime, led by Francisco Macias Nguema, a fanatical dictator who expelled all Europeans and Africans, exiled a significant portion of the Guinean population, destroyed nearly the entire post-colonial infrastructure, and lowered the standard of living virtually to the bottom of the African scale. The Macias regime was overthrown in 1979, and since this time the nation has embarked on a ambitious program of national reconstruction, aided substantially by Spain and also by various international organizations; however, the effects of the economic, political and social devastation of the previous government have yet to be completely eradicated. 4

These may include malanga, chapeo, and possibly cayuco. Also of importance in the early 20th century was the large number of Kru laborers brought from Liberia, whose linguistic impact on Fernando Poo has yet to be assessed.

4

Similar to the rest of Africa, Guinean ethnography is complex and fascinating, both on Bioko Island and in Rio Muni. The principal linguistic/ethnic groups are: on Fernando Poo, the Bubi, whose numbers were severly reduced during the previous government, which mandated forced labor on the mainland and attempted large-scale genocide. The Bubi were almost completely excluded from the first post-colonial government, but currently are partially represented in the national government, in proportion to their numbers. The Fang, a group originally coming from the interior of Gabon and Rio Muni, have become the dominant group in Guinean society, on the mainland and even on Bioko Island. During the colonial administration, few Fang worked on Fernando Poo, since they were known as activists in the independence movements. Following independence, the Fang have risen to prominence as both post-colonial presidents and the majority of the high government officials are Fang, a group which also represents the major controlling factor in the armed forces. On the coastal region of Rio Muni the playero groups are found, including Bujeba, Combe, Benga, and other small subgroups. Up until now, these groups have participated only slightly in Guinean government, but there are some current signs which point to a more significant integration of these groups into the national perspective. The inhabitants of remote Annobon Island, discovered by the Portuguese in 1471, speak a Creole Portuguese dialect known as fa d'ambo, similar to the dialects of Sao Tome and Principe, and are the only Equatorial Guineans who do not speak a strictly African language natively. Spanish presence on Annobon, limited to a mission/school, dates only from about 1895, while during the post-independence period many Annobonese were forceably transferred to Fernando Poo, where many have remained to form a significant nucleus, particularly in Malabo. On Annobon itself, the majority of the residents are fishermen, while Annobon islanders in Malabo work in diverse capacities.

1.3 Linguistic panorama of Equatorial Guinea Despite the fact that Spanish is the sole national language of Equatorial Guinea, each ethnic group maintains its native language, which continues to be the home language for each respective group. Fang, Bubi and the playero languages all belong to the Bantu family, but are mutually unintelligible, with the exception of certain playero dialects. Some investigators have tried to link Bubi with the language families of Cameroon, with questionable results, while Fang fits neatly in among the language groups of Gabon and Cameroon, where large numbers of Fang continue to live. Only the Annobon islanders natively speak a non-African language, although the Portuguese origin of fa d'ambo has been nearly totally obliterated by the successive overlays of African influence, not only lexical and phonetic but also syntactic. Among themselves, the native languages spoken in Equatorial Guinea share some common characteristics

5

which differentiate them collectively from Spanish, and which may have influenced the development of the Spanish language in this country. None of the native languages5 employs suffixation as a grammatical device to indicate derivation of nouns, verbs or other morphological categories. Annobonese is entirely without a system of regular morphological inflection, whereas the remaining languages utilize prefixation as the primary means of verbal and nominal inflection. It will be seen in Chapter 3 that in Malabo (and in general, in the entire nation), the Spanish dialect is characterized by a partial weakening of the Spanish morphological system. None of the native Guinean languages has a written tradition, although the oral tradition is extremely rich, but thanks to the sustained efforts of early missionary groups, grammars and other linguistic studies have been written for nearly all of these languages. In consulting these works, particularly the earliest ones, it is necessary to inject an element of caution, since the majority of the studies were prepared with didactic and evangelical aims and tend to postulate a much higher degree of structural and grammatical similarity between the Guinean languages and Spanish than is feasible for a legitimate linguistic analysis. Apparently the native languages spoken in Equatorial Guinea exhibit the same sociolinguistic and even idiolectal variation found among European languages, although this is not reflected in the linguistic studies in question. It is known, for example, that on Bioko Island there is a considerable regional variation of the Bubi dialects6, which points to similar possibilities for the remaining native languages and underlines the inadequacy of the current state of linguistic knowledge of the native African languages spoken in Equatorial Guinea.

1.4 Spanish language abilities in Equatorial Guinea There are no accurate figures on Spanish language ability among Equatorial Guineans, but informal observations suggest that such abilities are relatively high in comparison with some neighboring nations, particularly those which are officially English- and Portuguese-speaking. This is primarily due to the intensive efforts put forth by the Spanish government and by Spanish missionary organizations, especially the Claretian fathers, to establish a comprehensive public school system, and this goal was largely achieved, particularly on Fernando Poo. Significantly, despite the widespread knowledge of Spanish in Equatorial Guinea, no legimately Guinean citizen is a monolingual Spanish

5

6

Tho following works provided the principal data regarding the native languages of Equatorial Guinea. Annobon: Barrena (1957), Vila (1891). Bubi: Pereda (1921), Tessman (1923). Bujeba: Gonzalez Echegaray (1958). Bemba: Salvadö y Cos (1891). Fang: Ndongo Esono (1956), Nze (1975), Tessman (1913). Combe: Fernändez (1951). Benga: Perez and Sorinas (1928). General: Guthrie (1953: 24-7, 40-4). Baumann (1887), Gonzalez Echegaray (1959: 19-21, 28).

6

speaker and very few speak it natively, in the sense of the first language of the home. Throughout the nation, the native languages continue to hold sway in the home and in the marketplace, among members of the same ethnic group, while Spanish is reserved for inter-ethnic communication and official functions, and of course when dealing with non-Guineans. In this sense, the Spanish language has a somewhat artificial nature to it, which does not detract from its status as the sole national language and the chief means of bridging the gap between ethnic groups whose historical traditions do not permit adoption of another Guinean language as the national standard. The Spanish language is coupled with pichinglis or Pidgin English, the West African lingua franca which since earliest colonial times has been the principal trade language on Fernando Poo and to a lesser extent in Rio Muni. Pidgin English is still popular among merchants who must deal with Africans from various countries and with English-speaking Nigerian workers. As we have seen, the English language was introduced into Fernando Poo from several sources, beginning with the arrival of the original fernandinos in the last century, coming from English-speaking areas of West Africa. More recently, and more importantly for the linguistic history of Fernando Poo, there was a massive importation of Nigerian laborers, largely destined to the cocoa plantations, which at times constituted more than half of the total population of Fernando Poo 7 . Although the Nigerians were never integrated into Fernando Poo society, they left profound linguistic traces, since they preferred the West African lingua franca to the diverse native languages spoken in Nigeria. During the first postcolonial government, the Nigerians were expelled from Equatorial Guinea, but following the overthrow of Macias many Nigerians have returned and Pidgin English has remained as a major vernacular, no doubt reinforced by the increasing presence of Englishspeaking natives of Cameroon and other neighboring African nations. Despite the early preoccupation of the Spanish government, it is obvious that no real battle to replace Pidgin English with Spanish will be necessary, because the mere existence of a national language not spoken in neighboring countries is sufficient to fuel the flames of incipient Guinean nationalism, particularly among Guineans travelling outside of their own country. I have in fact observed the preference, among Guineans sharing the same native language, to use Spanish while travelling outside of the country, while in Equatorial Guinea itself this would be artificial and unlikely. Returning to the topic of language proficiency in Equatorial Guinea, it is possible to assert that in Malabo, and in general in all of Bioko Island, virtually all residents born or raised on Bioko speak some Spanish, although not all speak it with complete fluency. Among older residents it is still possible to find some who speak little Spanish, particularly if they have lived in isolated rural regions and have had little contact with Spaniards. As a consequence, Guinean

7

Gonzälez Echegaray (1959: 23-5). 7

citizens may be divided into two major groups in terms of Spanish language abilities: those who speak Spanish with considerable fluency, and those who speak little or no Spanish. In other words, instead of a linguistic continuum ranging from total lack of Spanish ability to complete fluency, the historical circumstances have produced a polarization which in essence involves the city/ country dichotomy, between individuals who maintained considerable contact with Spanish speakers and those who rarely came into contact with Spaniards. In Rio Muni, most speakers on the coastal region speak Spanish, some quite fluently, but in the interior, colonized and Europeanized only recently, there are a number of individuals who speak virtually no Spanish. Most Annobon Islanders speak Spanish adequately, although in their daily interactions they use fa d'ambo, mixed with Spanish words. An interesting phenomenon occurred during the last 7-8 years of the Macias regime, where public usage of Spanish was virtually prohibited, and where Spanish-language education nearly came to a standstill. This has resulted in a generation of young Guineans whose active competence in Spanish is significantly below that of their compatriots of previous and succeeding generations. The long-term linguistic impact of this brief but intense anti-Spanish hiatus remains to be assessed. In Malabo, there are also a number of Hausa merchants (originally from Cameroon and Nigeria, but now also native Guineans), natives of Sao Tome and Principe, Cape Verdeans and other Africans, who speak Spanish with varying abilities, depending upon length of residence in Equatorial Guinea, education and profession.

1.5 Lack of creolization in Guinean Spanish In the majority of ex-European colonies in Africa, the former colonial languages have become creolized, differentiating themselves from the metropolitan standards not only in phonetic and lexical parameters but also in the syntactic dimension. French has apparently been the least affected of the european languages transplanted to Africa, but even French, and certainly English, Portuguese and Dutch, have become, through the Africanization of the European colonies, dialects or even languages in their own right, at times being unintelligible to Europeans. Peninsular Portuguese is barely reflected in the dialects of Cabo Verde, Guinea Bissau, Sao Tome or even in the Portuguese spoken in Angola and Mozambique, and West African Pidgin English is all but unintelligible to British citizens. Moreover, former British, French and Dutch colonies in the Caribbean have also formed Creole dialects which differ significantly from metropolitan standards, and which in most cases are used in preference to standard varieties. The field of Creole language studies is rich and rewarding to the study of dialectology, since it is possible to view the intersection of linguistic, historical, psychological and demographic variables. In the midst of such a diversity of Creole languages and dialects, it is significant that 8

considered as a whole, Spanish has remained relatively free of creolization 8 , although in chapter 3 some evidence will be discussed regarding earlier creolized stages of Spanish in certain areas. Perhaps the most significant detail of the Spanish of Equatorial Guinea is the nearly total lack of true Creole elements, in comparison with peninsular standards. Postponing for the moment a demonstration of this assertion, we may address the question of why Guinean Spanish, being in such close contact with African languages, has not fallen victim to processes of creolization which have affected the majority of the European languages transplanted to African territory and to the Caribbean islands. At the same time, we must underline from the very beginning the importance of this fact for Spanish theoretical dialectology and for the Africanist theories of the formation of Latin American Spanish. By way of beginning the discussion, let us consider the sociolinguistic circumstances which it is generally supposed are relevant to the formation of Creoles9. Although there is still no common concensus regarding the appropriate terminology for discussion of Creole languages, it is not out of place to reiterate the view, by now widespread, according to which a creole dialect results when a pidgin or reduced variety of language changes from a lingua franca learned by adults for commercial or survival purposes, to a native language of a significant population. All known creole languages have passed through this bipartite process; at first, the colonial or dominant language is learned in a rudimentary form by colonial subjects, merchants or other individuals who for whatever reason are not able to use a mutually shared native or regional language for effective communication. This reduced form of the dominant language, which may include significant reductions in nominal and verbal paradigms, a simplified lexicon and a noteworthy interference from the native languages of the speakers who use the new code, is then regarded as a pidgin, during the time in which it is used as a communication medium by adults who have learned the pidgin subsequent to adquiring their native language. A pidgin is not of necessity to be regarded as inferior to the metropolitan language, and colonial governments in various parts of the world have officially adopted pidgins as national standards and in certain cases apparently have even contributed to the formation of pidgins in order to facilitate communication with their subjects. At the same time, in many areas, merchants, artesans and migrant laborers make wide use of pidgins in order to carry out daily acitivities, which in no way detracts from the value of such a linguistic code or implies inferiority to more standard varieties. According to the models under discussion, a true Creole is formed when a significant

8

9

Alleyne (1971: 182), Ramos (1937), Mintz (1971: 412), Gregersen (1977: 135-7), Reinecke (1938), Otheguy (1975), Zavala (1967: 19), Zamora Vicente (1974), Laurence (1969), Granda (1978), Taylor (1971), Whinnom (1965). Todd (1974), Bickerton (1977), Ferguson and D e Bose (1977), Meier and Muysken (1977).

9

population adquires a pidgin as a native language, at times in conjunction with other regional languages. In the course of the transformation to a Creole, the original pidgin expands its scope considerably, since in order to serve as the native language of a population, it must of necessity assume all the communicative functions of a natural language. When a creole is compared simultaneously with the original metropolitan standard, it may appear infantile, absurd or even a travesty of literate speech, and such erroneous comparisons have resulted in anti-creole campaigns in many nations. Those creole languages which have survived such normalizing processes are precisely those which, for a variety of historical and political circumstances, have been separated from significant contact with the metropolis for a considerable time period, free from the implicit and explicit comparison and correction which the metropolitan model imposes on the creole dialects. In those nations where a creole language has coexisted with the metroplitan standard for a considerable time, a post-creole continuum is usually the result, in which creole language structures are gradually replaced by standard forms, while the number of monolingual creole speakers is steadily reduced 10 . As examples of the development of creole languages in relative isolation, we may cite Papua-New Guinea, Haiti, the French Creoles of Trinidad and Grenada, and the Pidgin English of Fernando Poo, while typical examples of post-creole continua are found in Belize, Guyana, Trinidad and Martinique. In order to fully evaluate the evolution of Guinean Spanish and understand the lack of significant creole elements, it is necessary to enumerate the factors which differentiate the case of the Spanish language in Equatorial Guinea with widely recognized cases of creolization. (1) Perhaps the most important factor is that Spanish has never become the native language (much less the sole native language) of a significant segment of the Guinean population. Since Spanish is not spoken as the home language, and for a long period was not widely used by Guineans outside of official situations or when dealing with Spanish nationals, it has retained an artificial aura about it, which in conjunction with the widely available standard propagated by the educational system has impeded the polarization of linguistic standards which ultimately results in or facilitates the formation of pidgins and Creoles. (2) Perhaps of equal importance, it has never been necessary for large segments of the Guinean population to employ Spanish as a lingua franca for trade or agricultural purposes, since the native languages were available and interethnic communication was traditionally minimal; moreover, Pidgin English was also in reserve as a widely recognized African trade language. (3) Equatorial Guinea never suffered a massive fragmentation or dispersion of its ethnic groups which would have forced Spanish into the position of

10

Bickerton (1975), D e Kamp (1971).

10

the only mutually shared language, despite the genocidal attempts of the previous government. The typical Guinean citizen is surrounded by compatriots speaking the same native language, and as a result the Spanish language spoken by Guineans never had to acquire all the pragmatic features demanded of a language used for the full range of daily communication. (4) The Spanish government and the missionary groups established in Equatorial Guinea one of the best educational systems in all of Africa, with the already mentioned results: those Guineans who attended schools (ultimately nearly all of the residents of Fernando Poo and a significant portion of the residents of Rio Muni) achieved a basic competence in the Spanish language, while those few Guineans who received no formal education were those who maintained virtually no contact with Spaniards, and consequently learned little or no Spanish of any sort. (5) Possibly of importance is the relatively recent date of colonization of Equatorial Guinea by Spain, dating essentially from the middle of the last century for Fernando Poo and from the beginning of the present century for Rio Muni, late dates in comparison with British and French colonization in Africa and with European colonization in the Americas. One of the factors widely recognized as contributing to the formation of Creoles is an early preliminary contact with the colonial language followed by an extensive separation from metropolitan standards, during which the transplanted language is free to evolve in the absence of normative influences. Such is the case with Annobon Island, whose Creole dialect is derived from the Portuguese spoken by slaves and slave traders who came from Sao Tome and originally from Angola, and who used Annobon as a slaving station11. Papiamentu, spoken in the Dutch West Indies is another case in point, as is the vestigial Spanish spoken on the island of Trinidad 12 . Following the first serious efforts at colonization of Fernando Poo, in 1858, the Spanish remained permanently on the island, repeating this pattern of colonization several decades later in Rio Muni, where Spanish exploration continued in the interior portions of the continental territory. Spanish presence in Equatorial Guinea followed a linear progression, aided by the constant efforts to integrate the Guinean population through educational and religious programs. The sociocultural profile of the Spanish presence in Equatorial Guinea also contrasts with Spanish colonization in the Americas, since the typical Spaniard living or working in Equatorial Guinea came from the middle class and was reasonably well educated. Equatorial Guinea never contained a large population of poor immigrant laborers, since native Guineans and Nigerians were employed in the plantations and in less desirable forms of manual labor, and as a consequence Guinean Spanish contains none of the popular Spanish forms, associated with less educated speakers from poor rural areas of Spain, that are 11 12

Ferraz (1975, 1976, 1983), Granda (1976). Moodie (1973, 1982), Thompson (1957), Van Wijk (1958), Baum (1976).

11

so prevalent in many dialects of Latin American Spanish. At the same time, the resident Spanish population in Equatorial Guinea normally made frequent visits to Spain, and few Spaniards in Guinea considered themselves as anything other than Spanish citizens on temporary assignment abroad. This resulted in the constant updating of peninsular Spanish as spoken in Equatorial Guinea, the virtual lack of a local dialect forming among Spaniards residing in the colony, and the impossibility of forming the closed linguistic loops that evidently contributed to the formation of dialectal differences among the Spanish American colonies. Despite the fact that in Equatorial Guinea there has never been an overwhelming necessity to speak Spanish in the home, and only somewhat in non-official circumstances outside of the home, Equatorial Guinea may be regarded legitimately as a Spanish-speaking nation, not only officially but also as regards actual linguistic abilities of the population. While on the one hand most Guineans prefer their native languages for intraethnic communication, on the other hand, all Guineans frequently introduce Spanish words and phrases to complement the process of communication, and no Guinean is unable to communicate appropriately in Spanish at some level when circumstances so demand. The overall result is that the Spanish language as spoken by the majority of Guineans has a somewhat stilted character, which while not impeding its use as an effective medium of communication does not allow for the full range of connotations awarded to a true native language. The average Guinean does not speak Spanish constantly enough to develop idiosyncratic speech habits, which has also retarded the formation of true regional isoglosses in Guinean Spanish, despite the considerable area over which it is spoken. What occurs in effects is in almost random dispersion of errors, phonetic variants and lexical and grammatical slips which vary over a wider range than is found among monolingual Spanish speakers of other countries. This extraordinary polymorphism of Guinean Spanish is comparable to the Spanish spoken in other areas characterized by bilingualism with native languages or languages learned in early childhood, including the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico and the Kecchi-speaking regions of Guatemala and Belize13, the Andean highlands of South America 14 , the Amazon region of Colombia, Peru and Ecuador 15 , and the English-speaking Atlantic coast of Central America16. As a result, it is necessary to modify the methodological approaches to the study of Guinean Spanish, since in many instances a strictly quantitative model will produce misleading results, creating apparent order in the midst of a chaos of unrelated variants. On the other hand, a simple list of all recorded variants of a given form is totally inadequate, since this procedure does not reflect the interaction

13 14 15 16

Alvar (1969), Hagerty (1977). Escobar (1978), Cerron-Palomino (1976). Alvar (1977), Escobar (1978). Holm (1982).

12

between Spanish as an official and to a certain extent popular language and the widely used native languages spoken in Equatorial Guinea. In the following chapters, an attempt will be made to offer a balanced presentation. Since the majority of the data concern phonological processes, it will be necessary to include some quantitative studies, since this represents the state of the art in Hispanic dialectology, but greater emphasis will be placed on general processes which have affected the development of the Spanish language in Equatorial Guinea.

13

Chapter two:

Methodological considerations

2.1 The linguistic interviews Due to the difficult political situation which has recently been overcome in Equatorial Guinea, there is still a certain suspicion and reticence surrounding any investigation carried out in that country, and many Guineans naturally hesitate before participating in surveys and inquiries of any type. Clearly, such reluctance increases in the presence of microphones, tape recorders, camaras and notebooks, and researchers must exercise extreme caution so as not to arouse unfavorable sentiments among the groups to be studied. In the case of the present study, the Guinean government generously gave its approval for the linguistic interviews and provided competent and interested personnel to materially aid in the collection of suitable interviews and in the assembling of an adequate background bibliography. From the outset, it was clear that taped interviews were essential to the investigation, since a large number of otherwise valuable dialect studies of Spanish have been marred by the lack of adequately preserved materials, which impedes subsequent reevaluation of the data and effectively seals off each study from further progress. At the same time, it became apparent that under certain circumstances, overt taping of Guinean subjects, although permitted by the government, might not lead to spontaneous participation of the sort desired for the research program. The final collection of interview data combined structured interviews with a number of secret recordings, a recognized technique1 in Hispanic dialectology which permits obtaining samples of unguarded speech while at the same time preserving the anonymity of the respondents. In addition to the interviews, a number of less structured conversations were taped, and these materials were supplemented by several recordings of public ceremonies and a wide range of taped radio programs.

1

Pilei (1973: X I V - X V ) . In the present investigation, all potential informants were informed that a survey was taking place and gave their informed consent. In some cases, it was felt that the presence of a tape recorder would arouse suspicion, either toward the investigator or toward the interviewee, and the presence of the tape recorder was not revealed. In no cases were unguarded conversations recorded, nor were compromising remarks included, or any characteristics which would permit identification of the informants.

14

The interviews were taped on Sony portable cassette recorders, models TCM-7 and TCM-600, small hand-held models which are highly portable and small enough as to minimize the inhibiting effect of a tape recorder during the interviews. In most cases, a Sony ECM-150 lapel microphone was used, and the majority of the recordings are of acceptable quality, although the extremely high humidity and heat were responsible for some recordings of less than satisfactory quality. In addition to the interviews, copious notes were kept of spontaneous interactions and overheard conversations. Both stays in Equatorial Guinea coincided with the celebrations of the overthrow of the previous government, on August 3, 1979, and these ceremonies presented ample opportunities to listen to and record speeches and other presentations by government officials, as well as sports events and commemorative radio programs2. For the purposes of a quantitative study of phonlogical variables, 25 informants were selected, representing a typical cross-section of Malabo, and including speakers from the distinct ethnic and racial groups typically found in Equatorial Guinea. Each informant provided approximately 30 minutes of recorded interview material, and the personal data on each informant are found in Table 1. In addition, approximately 25 hours of taped radio material were included in the analysis, and are described in Chapter 8. Since the primary purpose of the present investigation was the study of the spontaneous speech of Malabo, particularly with respect to phonetic details, no detailed questionnaire was employed, since such an instrument would have introduced an excessively artificial element into the inquiries, resulting in selfconsciousness and an attempt to conform to the perceived expectations of the investigator. In addition, the majority of questionnaires which have been used in Hispanic dialect studies contain a considerable quantity of elements which are not appropriate for the Spanish of Equatorial Guinea, and it would have been necessary to arbitrarily cut out such elements in order to arrive at a satisfactory sample. Obviously the total lexical range of Guinean Spanish is a legitimate and interesting topic for future research, and merits a full-length study of its own. Although most Guineans participated willingly and eagerly in the interviews and inquiries, some evidenced a certain preoccupation as to the use to which the materials were to be put, since they felt that Spaniards might laugh at the attempts of Guinean citizens to participate in interviews held entirely in Spanish, and it was necessary to reassure the participants that such was not to occur with the results of their collaboration. In retrospect, it appears that there are few if any significant phonological differences between the unguarded speech of Guineans and the self-monitored speech of structured interviews, unlike the case with most native Spanish speakers in other countries. This may perhaps result from the still somewhat artificial status of For a discussion of the artificial nature of broadcast language as a sociolinguistic phenomenon, see Lope Blanch (1973: 84) and Lipski (1983a).

15

Table 1:

Profile of informants

infor- ethnic group mant

age

sex

years in Malabo

other areas of residence

visits to Spain

education

occupation

merchant

# 1

Annobonese

34

Μ

22

Annobön

military service

primary +

2

Annobonese

35

Μ

18

Annobön

none

secondary + doorkeeper/ fisherman

3

Fang

27

Μ

15

Rio Muni

none

secondary + doorkeeper

4

Annobonese

22

F

3

Annobön

none

some primary

janitorial

5

Bubi

56

Μ

39

none

none

primary

driver

6

Combe

21

Μ

15

Rio Muni

studies

institute

student

7

Hausa

47

Μ

8

Cameroon

none

some primary

merchant

8

Fernandino

27

Μ

26

Rio Muni

none

primary

taxi driver

secondary

clerk

9

Bubi

22

F

22

none

one

10

Bubi

23

F

23

none

none

some promary

maid

11

Fang

24

Μ

12

Rio Muni

none

primary

bartender

12

Bubi

46

F

46

none

none

secondary

housewife/ hostal keeper

13

Bubi

19

Μ

17

Bioko

none

primary +

student, laborer

14

Bubi

22

Μ

18

Bioko

none

primary +

student, maid

15

Bubi

49

F

43

Bioko

none

some primary

seamstress

16

Fang

42

F

27

Rio Muni

one

some secondary

bar owner

17

Sao Tome

20

F

13

Sao Tome

none

secondary

student, farm worker

18

Benga

28

F

19

Corisco

none

some primary

street vendor

19

Bubi

59

F

53

Bioko

none

some primary

market vendor

20

Bubi

42

Μ

26

Bioko

none

some secondary

small farmer

21

Fang

33

F

18

Rio Muni

several

institute

journalist/ writer

22

Annobon

58

F

39

Annobon

none

some primary

cook

23

Sao Tome

27

F

19

Sao Tome, Nigeria

none

some secondary

cook

24

Bubi

24

Μ

18

Bioko

none

secondary

student/ carpenter

25

Bujeba

31

F

18

Rio Muni

none

some primary

maid

16

Spanish in Equatorial Guinea and the already mentioned lack of significant sociolinguistic stratification in most dimensions. In the case of lexical and syntactic variables, self-conscious speech revealed a greater attention to detail, particularly grammatical concordance, and a significantly higher level of malapropism of difficult and unfamiliar terms.

2.2 Phonetic and phonological models Throughout this study, all phonetic transcriptions will utilize the symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet, and all phonological rules will employ the commonly accepted conventions of modern generative phonological theory. While the phonological analyses are sufficiently straightforward as to obviate the detailed use of specifical theorical models, the general theoretical approach is that of natural generative phonology3, which has given the most satisfactory results in recent phonological studies of Spanish dialects. Natural generative phonology places restrictions on the derivation of underlying forms, disallowing absolute neutralizations and excessively abstract derivations which make essential use of derivational paradigms, diachronic evolutions or cross-dialectal comparisons. In the particular case of Equatorial Guinea, the relatively limited knowledge of Spanish etymologies by most citizens precludes abstract derivations which might conceivably have some validity for more educated monolingual Spanish speakers in other countries, and militates in favor of a surfaceoriented model of phonology which minimizes the derivational distance between underlying forms and surface representations accessible to the child and adult language-learner.

Natural generative phonology is described in Hooper (1976), with subsequent ramifications reviewed in Guitart (1980) and extended in Goldsmith (1981). More traditional accounts of general and Spanish phonology are found in Chomsky and Halle (1968), and Harris (1969) and more recently Harris (1983).

17

Chapter three:

Grammatical characteristics of Guinean Spanish

3.1 Grammatical features of Guinean Spanish Although the principal thrust of the present study is the phonological dimension of Guinean Spanish and its importance for Latin American and peninsular dialectology, it is necessary to pause briefly and survey the major grammatical characteristics of the Spanish of Equatorial Guinea, since detailed descriptions of Guinean Spanish are virtually nonexistent. At the same time, such a basic presentation is necessary to document the assertion, made in the previous chapter, that Guinean Spanish is essentially non-creolized. This does not mean that Guinean Spanish upholds the same norms as ,standard' Peninsular or Latin American Spanish, nor does it imply that Guinean Spanish is free from influence and even interference from the native languages spoken in that country1. There are in fact significant differences between the syntactic profile of Guinean Spanish and that of major Spanish dialects in other countries, but these differences are not the result of a massive simplification of grammatical paradigms nor of the conglomeration of diverse grammatical functions in a single morphological unit, but rather stem from the relatively limited oppor-

It must be noted that, despite the considerable grammatical and phonetic differences among the native languages of Equatorial Guinea, the present corpus indicates no systematic differentiation in the Spanish as spoken by members of the distinct linguistic/ethnic groups. In particular, despite a very close scrutiny of the transcriptions, it was not possible to discern any grammatical differences which may be correlated with the native language of given speakers. In the phonetic dimension, the quantitative studies carried out on the variables /s/, l\l, Μ and /n/ failed to reveal any significant differences based on native language, despite obvious phonetic differences among these languages. This apparent paradox may be partially explained by the relative homogeneity of the set of native Equatorial Guinean languages as compared to Spanish, with respect to the consonantal phenomena which were chosen for study. More importantly, in Equatorial Guinea, it is possible to discern the formation of a true Spanish-speaking community, a sociolinguistic nucleus in which individual ethnic-group differences are being smoothed over en route to the formation of a true Malabo/Guinean dialect. At the same time, an incipient sociolinguistic stratification is being formed, as Spanish language usage becomes more frequent in all aspects of daily life. One area where native-language background continues to be noticeable is intonation, although lack of detailed information regarding exact intonational contours of the native Equatorial Guinean languages precludes any accurate assessment of these differences.

18

tunities for actively increasing linguistic proficiency in Spanish for the majority of Guinean speakers. Traditionally, Spanish was little spoken by native Guineans outside of the schools unless it was necessary to speak to a Spanish or Latin American national, since the native Guinean languages were always available for daily communication. On the other hand, the forced population movements decreed by the former government have turned Bioko Island into a miniature melting pot with speakers from diverse ethnic groups, which is giving the Spanish language a position of special prominence since no Guinean is eager to adopt another ethnic group's language for daily communication. Despite numerous pragmatic difficulties which stand in the way of acquiring a truly native fluency in the Spanish language, Guineans have a strong desire to achive such a proficiency and such is immediately obvious from even the most superficial conversation. Moreover, the educational system has been instrumental in implanting in Guineans a consciousness of grammatically correct speech, and even in informal speech, most Guinean speakers maintain an awareness of grammatical rules and occasionally correct their own production in a fashion uncommon among monolingual Spanish speakers in other countries.

3.2 Morphological characteristics (a) The most characteristic feature of Guinean Spanish is the partial neutralization of the familiar and formal second person singular pronouns tü and usted. Since word-final Is/ is clearly pronounced in Malabo, combinations such as usted dices, usted quieres are easily noticed. The most frequent combination is the pronoun usted followed by a verb form corresponding to the second person familiar form tu. Less frequently, tü is combined with a verb form corresponding to usted. T h e same speaker may vary freely between tu and usted in the course of the same conversation, with no apparent shift in context or style. This neutralization of second person pronouns also occurs among the clitic pronouns le and te and in the imperative verb forms, in the latter case perhaps aided by the considerable vocalic instability which renders difficult the differentiation of familiar and formal commands in regular forms in which only a vocalic modification signals the morphological shift. A l s o noteworthy is the frequency of usage of redundant subject pronouns in Guinean Spanish, in comparison with Peninsular dialects and the majority of Latin American dialects. In Guinean Spanish, sentences without subject pronouns are comparatively infrequent: ιComo

estä? iQue desea? Tiene que ir a la esquina. Rather, the subject

pronoun is normally present, particularly tu. and usted. Only in certain Caribbean Spanish dialects2 and to a lesser extent among certain Andalusian and

2

Lipski (1977).

19

Canary Island speakers are similar tendencies to be found, in these cases due to the massive reduction of word-final consonants which obliterates many morphological distinctions and encourages an increased frequency of usage of subject pronouns. It is also possible that the partial neutralization of tü and us ted in Guinean Spanish is a consequence of the colonial situation, in which Spaniards normally employed tü when speaking to Guineans. The latter in turn also spoke with tu. when addressing Spaniards, not to indicate solidarity but rather through ignorance of the true sociolinguistic ramifications of the choice of pronouns in Spanish, much as occurs in certain regions of Latin America among speakers of indigeneous languages. 3 The tu forms were the only ones heard in Equatorial Guinea with any frequency outside of the schools, while in school the usted forms were stressed. These latter forms have been reinforced by post-colonial contacts between Spaniards and Guineans, since those Spaniards currently residing in Equatorial Guinea tend to use usted more frequently when meeting a Guinean for the first time or when engaged in professional transactions, highlighting a more profound recognition of Guinean sovereignty. At the same time, this tendency is offset by the increasing preference, in Spain itself, for a spontaneous use of tu. which is gaining ground among younger generations in most Spanish cities. The overall result, for the Guinean speaker of Spanish, is a categorical instability, which is undoubtedly reinforced by the lack of a familiar-formal pronominal distinction in the native languages spoken in Equatorial Guinea. It may be that, if there were no counterbalancing tendencies exercized by the school system and by the continued presence of Spanish nationals, Guinean Spanish would gravitate toward a canonical model of usted -I- . . . —s, combining the most commonly learned second person pronoun, product of the school system, and the verbal morpheme most frequently heard among Spaniards. In reality, the categorical instability is likely to remain for some time, since the opposing tendencies of Spanish presence and the inherent simplification of Guinean Spanish continue to nearly equally counterbalance one another. (b) In the Spanish of Malabo, use of vosotros is somewhat variable, except for those few Guineans raised in Spain or who spent extensive time in that country; for the remainder, use of ustedes alternates with vosotros. Despite the fact that the majority of the Spaniards who contributed to the formation of Guinean Spanish come from dialect areas where use of vosotros is common, an exclusive use of vosotros for second-person plural contexts has not become uniformly implanted, perhaps in view of the perceptual difficulties surrounding the morphological differentiation of second person plural forms. In those instances where Guineans spontaneously use vosotros, morphological errors at times occur, as indicated in the transcriptions of the appendix. Even the use of

3

See for example Manfredi (1957), Soler (1957). 20

ustedes is not without errors, and due to the relatively reduced frequency of use of plural subject pronouns as compared to singular pronouns, one occasionally hears errors in the verb forms which correspond to ustedes, the most frequent error being the use of a verb form corresponding to usted or tii. This in itself is not a sign of creolization, because Guinean Spanish gives no evidence of the reduction of verbal paradigms to a single minimally inflected form; rather, there is a partial confusion of correct forms stemming from incomplete and/or contradictory linguistic models during the formative stages of the Guinean dialect. (c) Another characteristic of Guinean Spanish, which bears a striking similarity to the Spanish spoken by many foreigners who have imperfectly learned the language, is the instability of grammatical concordance, particularly of gender, and also of verb tense. Annobonese Creole exhibits no form of grammatical concordance, while the remaining native languages of Equatorial Guinea effect partial concordance by means of prefixation. Guineans, when speaking Spanish, frequently confuse grammatical gender, particularly in plural forms. This is apparently due in part to general vocalic instability, as will be seen in the following chapter, and to a lesser extent to a lack of attention to morphological details, but the frequency of errors is never high enough to constitute a true neutralization of grammatical gender or verbal concordance, such as has occurred in Annobonese Creole and Papiamentu. (d) Guinean Spanish exhibits a certain instability regarding verbal tense and mood, particularly with respect to the subjunctive mood. Most Guinean speakers are able to use the subjunctive to some degree, although errors are relatively frequent, but in spontaneous speech, many Guineans are somewhat reluctant to use subjunctive forms, preferring indicative forms. Neutralization of verbal moods has been described for Mexican-American (Chicano) Spanish4 and occasionally in other areas, most frequently in dubitative and facultative expressions, and in expressing causality in the future, but in Guinean Spanish the confusion of subjunctive and indicative is not systematic, but rather consists of occasional and sporadic errors. Errors generally favor the indicative forms, as might be suspected, but occasionally the general vocalic instability results in what appears to be a subjunctive form where Spanish grammar calls for an indicative form. Nonetheless, most Guinean speakers pay close attention to the use of the subjunctive while speaking Spanish, reflecting the emphasis placed on these patterns in the school system, and even in spontaneous conversations it is possible to hear cases of self-correction. Use of the synthetic future tense (hablarä instead of va a hablar) is relatively more frequent in Guinean Spanish than in Peninsular varieties to refer to the future, but in contrast to Peninsular dialects, Guinean Spanish rarely uses future forms to express probability or conjecture. This may result from the

4

Sanchez (1972), Gonzalez (1975), Penalosa (1980: chap. 5). 21

artificiality of Spanish-language instruction in Equatorial Guinea, which presents idealized grammatical models without commenting on actual usage which might deviate from such academic norms. It is also possible that the increased use of synthetic future forms reflects the previous presence in Equatorial Guinea of a large number of Catalan speakers, who even when speaking Spanish often use the synthetic future with a frequency approaching that of modern Catalan. In those cases where Guinean speakers employ irregular future tense verbs, these are generally formed correctly, although it is not uncommon to hear errors of concordance, such as usted diri, yo estarä, etc. Guinean Spanish also presents some variability in the use of the preterite and imperfect tenses, although by no means have the systematic differences been neutralized, and incorrect formation of irregular preterite verbs is rather frequent. These errors include regularization of irregular paradigms, hypercorrection and analogical formation. It appears that the imperfect tense is used somewhat more frequently in Guinean Spanish than in Peninsular dialects, in cases where normative grammar would prefer a preterite for simple narration: El venia ay er a las siete, but this substitution is not systematic or regular, and the occasional preference for the imperfect rather than the preterite may result from the larger proportion of regular forms in the imperfect and the fact that none of the native languages of Equatorial Guinea employs two discrete verbal tenses to differentiate past tense references, although other means may exist to express tense and aspectual differences. (e) Guinean Spanish speakers are uniformly leistas, preferring le as opposed to lo as a direct object clitic pronoun. (f) The use of diminutive, augmentative, superlative and other derivational suffixes is reduced in Guinean Spanish as compared with contemporary Spanish dialects of other countries, although diminutives in -ito and superlatives in -isimo occasionally occur. The remaining suffixes rarely if ever are found, which has led to the view that Guinean Spanish "Carece del lenguaje familiar, social, con la amenidad, intimidad y sentimientos que caracterizan a este, con ricos giros, matices, modulaciones e inflexiones, refranes graciosos, sencillez y fluidez expresiva5". As has been mentioned, Annobon Creole utilizes no morphological inflection, while the remaining native languages use only prefixation, and none have diminutive or augmentative morphemes as such. Given the pragmatic character of most Spanish-Guinean linguistic contacts over the years, it is not surprising the Guineans have not captured the full range of connotations and nuances which the Spanish langauge expresses through a wide variety of suffixes, since these forms are not stressed in didactic presentations and are not essential for rudimentary communication. Guinean Spanish occasionally makes use of reduplication of adjectives and adverbs for superlative meaning (mucho mucho, lejos lejos, pequeno pequeno), but this is not a

5

Castillo Barril (1969: 54).

22

regular process, such as is found in some other African languages. It is rather a discourse strategy found in other Spanish dialects, even in Spain and the Canary Islands, which may appear through spontaneous generation in many unrelated areas and languages.

3.3 Syntactic features (a) Subject pronouns are used with greater frequency than in most other dialects of Spanish, even those of the Caribbean, since in the latter dialects it is tü and listed which appear with greater than usual frquency, while in Guinean Spanish yo, nosotros, ellos, ustedes, etc. are also used almost categorically. There is some correlation between morphological clarity and frequency of subject pronouns, since first person forms are used less frequently than third person pronouns, but in general use of subject pronouns is normal and regular in Malabo Spanish. This may not be directly attributed to the school system, where such models are not normally employed, and even Guineans who have maintained extensive contact with Spaniards generelly prefer to use subject pronouns in most cases, at the same time conserving the corresponding verbal endings to a greater extent than in many Peninsular and Caribbean Spanish dialects. (b) Clitic pronouns are generally placed correctly, although two-clitic combinations are rather rare, and se lo is often used universally for any two-clitic combination. The materials collected for the present investigation indicate no use of se instead of other reflexive pronouns, as has been indicated in other studies6, but in general reflexive verbs are not common in Guinean Spanish. It is worth repeating that in Guinean Spanish, there is no widespread confusion of pronominal case, between subject and object, although occasionally a confusion of direct and indirect object pronouns may be found (lo instead of le, etc.). However, such confusion is found even in Spain among less educated speakers, and does not signal an incipient process of creolization. (c) Guinean Spanish uses the same prepositions as other dialects of Spanish, although the longer and more specialized prepositions are naturally used less frequently. There is some variation in the use of prepositions, for example en, a and de, and between por and para, and occasionally a preposition may be omitted, most frequently a. There is no wholescale elimination of prepositions as has occurred in some Hispanic Creole dialects. (d) Subordinate clauses are relatively infrequent in Guinean Spanish, except in the most formal artificial styles, which reflects the general preference for simple sentences, and in cases of verbal subordination, use of the subjunctive is relatively uncommon, except in those cases where the speaker is

6

Castillo Barril (1969: 58-9).

23

obviously making a conscious attempt to put into practice artificially-learned rules. (e) The semantic and syntactic differences between ser and estar are always maintained, unlike some creole dialects, in which the two verbs have blended into a single unconjugated form, such as ta. Rarely is ser used with adjectives where estar would be called for by normative grammar (es triste hoy instead of estä triste hoy). In the Spanish of Malabo, use of the progressive tenses with estar is somewhat limited; in fact the gerund forms rarely appear, in combination with estar, ir, seguir, etc., although in those cases where gerunds do appear, they are correctly formed. Insufficent information on relative frequency of verbal forms in other dialects of Spanish exists to claim unequivocally that Guinean Spanish differs substantially from Peninsular varieties in this respect, and it is conceivable that distorted frequencies of certain forms result from the nature of particular conversations or situations, although the variety of samples collected as part of the corpus should rule out most cases of distortion of data. (f) Use of compound tenses with haber is not frequent in Guinean Spanish, and constructions with two compound verbs are even rarer (si hubiera ... habria). The one exception, already noted, is the preference for the past perfect instead of the preterite (he dicho for dije), reflecting current Peninsular tendencies and especially the Spanish of Catalan speakers. The present corpus contains no instances of incorrect formation of past participles.

3.4 Conclusions Guinean Spanish contains no evidence of grammatical deterioration or incipient creolization, or for that matter decreolization, but rather a set of variants which reflect the limited opportunities for linguistic development in the Spanish language for most Equatorial Guineans. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Guinean Spanish syntax are not the individual errors, but rather the overall patterns which, while in some cases not explicitly violating Peninsular Spanish norms, contain proportions of variants which do not coincide with any other Spanish dialect, and which give to Guinean Spanish a rather unusual and even exotic aspect, often difficult to pinpoint grammatically, through the usual quantitative and variational studies. The effects of a trilateral struggle are apparent, among the effects of formal normative grammar as taught in the schools, the reductive tendencies of the incipient popular varieties of Guinean Spanish, and the diffuse but nonetheless important influence of the various substratum languages. Therefore the most important grammatical aspect of Guinean Spanish is not the set of errors, which represent a nearly random dispersion not found in other Spanish-speaking areas, but rather the totality of forms of expression in comparison with Peninsular standards. Since the Spanish language is a relative newcomer to Equatorial Guinea, as opposed to the 24

former Spanish colonies in Latin America, one most postpone until future generations any definitive conclusions regarding the mutual influence of Spanish and the native Guinean languages, but it is clear that such future studies will well repay the effort expended. Appendix: Samples of the collected materials, illustrating morphological, semantic and syntactic characteristics of Guinean Spanish. 1. Annobon 54 yrs., male; fisherman/govt. employee. Interviewed in San Antonio de Pale, Annobon: La mayoria, si la mayoria vive aqui en la isla de Pale, como casi otra mitad estä en Malabo . . . hay muchos habitantes annoboneses en Malabo, como aqui, como la provincia, habita mäs, hay mäs gentes que alia. En tiempo de lluvia, to la gente concentran aqui Como vivimos asi la marea tan cercana, casi todo . . . todos habitantes aqui, los hombres en especial, son pescadaores. 2. Bubi, 19 yrs., male; laborer, interviewed in Malabo: Se trepa la palmera, de dätiles, lo limpias bien, hay una . . . cosa que parece fruta, largo a s i . . . lo haces bien con cuchio, cuando lo cortas, sale el tope, lo areglas bien, pones la calabaza 3. Fang de Bata, 25 yrs., female, domestic, interviewed in Malabo: Es muy fäcil, ya lo comprendes, aqui es el capital del pais, entonces, por mäs que se puede encontrar trabajo tambien fuera del capital, pero usualmente la gente, con el ambiente, y, ya lo ves que siempre hay mucha gente a h i . . . la posibilidad de hacer cualquiera cosa, entonces, que la gente vien' de Rio Muni y . . . y hay otros que estän destinado, que viene aqui Yo especialmente en mi caso, es que yo no vivo de Malabo, yo soy de Bata, y vive ahi, pero estoy aqui por unas cosas, por una semana a dos, precisamente, como si quieres viajar ο salir del pais hace falta que yo vengo aqui, en Bata no se puede hacer nada. 4. Fang, 33 yrs., male; painter/musician; interviewed in Bata: Yo soy solista soy cantante häbil, yo toco la guitara ... pero a escala, escala africana, un poco ritmo europeo, pero mäs congo . . . yo tengo tanta aficion pero no obstante de guitara, simplemente guitara, solfeo la guitara, solfeo, tan a electricidad, de aqui acä pero volando, uno sanido mejores . . . especial, miisica africana e lo que mäs, mäs grande aficion, es composition, el canto y la voz, porque aqui me llamaban, cuando yo tocaba aqui, me 25

llamaban la voz de oro, porque aqui no hay ηίύη miisico que tiene buena finacion de voz 5. Combe, 31 yrs., female; owner of small bar; interviewed in Bata: Nosotros son lo mimo, pero el combe y ndowe no son iguales, todos somos iguales, no, porque no llama todos combes, pero hay ndowe, ndowe son los que estän en la costa, y los combes son los que estän en Asomo, son los combes, y no hablamos igual pero nos entendemos, hablamos, ο sea hablamos . . . el tono de voz no lo tenemos igual, nos entendemos muy bien. 6. Combe, 49 yrs., male; mechanic's assistant; interviewed in Bata: Cuando la familia es que cuando comporta bien la familia, de la mujer, entonce te pone parece que . . . te casas con ella . . . primero conquista la chica, no, y si la chica estä de acuerdo, entonce, entonces cuando habeis acostumbrao depue conquistarla, no, es que usted no puede . . . a la familia, es que tenes que estar un poco escondio por un tiempo no, si coge muy pronto el embarazo, entonces es cuando tii como el hombre, no, si no quie cosa oculto, es que uste presenta directamente a la familia . . . si te presentas con una buena education, es que te permite estar con ea. 7. Sao Tome, 53 yrs., female; domestic/cook, interviewed in Malabo: Cuando estaban . . . para dibrugar el mundo . . . entre Portugueses, frances, este era la Ultimo, este pais, el ültimo, pero vino de San Carlos, que es Lubä hoy . . . cuando ellos se volvieron, entonce, cuando el hijo de rey, Alfonso X I I I , cuando quiere casarse con dona Isabel, entonce ellos preguntö . . . oye, hay el Ultimo pais que hemos encontrao, ^que vamos a hacer con este? es un pais, un pueblo, una cosa bonito, pero lo que es, estä en medio del agua . . . entonces ellos decia, bueno, vamos a darles esas familia que van a casar, como un recuerdo . . . entonces se puso este nombre, Isabel y Fernando. 8. Bubi, 58 yrs., male; driver, interviewed in Malabo/Luba: El sitio que se hace eso, es como, como la casa presidencial, entonce la casa presidencial tendrä un salon . . . donde es donde se acumulan la gente, para ya hacer de distintas banda . . . los que tienen que estar proximo lo que tiene asi sucesivamente . . . hay una corona de pais . . . entonces se le pone, tiene su baston, tiene unas pulseras como si fuera unas cintas, unas pulseras de pais, de sequito . . . estas pulseras, ahora mimo, claramente no le voy enganä no lo se de que, no son de marfil, son cosas como unas conchitas, que proceden del mar, entonce, habian la gente que lo . . . la hacia, traer esas cosas al estar la revolution de Macias y todo eso pues eso se extermino . . .

26

Claro, como la name, la comida mäs importante, era la comida mäs importante, la que mäs se cultivaba, de las cosas que mäs se cultivaban . . . entre la name, la palmera porque la palmera, el mimo tronco de la palmera nos sirve, lah rama nos sirven para hacer la escoba . . . la palmiste, nos sirve para hacer aceite de . . . eso, ese aceite que sale del . . . y tambien nos sirve de aceite ese de palma 9. Bubi, 24 yrs., male; student/carpenter (inf. 24), interviewed in Malabo: Con esa gente se producia mucho, pero cuando se marcharon, lah producciones, trabajaron bastante porque, . . . la mano de obra si directa con los ärboles de cacaotero puedo tenian su sefior, cuando se marcharon, präcticamente nosotros mimo no estamos acostumbrao a ese trabajo, pero cuando se marcharon esos, parece que es cuando nos espabilemos un poco . . . ya nosotros mimo ya . . . digamos practicando . . . y los pocos que quedan si alguno tiene una finca pue, son d'esa gente que ya, parece que se han despabilado y . . . eso de tene que estar trabajando bajo uno ya les cae, entonce, ellos mimo ya se hacen duenos incluso, vive aqui en la ciudad y . . . si tienen la finca en un poblado asi, va ahi unos säbados, busca unos cuantos que pueden i asi de estajo, entonce les entrega el dinero, y toda la zona tonde tienen que trabajä, y el viene a la ciudad. 10. Fang, 46 yrs., female; owner of small bar, interviewed, in Malabo: Y o despueh de nueve aiios, j,c0mo voy a asustarme el frio de alia? Eso podias hacer a prosimpio, poco de liegarme ahi, pues despue de tanto tiempo, bah, estoy deseando de irme pero lo que pasa que no hay dinero. Cualquiera cosa que le comentas, yo voy en cualquiera sitio cualquiera cosa que me den, comentario, lo que es una pequena cosa, pero yo la tendre en cuenta siempre. 11. Annobon, 38 yrs., male; police guard, interviewed in San Antonio de Pale, Annobon: Tortugas, los chicos, hay unas temporadas que las tortugas vienen en la costa, se le encuentran en la playa pa poner huevos, y los chico, ahora los chico se dedican, mucho chico que dedican a . . . con la lanza, lo matan. Hay unos tambores grande que uno va sentando. Ve una chica que le gusta . . . y quiero casarme mujer, y, de acuerdo. 12. Annobon, 23 yrs., female; domestic, interviewed in Malabo: No hay bichoh venenoso no hay culebra, no hay ratones, todo eso no hay . . . tenemos cerdo gallinas patos . . . y palomos, no tenemos culebrah en los bosques . . . no tenemos todo esto, hay golondrina, hay pavos, hay gallinas de bosque. 27

Los fang si que se paga, pero nosotro no pagamos, puedes presentä como . . . como una persona asi y dices el pare que yo quiero casar a tu hija, aunque es una botea de vino, puedes dar, a lo padre esta niiia, y ya casas. 13. Combe, 34 yrs., female; domestic, interviewed in Bata: Como tengo asi los hijo, hablan mi lengua, y cuando hay que ir en la clase, tienes que aprender para hablar castellano, tienes que aprender, uno que va a estar alii adelante como su hermano, como ya sabe, lo puede . . . decir que esto no se llama de tal, esto se llama . . . El padre del sefio paga el dote donde familia de la muje, y cuando se separa, su padre de la nina, puede levantar que si tiene dinero puede pagar, si no tienen pueden ir donde su familiar . . . 14. Fang, 29 yrs., male; mechanics' assistant; interviewed in Bata: Los fang . . . alguna hace trampa, prepä nipa, venden nipas, etros trabajan en la ciudad, otros carpinteros, tal. Esto era pa los grupos, entonces ahora hacemos, como hay luz de la ciudä, cuando se acaba aqui lo poco que no ha, que nos dan, vamo ahi donde oficial mayor, nos da do bidones, traemos, para costarmos. Os casemos de dos forma, uste puerä . . . un muchacho puera raptar a la muchacha, entonces . . . la ceremonia, ya no se celebra tanto . . . y tu vas a casar asi, si na rapto, entonce preparan . . . mucho bebida para cuando vas a dar el dote . . . y no se y os van a companä a su hija. 15. Benga, 28 yrs., female; street vendor (inf. 18), interviewed in Malabo: Nosotra las mama bailabas ahi Llegamos a las cuatro de la tarde, la encontremos en la cama. Yo no podia levantado. Se marcharon todos en Gabon. Desde los cinco ano lleva en Espana. 16. Bubi, 59 yrs., female; market vendor (inf. 19), interviewed in Malabo: Nosotros pagamo luz y no hay luz, pago la contrubuciön e lo que yo pago, las casas de gobierno. Cada vez que llegamo, la casa esta estä cerao. Ahora no hay dinero, ^que se hace? Electricistas encima de los cables cortando aqui y media hora chispa que va, todo mundo saliendo coriendo de la caza, que se quema, cortan esto, 28

corten, meten esto y media hora tü vas y ... media luz que has pagao dinero y salen chispa jpop! jnino aqui a la calle.' 17. Bubi, 25 yrs., male; small farmer, interviewed in Rebola: Ello mimo tiene que construir una casa. El bubi no tiene un instrumento musical propia. Tenemos unos bailes que normalmente van con aplausos, a veces con tambores. El name, lo cortamos, le preparamos, la name no se pela, cuesta pa que se cueza. 18. Bubi, 43 yrs., female; domestic, interviewed in Malabo: Lo que se dedican a la gente, en Moka se didican de agricultor Cocorilos hay, en esa parte de aeropuerto hay un rio Si un padre quiere, su hi jo va en la escuela. 19. Combe, 28 yrs., male; secretary; interviewed in Malabo: Tambien se dedican de esto de redes, tramayos. Las miisicas suyas, lo que entre ellos se divierten en tiempos de fiestas, son parecidos como las musicas esas. Cacao hay poca, no tanto. 20. Bubi, 37 yrs., male; small farmer; interviewed in Baney: Hay que comer junto, bialando divirtiendo y bebidas y todo asi, tenemo fiestas aqui, pero no bubi, ^no? Habia muchah cosas, pero ahora todo ya se han gastao. Tienen fincas y lo llevan en su puebla . . . yuca, malanga, todo esta. Habia mucho blancos aqui, son la que tiene la mayoria fincah de aqui. Y las otra finca, la otra finca lo tienen lo mimoh duenos de las otras finca. 21. Annobon, 40 yrs., female; domestic, interviewed in Luba: Lo que hace que venimos aqui, para complar, petroleo, jabon Vas con los padres de la mujer. Tengo que esperä hasta que mi marido se opera. Ella fue en Annobon cuando tenia seis meses de embarazo.

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Chapter four:

General phonetic tendencies

4.1 Introduction It has already been noted that Guinean Spanish has not been creolized, but rather has maintained its integrity as a particular regional dialect of Spanish. At the same time, the characteristics of Guinean Spanish continue to differ from those of Peninsular varieties of Spanish, and it appears that the gap between the two groups of dialects is actually widening along certain parameters. In the area of phonetics and phonology, Guinean Spanish is characterized by an unmistakable dejo or accent which betrays the African origin of even the most educated Guinean speaker who has spent years in Spain or in constant contact with native Spanish speakers. Some auf the phonetic phenomena entail phonological consequences, and have important implications for Africanist theories on the evolution of Latin American Spanish. These phenomena will be treated separately in the following chapters. In the present chapter, the focus will be restricted to general phonetic characteristics of Guinean Spanish, particularly those features which most differ from Spanish dialects of other countries.

4.2 Vowels In general, Guinean Spanish employs the same vowels as all other dialects of Spanish: /a/, /e/, I'll, lol, lul. All phonemic oppositions among the vocalic phonemes are maintained, and the allophonic range is not substantially different from the prevailing Peninsular models. Nonetheless, despite the provisional retention of Peninsular oppositions, Guinean Spanish exhibits considerable articulatory instability of the Spanish vowels, which results in a constant fluctuation among various cardinal vowels and non-cardinal allophones, even in the repeated pronunciation of the same words. Despite careful scrutiny and repeated attempts at performing quantitative studies, it was not possible to discover any systematic variation in the vocalic instability. The instability is most probably yet another facet of the limited possibilities for active practice of Spanish that traditionally characterized Guinean society, and the virtual lack of a daily standard pronunciation which would have enabled the pronunciation of common forms to coalesce. As a result of the somewhat artificial nature of 30

Spanish language discourse among Guinean citizens up until the present, many Spanish words are recognized only in their written form, having been learned in school or through personal reading, and do not induce in the Guinean speakers who may be called upon to pronounce them occasionally, any specific acoustic image, thereby precluding the possibility of any self-correcting feedback. Apparently many Guineans have not formed extensive linguistic intuitions regarding the morphology and phonology of the Spanish language, since such intuitions would serve in many cases to counterbalance vocalic instability and contain the dispersion of variants within narrower boundaries. For example, no native speaker of Spanish from other areas would confuse castellano with castelleno, or valenciano with valencieno, since the suffix -ano ist one of the most common for indicating geographical origin, while -eno is extremely limited in contemporary Spanish. Similarly, perfectamente would never be pronounced perfectemente by a native Spanish speaker, since implicit knowledge of adverbial formation is part of the native competence of Spanish speakers. In Guinean Spanish, errors of vocalic dispersion, while not constituting the norm, are quite frequent, and are not associated with particular words or circumstances, but rather are freely scattered throughout spontaneous discourse. During the course of a conversation, it is not unusual for the same individual to pronounce the same word in several different fashions, generally without realizing it, and even the most highly educated Guinean speakers occasionally commit errors of vocalic precision. Verbal suffixes also suffer from vocalic instability, where subjunctive-indicative neutralization may be effected through partial or total failure to adequately differentiate the corresponding vowels in regular verbs. Since knowledge of the subjunctive forms part of the pedagogical program for Guinean speakers, the indicative-subjunctive distinction is never totally obliterated, although in practice considerable variation is evident. One hears subjunctive forms instead of indicative forms (entiende entienda, hable - habla), although in the case of irregular verbs, subjunctive forms never replace indicative forms; one never hears, for example, *Eldiga for El dice, etc. Tonic vowels are affected by articulatory instability to a certain degree, as indicated by the preceding examples, and unstressed vowels suffer an even higher proportion of articulatory misadjustments, particularly in the case of intertonic vowels, generally favoring an indeterminate centralized vowel such as [a] or [b]. This reduction is most frequent in the case of [— high] vowels, /e/, /a/ and /o/, but [+ high] vowels may also be affected by this partial neutralization in unstressed position. Even in the case of unstressed vowels, reduction and neutralization is not systematic, but rather is occasional and sporadic, defying description by means of any coherent quantitative model, and exhibiting a considerable idiolectal variation.

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4.2.1 Vowel Iii In other Spanish dialects, the phoneme /i/ scarcely exhibits allophonic variation, and Guinean Spanish is not exceptional in this regard. HI may exhibit an idiolectal variation in the point of articulation, and in general in Guinean Spanish the articulation of HI is slightly lower than in the majority of Peninsular dialects, but this articulation is not perceptibly altered by syllabic structure, between closed and open syllables.

4.2.2 Vowel lei Spanish phonetics frequently differentiates two allophones of lei, a more closed allophone occurring in open syllables, and a low variant occurring in closed syllables and in contact with [r]. In the Spanish of Malabo, lei manifests more variability in its articulation, and the correlation between articulation and syllabic structure is less exact. In general, lei in Guinean Spanish is somewhat lower than in Peninsular dialects, and is noticeably laxer in pronunciation. The acoustic effect is somewhat similar to Mexican and some Central American Spanish dialects, but with the significant difference that in Guinean Spanish lei does not have the same duration as in the former dialects 1 . In preconsonantal position, the articulation of Id is not noticeably affected by the specific consonant which follows, but rather exhibits the characteristic fluctuation in all cases.

4.2.3 Vowel /a/ In all Spanish dialects, /a/ exhibits the greatest overall phonological resistance. In the history of the Romance languages, /a/ has been the vowel least affected by profound modifications 2 , and universal phonological theories consider /a/ to occupy the strongest position on the phonological hierarchy 3 . In Spanish, /a/ exhibits a slight allophonic variation, generally consisting of some fronting before palatal consonants, and a slight raising in unstressed positions 4 . In the Spanish of Malabo, the articulation of /a/ is generally more anterior than in Peninsular Spanish dialects, at times even reaching the point of articulation of /ae/, but never implying phonological conflict with manifestations of lei. In

1 2 3 4

Matluck (1951, 1963). Menendez Pidal (1966: 67), Lipski (1974). Hooper (1976), Lipski (1974). Navarro Tomas (1971: par. 54-7), Monroy Casas (1980: 53-4, 94-6), Quilis (1981: chap. 6).

32

unstressed positions, /a/ shares with other non-high vowels a tendency to raise somewhat, without generally reaching the most central articulation [B].

4.2.4 Vowel lol In Spanish phonetics, /o/ generally exhibits less allophonic variation than Id, but the articulation of lol is affected by its position in open and closed syllables. In Malabo, the range of allophonic variation of lol is somewhat wider than in Peninsular dialects, with most manifestations being more open than corresponding cases in other Spanish dialects. In absolute final position, lol in Guinean spanish is shorter than in other dialects, but maintains the same point of articulation.

4.2.5 Vowel lul In Spanish phonetics, lul is the least variable of the vowels, and in Guinean Spanish lul is rarely affected by phonetic modifications. The only exceptions are cases of true vocalic substitutions motivated by non-phonetic considerations, of the type usted-osted which in all cases are infrequent and asystematic.

4.3 Diphthongs Guinean Spanish contains the same diphthongs as other dialects of Spanish, although greater articulatory instability is manifest. For example, the pronunciation of diphthongs as hiatus is not uncommon in Malabo, due perhaps to the slow rate of production which characterizes most Guinean Spanish speakers, and also to the nearly total lack of similar diphthongs in the native languages of Equatorial Guinea. Falling diphthongs are less stable than rising diphthongs, and a reduced to simple vowels with some regularity: leil becomes [e] (aceite [asetep and leul may become [u] (Europa [uropa]). Seldom heard in Malabo is the metathesis of ciudad to suidad, a common transformation in most other Spanish dialects, although in Guinean Spanish the combination [si] may palatalize slightly.

4.4 Semivowel lyl In Guinean Spanish, the semivowel/semiconsonante lyl is weakly articulated, practically without audible friction, lyl is subject to an occasional process of elision, sometimes passing through a non-syllabic stage [i], especially in contact with HI, as in silla [siia]/[sia]. In this respect, Guinean Spanish aligns itself with 33

many Central American and northern Mexican dialects5, although in Equatorial Guinea the articulation of /y/ is more variable. Practically unknown in Malabo is the reinforcement of palatal friction which may lead to the prepalatal variant [z] or an africate [j], but equally absent are cases of hypercorrection, pronouncing Maria as Mariya, which occurs frequently in Central America. All Guinean Spanish speakers are yeistas, since there exists no palatal lateral phoneme /λ/. It is worth noting that none of the native languages of Equatorial Guinea has a semiconsonantal /y/, although a few contain diphthongs with a glide element [i]; this may account for the extreme instability and weakness of /y/ in Guinean Spanish, as opposed to Peninsular and Latin American varieties.

4.5 Semivowel /w/ In Guinean Spanish, /w/ is weakly articulated, and hardly ever adds a velar increment, as in many other Spanish dialects: hueso [weso]. On the other hand, the combination /gu/, as in agua, rarely reduces to [w], but rather retains the occlusive pronunciation of Igl·, [agua]. The overall result is an allophonic rigidity not found in other Spanish dialects, where semivowels, semiconsonants and even full consonants are more permeable.

4.6 The consonants The Spanish of Malabo and in general of all of Equatorial Guinea maintains the same consonantal phonemes as other Spanish dialects, with the variable loss of the interdental fricative /Θ/, the palatal lateral /λ/ and the trill Irl. At the same time, significant differences separate the allophonic distribution of these phonemes in Guinean Spanish and in Peninsular and Latin American dialects.

4.6.1 Consonant /p/ Voiceless stops in Guinean Spanish scarcely differ from their counterparts in other dialetcs, although among the native languages of Equatorial Guinea there is considerable phonological variation. In Guinean Spanish, /p/ is always a voiceless labial stop, but in the few words in which /p/ appears in implosive position, Guinean Spanish does not reduce the articulation to a voiced fricative [β] or a velar fricative [γ], and elision of /p/ is equally rare in these cases: opcional [opsional], captar [kaptar]. This reduced allophonic variation may be due to the lack of voiced fricative articulations in Guinean Spanish, which

5

Canfield (1981: 15, 60-2). 34

precludes the conversion of voiceless stops to voiced fricatives in the cases where other Spanish dialects effect this change. At the same time, Guinean Spanish maintains the phonological distinctions between voiced and voiceless consonants, which in turn eliminates the possibility of realizing /p/ as voiced [b] under any circumstances. In the native languages of Equatorial Guinea, voiceless stops rarely if ever appear in implosive position, so the pronunciation of Spanish words with this configuration represents a phonotactic innovation for Guinean speakers.

4.6.2 Consonant It/ As in the case of /p/, /t/ in Guinean Spanish is rearely modified in implosive position: ritmo [ritmo]. The characteristic feature of /t/ in Malabo Spanish is its alveolar articulation for many speakers, a feature which has been described for Fang 6 , but which is also found in the Spanish of Bubi and playero speakers, although the dental articulation of /t/ may also occur.

4.6.3 Consonant IkJ In the native languages of Equatorial Guinea, /k/ has rather limited possibilities in comparison with Spanish phonetics, but when speaking Spanish, most Guinean speakers observe general Spanish phonotactic patterns with respect to /k/. In implosive position, /k/ is nearly categorically realized as [k], never becoming a voiced fricative for the reasons given above: acto [akto]. The only exception is the group /ks/, written x, which may be pronounced [s] in some words, such as exacto, following current Peninsular tendencies.

4.6.4 Voiced stops /b/, /d/, /g/ One of the most striking phonetic characteristics of Guinean Spanish is the uniformly occlusive articulation of /b/, /d/ and /g/ in all phonetic contexts. The acoustic effect is a staccato rhythm which stands out among all other Spanish dialects, although certain areas of Latin American Spanish in which active bilingualism with indigeneous languages still persists manifest similar tendencies7. In the case of Latin American Spanish dialects with heavy African influence, the creolized dialect of Palenque de San Basilio, Colombia retains the occlusive pronunciation, of /b/, /d/, /g/8 and similar tendencies have been 6 7 8

Gonzalez Echegaray (1959: 116). Alvar (1969, 1977: 41-50), Canfield (1981: 5 - 6 ) . Escalante (1954), Bickerton and Escalante (1970). 35

indicated for Papiamentu 9 and the congo dialect of Panama's Caribbean coast10. Interestingly enough, I have noted the same phonetic tendencies among Haitian immigrants in the Dominican Republic, all of which leads to the suspicion, impossible to verify at present, that a widespread early African influence may be responsible for the occlusive pronunciation of /b/, /d/ and /g/ in these dialects. The same pronunciation is found among native English-speaking Central Americans, descendents of Creole English speakers from Jamaica, Barbados and the Cayman Islands. Also worth noting is that few West African languages contain voiced fricatives, with the exception of /v/, and that within the Bantu group, especially the languages spoken in Equatorial Guinea, none presents the allophonic variation between voiced stop and voiced fricative in accordance with phonetic context. Even those Guineans who have lived for years in Spain retain this peculiar characteristics, which is one of the components of the unmistakable 'African' accent.

4.6.5 Consonant /b/ As has been seen, in Guinean Spanish /b/ is realized uniformly as stop [b] in all contexts. Curiously, Fang, Bubi and Annobonese creole contain a phoneme /v/ in opposition to /b/, and many Guinean speakers attempt to transfer this opposition to Spanish. Since in Spanish this distinction is now purely a matter of spelling, Guinean Spanish speakers attempt to correlate spelling and pronunciation of ν and b, resulting in frequent errors and inconsistencies, and the final result for many speakers is a more or less free variation between [b] and [v], although in preconsonantal position [b] is more common: hablar, problema, etc.

4.6.7 Consonant id! In addition to its uniformly occlusive articulation [d], /d/ in Guinean Spanish is frequently given an alveolar articulation, similar to /t/. Of more interest to comparative dialectology and phonological theory is the behavior of /d/ in intervocalic and word-final position, because in Guinean Spanish the variability of this phoneme does not follow the patterns of other Spanish dialects. In Peninsular Spanish, word-final /d/ is generally eliminated, although in many central regions a voiceless fricative [Θ] may be the final result. In Guinean Spanish, word-final /d/ varies between [d] and 0 , never passing through a 9 10

Van Wijk (1958). Drolet (1980), Joly (1981), Zärate (1962), Franceschi (1960), Lipski (a). Weimers (1973: 51-2) mentions the low frequency of occurrence of voiced fricatives among West African languages.

36

fricative stage [δ] or [θ]. This represents the conflict between received pronunciation, in which loss of word-final /d/ predominates, and orthographic and academic norms, in which the idealized presence of the word-final consonant results in the pronunciation of the only variant possible in the Guinean Spanish phonetics, namely [d]. In intervocalic position, Spanish /d/ is normally pronounced as a fricative, which never occurs in Guinean Spanish. Moreover, as is widely kown, in verbal participles ending in -ado, Spanish /d/ is frequently lost in many Peninsular and Latin American dialects, and in Peninsular Spanish this pronunciation has effectively become the norm for all but the most artificial styles. In Guinean Spanish, intervocalic /d/ in the suffix -ado is realized either as [d] or as 0 , but is never given the fricative pronunciation [δ]. Once again, this polymorphism is not the result of a natural process of lenition, such as characterized the development of the Romance languages, but rather of an incomplete perception of the true Spanish phonotactic patterns and the adaptation of these partially perceived patterns to the phonotactics of the substratum African languages of Equatorial Guinea. The Guinean speaker 'perceives' the fricative variant [δ] in Peninsular Spanish as a manifestation of /d/, and since Guinean Spanish permits only the occlusive pronunciation of this phoneme, the Guinean speaker in turn reinterprets [δ] as [d]. At the same time, there exists the at times only partial awareness of the loss of /d/ in the suffix -ado in Peninsular Spanish, as represented by the speech of the numerous Spanish nationals resident in or working in Malabo. The phonetic results in Guinean Spanish, which appear to represent in nearly random dispersion between the two variants [d] and 0 , may not be adequately characterized within universal phonology, since the direct change d —» 0 is not a 'natural' phonological change. The only justifiable motivation for this alternation in Guinean Spanish is the incomplete perception of the original process in the received standard, which has given rise to an artificial and non-phonetically motivated alternation in Guinean Spanish, whose representation by means of a regular phonological rule would be a distortion of linguistic reality.

4.6.8 Consonant /g/ In Guinean Spanish, this consonant scarcely differs from prevailing Peninsular patterns, except for the exclusively occlusive articulation. It has already been noted that in combination with semivocalic [u], [g] is not normally reduced to a semiconsonant [w], but rather retains its occlusive articulation. In implosive position, Ig/ is normally realized as [g]: magnetico [magnetiko]; virtually impossible is the elision of Ig/ or the pronunciation as a velar nasal [η].

37

4.6.9 Consonant /f/ This consonant, rare in Aannobon creole and in Bubi, occurs without noteworthy variation in Guinean Spanish. The bilabial articulation [φ] is rare, in contrast to many other Spanish-speaking areas, and confusion between Hi and /p/, such as occurs in the Philippines, is unknown in Equatorial Guinea.

4.6.10 Consonant/s/ This consonant is one of the protagonists in the Africanist theories of the evolution of Latin American Spanish, and will be treated in detail in Chapter 7. At the present time, the most general characteristics of /s/ in Guinean Spanish will be described, which in fact are scarecely distinguishable from Peninsular and Latin American varieties. Is/ in Malabo is an alveolar slit fricative, and the apical pronunciation found in many Peninsular dialects is not as commonly used in Equatorial Guinea. Since Guinean Spanish does not consistently retain an interdental frictive phoneme /Θ/, but rather exhibits considerable variation, instability and inconsistency at all levels, the sound [s] may represent the graphemes s, z, and c. Previewing the discussion in Chapter 7, it is noteworthy that in Guinean Spanish, /s/ is resistant in all phonetic contexts, in comparison with most Peninsular and Latin American dialects. It is occasionally lost, as will be seen, but unlike most other Spanish dialects, it rarely passes through a stage of aspiration. In implosive position before voiced consonants, /s/ is rarely pronounced [z] in Malabo: mismo [mismo].

4.6.11 Consonant/x/ Combe and Fang contain no voiceless velar fricative, and yet all Guinean speakers without exception pronounce this sound without difficulties in Spanish. Some earlier descriptions of Guinean Spanish11 indicated an excessively rough and velar pronunciation of /x/, but the materials collected for the present investigation reveal a velar fricative with only slight friction, hardly ever acquiring the heavy guttural friction of many central and northern Spanish dialects. On the contrary, /x/ in Guinean Spanish resembles the less fricative variants found in southern Spain, although rarely become reduced to a simple aspiration [h].

11

Castillo Barril (1969: 45-50). 38

4.6.12 Consonant /c/ Although this affricate consonant is all but nonexistent in the native languages of Equatorial Guinea, it appears without problem in Guinean Spanish. Deaffrication is almost nonexistent; on the contrary, the occlusive onset is normally prolongued beyond the duration which is normal in most other Spanish dialects.

4.6.13 Nasal consonants In the native languages of Equatorial Guinea, including Annobon Creole, nasal consonants are extremely prominent, not only in intervocalic and wordfinal positions, but also in word-initial contexts, where prenasalized rid-, mb- and ng- stand in sharp contrast with the phonetics of European languages. The native Spanish speaker, attempting to pronounce these sounds, usually adds a prothetic vowel, thus Nguema becomes Enguema and Mbini becomes Embini. Guinean speakers in turn do not hesitate in pronouncing Spanish nasal consonants, although the incorporation of prenasalized stops in true Spanish words is all but nonexistent.

4.6.14 Consonant /m/ In Malabo, the articulation of/m/ is nearly always in accordance with received Peninsular pronunciation, although the duration in word-initial position may be slightly increased in accordance with the existence of prenasalized stops in the native languages. In implosive position (himno), /ml is always pronounced as [m] and is never velarized.

4.6.15 Consonant In/ In word-final position, /n/ has figured prominently in some Africanist theories on the evolution of Latin American Spanish, and consequently Chapter 6 is dedicated to a detailed presentation of the behavior of /n/ in Guinean Spanish. In Malabo, /n/ behaves the same as in other Spanish dialects; that is, it is alveolar in word-initial and intervocalic positions, and assimilates in point of articulation to following consonants. This assimilation is not without exception in the case of word-final /n/, since the slow rhythm of Guinean Spanish may induce /n/ to retain its alveolar pronunciation before an initial labial or velar consonant of the following word, thereby reinforcing the general tendency of Guinean Spanish to phonetically distinguish individual word boundaries. In word-final prepausal or prevocalic position, /n/ in Guinean Spanish is uniformly 39

alveolar, unlike most southern Spanish and Caribbean dialects where wordfinal /n/ is velarized in these contexts. Elision of word-final /n/, another common process in southern Spain, the Canary Islands, Central America and the Caribbean is extremely rare in Guinean Spanish.

4.6.16 Consonant Inl None of the native Equatorial Guinean languages contains a palatal nasal phoneme, but all Guinean speakers pronounce this sound without difficulty in Spanish. Nonetheless, in Malabo Spanish /ή/ is frequently realized as a nasalized semivowel [y], which in turn is subject to the same weakening tendencies as oral /y/. The final result in many cases is a nasalized hiatus, as in the case of sefior [seor].

4.6.17 Liquid consonants The modification and reduction of liquid consonants is another important element in Africanist theories of Spanish dialectology, and therefore the following chapter will treat in detail the behavior of these consonants in Guinean Spanish. In the present chapter, only the most general details will be mentioned.

4.6.18 ΙτΙ and Irl In all of Equatorial Guinea, the opposition between tap Irl and trill Irl has been neutralized, with the tap [r] being the sole phonetic representation of the two phonemes. With the exception of this neutralization, the articulation of [r] in Guinean Spanish is scarcely different from other Spanish dialects, and in particular neutralization of /r/ and III is extremely rare in Malabo, as will be shown in the quanitative presentations of the following chapter.

4.6.19 Consonant III As has been indicated, Guinean Spanish contains no palatal lateral phoneme /λ/, although III exists for all Guinean speakers. The articulation of III in Guinean Spanish is the same as in most other Spanish dialects, although its point of articulation is somewhat posterior in comparison with Peninsular standards, without reaching the true posterior articulation found in many Catalan speakers. Even before front vowels /e/ and HI, l\l in Guinean Spanish maintains its slightly posterior articulation, which may in fact reflect the presence of numer40

ous Catalan speakers in Equatorial Guinea during the formative colonial period. Significantly, in the indigeneous languages of Equatorial Guinea, the /l/ does not receive a posterior pronunciation, but rather is similar to /l/ in other Peninsular and Latin American dialects of Spanish. In Guinean Spanish, the assimilation of point of articulation to following consonants is only partial, since /t/ and /d/ are normally alveolar in this dialect, and also because the suprasegmental tendencies favoring retention of phonetic word boundaries act to impede such assimilation across word boundaries.

4.7 Consonant groups Guinean Spanish contains the same consonant groups as other Spanish dialects, although more exotic words of non-Spanish origin are comparatively rare in everyday Guinean Spanish. Since when speaking Spanish most Guineans pay close attention to pronunciation, the widespread reduction of consonantal groups found in popular Spanish of other countries is relatively rare. The groups /mb/, /nd/ and /ng/ may reduce to the respective nasal consonants, although the rate of reduction is considerably less than, for example, in many Andalusian dialects12. On the other hand, non-dissolvable consonant groups (consisting of a non-word-final consonant plus a possible word-initial group) are not normally reduced in Guinean Spanish: /kt/ doctor, /pt/ septiembre, /mn/ gimnasio, /bs/ absoluto, etc. are all pronounced as biconsonantal groups. This stems from the extraordinary resistance of implosive consonants, which do not normally become fricatives or disappear in Guinean Spanish. Additionally, for many more recondite forms, Guineans recognize such words only through reading, and when called upon to pronounce uncommon items invariably give an unmistakable spelling pronunciation, which is reinforced by Guinean school teachers and radio announcers.

4.8 Suprasegmental characteristics In comparison with segmental phonolgy, theoretical studies of suprasegmentals such as rhythm and intonation are still rudimentary13. Although there is a great abundance of individual descriptions and comments, there is still no widely accepted theoretical framework which permits adequate cross-comparison, and even less the evaluation of possible substratum influences. In the case of Guinean Spanish, all researchers who have studied this dialect have remarked on the unusual intonational patterns, and some have even attempted to distinguish among the patterns resulting from influence of the various native 12 13

Moya Corral (1979: 8 8 - 9 3 ) . For example, Kvavik (1976, 1978), Kvavik and Olson (1974).

41

languages. It is clear that Guinean Spanish is characterized by truly unique intonational curves, and those investigators familiar with Latin American Spanish subdialects which contain heavy African influence (coastal Colombia, black rural population of Cuba and the Dominican Republic, the Costa Arriba of Panama) will immediately note the striking similarities, which are most likely not due to mere coincidence. Moreover, in the case of Haitian speakers of Spanish, the African influence seems to have percolated through other European bases, the same as in Central American native-English-speaking residents, and bilingual Guyana citizens who live near the Venezuelan border, and even of Papiamentu speakers who also speak Spanish. All these individuals pronounce Spanish with particular intonational patterns which are surprisingly homogeneous despite the wide differences in geographical and historical circumstances, and share striking similarities with the Spanish of Equatorial Guinea.

4.8.1 R h y t h m The most noteworthy suprasegmental characteristic of Guinean Spanish is the staccato rhythm which separates each word in the spoken chain and which impedes the normal phonetic linking of consonants and vowel fusion which occurs in other Spanish dialects. In some cases, there is even a glottal stop between words, and in the remaining cases the speech rhythm of Guinean Spanish is extraordinarily slow, even among very fluent speakers, and wordfinal consonants are clearly articulated before passing on to the following words. This may be due to the fact that the typical Guinean speaker "piensa traduciendo, piensa en su lengua materna y la traduce al castellano . . . por ello habla el espanol de una manera distinta de la castiza, con un acento especifico" 14 . Nonetheless, it is difficult to maintain this assertion in the case of Guineans who have lived extensively in Spain and who obviously think in Spanish, while at the same time retaining the unique phonetic rhythm of Guinean Spanish. It is necessary to search deeper, in the phonotactic structures of the native Guinean languages, each of which contains a suprasegmental system considerably different from that of most Spanish dialects. For example, many West African languages utilize phonemic tones to signal morphological and semantic differences. Moreover, Fang, Bubi and the playero languages contain an extremely complex morphological structure based on prefixation to arrive at multiple semantic nuclei contained within the confines of a single phonetic 'word', which is in reality a series of morphological entities represented in a single suprasegmental manifestation. As for the rhythm of separating individual words, similar tendencies may be observed in many parts

14

Castillo Barril (1969: 57).

42

of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Colombia, the Andean countries and Paraguay, resulting from the influence of the respective native languages still actively spoken in these regions. In the native languages of Equatorial Guinea, phonetic linking across word boundaries is rare, which undoubtedly influences the Spanish spoken by bilingual Guineans.

4.9 Summary With respect to the principal phonetic characteristics of Equatorial Guinean Spanish, a double aspect may be discerned. The first stems from the phonetic influences of the indigenous languages, and results in the neutralization of some phonological oppositions, the alveolarization of It/ and Id/, and the phonetic rhythm. The other factor is the incomplete perception of phonological processes found in Peninsular Spanish, which results in phonetic alternations in Guinean Spanish which may not be adequately characterized by normal variational models, and which necessitate a more detailed psycholinguistic profile in order to be appropriately included in models of Equatorial Guinean phonology.

43

Chapter five:

Behavior of liquid consonants

5.1 Importance of liquid consonants for Africanist theories The behavior of the liquids, IV, /r/ and Irl is one of the main criteria in the dialectal differentiation of the Spanish language, exhibiting a wide sociolinguistic and regional variation. In addition to providing distinctive characteristics of several Spanish dialects, the behavior of the liquid consonants plays a crucial role in theories on the evolution and differentiation of Latin American Spanish. In view of the importance of these consonants for Spanish dialectology in general, and for Africanist theories of Latin American Spanish in particular, the present chapter will present detailed information on the behavior of the liquid consonants in the Spanish of Equatorial Guinea. In the previous chapter it was seen that in general, the liquid consonants are not significantly modified in Malabo, with the exception of the neutralization of the opposition /r/, - Irl in favor of [r|. This minimal allophonic variation in itself is a key factor in the description of Guinean Spanish, for it permits quantitative comparisons with other well known dialects. Before entering into the details of liquid consonant behavior in Equatorial Guinean Spanish, it is useful to briefly review the most pertinent patterns of evolution of these same consonants in other Spanish dialects, and the implications for theoretical Hispanic dialectology. The liquids /l/, IT/ and Irl are directly descended from Vulgar Latin, and suffered few modifications in the formative period of Spanish, although in other Romance languages III and If/ underwent more far-reaching changes. Many Peninsular and Latin American dialects of Spanish still maintain the palatal lateral phoneme fkl, derived from various Vulgar Latin combinations, but as has already been noted, Equatorial Guinean Spanish has merged all etymological representations of this phoneme with manifestations of lyl. The remaining liquid consonants of Spanish have a more or less direct correspondence with the Malabo dialect although some quantitative differences separate the Guinean dialects from Spanish dialects of other areas.

5.2 Behavior of Irl In Equatorial Guinean Spanish, the opposition between Irl and Irl is uniformly neutralized in favor of the tap [r], whereas in other Spanish dialects this

44

distinction is still fundamental in separating minimal pairs, such as pero-perro, cero-cerro, etc., with only the intervocalic position permitting phonemic contrast. In the remaining positions, the hierarchy of phonological strength 1 assigns the strong variant [f] to the strongest positions, absolute initial and syllable-initial after consonant: rojo, honradez, alrededor. In the remaining positions, only [r] occurs, although in syllable-final position and especially in phrase-final position, the trill [f] may occur as an emphatic or regional variant. At the idiolectal level, the trilled Irl may degenerate to a simple alveolar or prepalatal fricative, particularly in rapid unguarded speech, but in no case outside of Equatorial Guinea is the opposition between the two phonemes Μ and Irl systematically eliminated. In some Latin American dialects, such as Guatemala, Costa Rica, Paraguay, and parts of the Andean region, Irl is often realized as a groove fricative [z], the same sound as is assigned to manifestations of lyl in the Rio de la Plata region. In the border region between Argentina and Paraguay, cases of phonemic confusion may occur crossdialectally, since the sound [z] normally represents Irl in Paraguay and lyl in Argentine dialects further south, but in all Spanish dialects the opposition between the vibrant phonemes is maintained in some fashion. Peninsular dialects offer few cases of fricative pronunciation of HI, which may be one of the few truly exclusive Latin American consonantal phenomena 2 . Another variant of HI confined to Latin American Spanish is the velar or uvular fricative [x] or [R] occurring principally among lower-class speakers in Puerto Rico and parts of the Dominican Republic, although it may occasionally occur in the lowest social strata of Venezuela and Panama, and occurs sporadically in Cuba and in the Atlantic coast of Colombia 3 . The acoustic basis for such a transmutation appears beyond question, since few perceptual differences separate a true uvular trill from its alveolar counterpart, and the same phenomenon has occurred in French, and many German and Portuguese dialects. In Brazilian Portuguese, velarization of /r/ also occurs in syllable-final position, but in Caribbean Spanish dialects only intervocalic or word-initial III is affected. While the acoustic motivation is not problematic, the geographical distribution remains mysterious, and various theories have attempted to explain the unusual geographical and ethnic distribution of the posterior variants of HI. Most theories have in some fashion or another invoked the presence, in the respective Caribbean nations, of large African populations 4 . Direct French influence on Caribbean Spanish is rather easily discounted 5 , since velarization of HI occurs in Spanish-speaking areas where no demonstrable French influence ever existed. Moreover, it remains to be proved that at the time of the Haitian

1 2 3 4 5

Lipski (1983b), Hooper (1976: chap. 10), Granda (1966a), Malmberg (1949). Canfield (1981: 7). Canfield (1981: 16). Granda (1978: 11-60, 1966b), Megenney (1978). Zlotchew (1974), Beardsley (1975).

45

uprising, French /r/ was uniformly uvular throughout the colonial empire, particularly among black subjects in the Caribbean; contemporary Haitian creole does not contain a uvular Iff. Another possibility which has occasionally been mentioned is the direct influence of African languages spoken by bozales (slaves born in Africa who spoke European languages only imperfectly). It is noteworthy that the backing of Irl has occurred precisely in Spanish-speaking areas which contained the highest proportions of African slaves during the colonial period, and whose economies depended on sugarcane plantation agriculture, a system which facilitated the linguistic fragmentation of slave populations through separation and margination of the slaves and the formation of creolized subdialects and pidgins6. At the same time, it must be kept in mind that other Spanish-speaking areas where the African population was equally significant give scant evidence of the velarization of /r/: Cuba, most of the Dominican Republic, the north coast of Ecuador, almost all of coastal Colombia, the Caribbean coast of Mexico, etc. Moreover, among the African languages known to have been used among the major slave populations none contains a velar or uvular /?/ and few have posterior fricatives of any kind. Additionally, recent studies have shown that the velarization of /r/ in Puerto Rico may be a 20th-century phenomenon, thus casting further doubt on theories of long-lasting African influence. The most probable explanation is that the velarization of III in different Latin American areas results from more or less spontaneous generation motivated by the acoustical similarity between alveolar and posterior trills and the lack of a well established educated linguistic standard in many parts of Latin America.

5.3 Neutralization of It/ and /?/ The neutralization of these two phonemes is a unique phenomenon among Spanish dialects, because except for idiolectal variation, such a neutralization has not occurred in any other major Spanish dialect. In Guinean Spanish, earlier studies have commented on this neutralization7, attributing it to the imperfect learning of the colonial language. Currently, however, even the most educated Guineans do not maintain this distinction, and in those cases where a trill [r] appears, it is not completely in accordance with etymological norms. The neutralization of Irl and /r/ in Guinean Spanish is not simply the result of

6

7

Granda (1978: 11-79), Alvarez Nazario (1974). Granda gives evidence that the posteriorization of HI is a phenomenon that occurred within the past century, and is not limited to areas of significant African presence. In fact, in the area of greatest African presence in Puerto Rico, Loiza Aldea, Irl is not velarized, as indicated by Mauleon Benitez (1973) and verified by the present writer in field work done in that region. Castillo Barril (1969), Gonzalez Echegaray (1959).

46

imperfect learning of Peninsular Spanish, but stems from the native Equatorial Guinean languages, none of which contains a similar trill nor a distinction between tap and trill. Under conditions of diglossia, the most difficult stage is the acquisition of new phonological distinctions, as is shown by the case of Irl and /r/ in Guinean Spanish8. Few West African languages contain alveolar trills and hardly any maintain a distinction between trill and tap, that is, of quantity of vibrations. As a result, African slave populations drawn from various linguistic regions of Africa would have, in the common linguistic intersection, a single phonetic realization, generally a non-trill for the trills found in the European colonial languages of the New World. It is not necessary, as some have supposed, to postulate the influence of a specific African language in order to account for the neutralization of /r/ and /?/ in bozal Spanish of the colonial period, merely the common intersection of the Sudanese and Bantu languages known to have crossed the Atlantic. If Latin American Spanish dialects in general have managed to maintain this opposition, this is due to the counterbalancing force of Spanish and other European immigration, the effects of massive public education, and in some cases the existence of indigeneous groups whose languages contained a trill phoneme. In Spanish-speaking Latin America, neutralization of these phonemes has frequently been attested in subdialects with strong African influence, the most common being the palenquero dialect of Palenque de San Basilio, Colombia 9 . This dialect is one of the last vestiges of earlier bozal language, and has merged Irl and /d/, and partially eliminated the phonemic contrast with /f/ 10 : Toos los anos hace pari un monä. Ε que y ata güeno - vac'atä güeno - no pierdo tiemp. (Todos los anos doy a luz a un hijo. Es que estoy buena, la vaca estä buena, no pierdo tiempo) No - mailo mi quele nu. El no me quele mi asina. Güeno que y pari una monä to los a . . . anda panda gaina, que ta cume to alo. (No, mi marido no lo quiere. No me querria asi. Estä bien que doy a luz a un hijo todos los a . . . anda, espanta esa gallina, que estä comiendo todo el arroz.)

Another less well known 'Palenquero' dialect is the Congo speech spoken by Afro-Panamanians of the Atlantic coast, from Portobelo to Santa Isabel, and on the Costa Abajo to Chagres11. Unlike the Colombian case, this creolized Panamanian dialect is not used on a daily basis but is a special language used only at Carnaval time, among a reduced segment of the population, and has 8 9 10 11

Whitney (1891). Bickerton and Escalante (1970), Escalante (1954), Granda (1978: 43). Bickerton and Escalante (1970). Zärate (1962), Drolet (1980), Joly (1981), Franceschi (1960), Granda (1978: 213), and Lipski (b). Despite Granda's suggestion, the local Spanish dialect of this region is not a creole, but simply a variant of rural Panamanian Spanish The Congo dialect is a special language used only in Carnaval season, together with an elaborate series of ritual dances and activities.

47

suffered a large number of deformations and deliberate exaggerations, with the purpose of making fun of Spanish colonists and bozales of earlier periods. At the same time, it is possible to note the original base of partially creolized Spanish, including total elimination of the opposition of Irl and /r/, realized as [d] in the Costa Arriba and as [r] in the Costa Abajo. In the former region, the neutralization has been extended to Id/ and /l/, with the result that all four phonemes are pronounced as [d] in intervocalic positions, as indicated in the following fragment which comes from a series of recordings I made in Nombre de Dios: dice aqui te enviadon un hombre que viene de Estados Unido, de doh Ehtado Junto, digo de Ehtado Junto, a Marandiö, bruhcando, bruhcando a Tigrilla, yo miedda, e deci mucho ehtido, yo sacr6 mi pedioco, que yo do tengo dedao fueda de mi frundillo, yo saque e pediodico, yo mide, cada prägina y prägina, y e codigo administratrivo . . . do midado, que sedä un bruncusita, un pringameno, un codonense, un merandiosense, yo dije, pocque e cödigo adminitrativo de doh Ehtado Juntro, ad Africa, eh una detra, ^no? y de Africa a Pringamä e otra detra, y de pringamä a Bringön, hay otra detra, y de bringon a Marandio . . . hay otra detra . . . y s''tu no te driera pueto brigo, ahoda, ahoda mima, en ehte tedeno ahoba mima yo no tuvieda . . . tomando jotando cufrie . . . (dice aqui que te enviaron un hombre de los Estados Unidos, a Nombre de Dios, buscando a Tigrillo . . . yo me dije, mierda, eso si tiene mucho estilo, saque mi periodico, que tenian en el fundillo, la mire, pägina tras pägina, y vi el cödigo administrativo, mira, dice hay un bianco, un panamefto, un colonense, un nombredediosense, porque el codigo administrativo de los Estados Unidos y Africa, es una cosa, £no? y de Africa a Panama es otra cosa, y de Panama a Colön otra cosa y de Colon a Nombre de Dios, hay otra cosa . . . y si tu te hubieras puesto el abrigo antes, ahora yo estarfa tomando cafe contigo.)

Papiamentu, spoken in the Netherlands Antilles, has also eliminated the opposition between /r/ and HI, reflecting its status as a creolized language based on Spanish and Portuguese12: Dia cu Dios a pone e promer hendenan riba mundu, ya Paraiso Terenal täbata habitä pa tur clase di otro sernan bibiente. Fo'i mainta bon temprän yo päranan täbata anunciä cu nun can tu celestial habrimentu di un dia nobo. Tur animal täbata goza di un cuido celestial i fo'i mainta te anochi aroma di flornan mas exquisito täbata perfumä e ambiente den cua Dios Su mannan a trece riba mundu e promer sernan humano. (Cuando Dios hizo los primeros hombres, ya el Paraiso Terrestre estaba habitado por toda clase de otros seres vivientes. Habia sido anunciado en una canciön celestial que habria un dia nuevo. Todos los animales gozaban de un cuidado celestial, y el ambiente estaba perfumado por el aroma de las flores, cuando Dios trajo al mundo los primeros seres humanos.

In earlier periods of Spanish literature, the speech of bozales figures prominently, particularly in Spanish Golden Age literature, but also in colonial fragments. A key feature of such literary representations was the partial or

12

Goilo (1953: 2).

48

total elimination of the distinction between Irl and Irl as seen in the following examples: - jFlasico, atesio! - iQue lisi, Manue? - Fiesa li San Perro este noche es. - Ya yo lo sab6. - Cantal lo Mastine mus toca tambe. - ^Pus qui ha le hace? - Preveni tambö, sonä cacambe, tucä la pitilla, y con mucho fe a la Santo Papa besallo la pe - !He, he, he, he, he paleseme be! (Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz13) El hocico de vosa merse, i,he, he, he! me tiene periro, de amore venciro, jay, ay, he; ay, he! jque me morire, que me morire! El hocico neglo, y lo diente dentro jay, ay, he! bianco sobre prieto; jhe, he, he! neglo tiene muerto, jay, ay, he! Si non dan remedio, triste yo, ^qu6 har6? El hocico de vosa merse,

De culebra que pensamo morde a Maria 1 ope turo riamo, turo riamo, jhe, he, he! Y a bailar venimo de Tumbuctii y Santo Tome . . . (Lope de Vega14)

13 14

Mansour (1973: 70-1). Becco (1976: 27).

49

Vamo a la sagraria, prima veremo la procesinoa, que aunque negra sa presona que la perrera me estima a esse märmolo te arrima

Mäs tinta sudamo, Juana que dos pruma de crivana. ^Quien sa aquel? (Göngora15)

These examples, which demonstrate the instability and partial neutralization of the vibrant phonemes and sometimes of all liquid consonants, point clearly to the African origin of this consonantal reduction, but it must be repeated that this influence comes not from a single language or language familiy but rather from the common intersection of many West African languages and/or European Creoles which some of the slaves may already have spoken, none of which contained a distinctive trill phoneme. Guinean Spanish, whose substratum languages come from the Bantu family well represented among Latin American populations, indicates the same process of neutralization, which has persisted despite comprehensive and effective public education campaigns, and which continues to be one of the characteristics of the 'African' accent of Guinean Spanish.

5.4 P h o n e m e /l/ In Hispanic dialectology, /I/ is one of the less variable elements, except in syllable-final position. Although the point of articulation may very slightly in other positions, being more fronted in some South American dialects and distinctly posterior among Catalan speakers, phonological oppositions with other consonants are never affected. In implosive position, /I/ and Irl are affected by processes of neutralization in many dialects. Despite frequent anecdotal commentaries regarding total loss of this opposition, in no dialect has the opposition between l\l and Irl in syllable-final position been totally effaced, but is always a variable process with sociolinguistic implications and certain lexical and grammatical restrictions which vary widely according to the dialect in question. Moreover, there is wide variation on the phonetic manifestations of syllable-final /l/, which include at least the following possibilities: a lateral [1], a simple tap [r], an indeterminate liquid [1], a semivowel [i], an aspiration [h] and elision 0 . Moreover, in cases of hypercorrection, the incorrect restoration of an elided III may result in [s], [d], [n] as well as the above-mentioned variants.

15

Gongora (1980: 154-5).

50

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In preconsonantal contexts, neutralization generally results in a concrete manifestation, while in phrase-final position elision on /l/ is more frequent. Geographic factors also must be considered; for example, [r] is the preferred result of neutralization on many parts of Andalusia, Extremadura, Murcia, Canary Islands, Chile and parts of Venezuela. 16 [1] predominates in the Caribbean whereas the semivowel is typical only of the Cibao region of the Dominican Republic, and occasionally in the Caribbean coast of Panama 17 . Gemination of the following consonant, after elision of syllable-final /l/ is common in Cuba and to a lesser extent in other Caribbean dialects18, whereas the intermediate variants may occur occasionally in any dialect where the opposition IV - Irl is weakened in implosive positions. In phrase-final position, total elision of /l/ is frequent in Andalusia, in many areas of the Canary Islands, and sporadically in the Caribbean, although rarely reaching the deletion rates which characterize phrase-final /I/. Table 1 presents some quantitative data, which indicate the variable character of l\l in many Spanish dialects. It must be added that in any given region, a considerable sociolinguistic variation is usually present, with neutralization and deletion of l\l and Irl being more common among lower socioeconomic groups19: In intervocalic positions, III is rarely modified, although occasional cases of deletion do occur at the idiolectal level. Neutralization of intervocalic III and Irl is extremely rare, except in cases of metathesis (mulciegaro for murciilago). The third position on the hierarchy of positional strength, syllable-interior postconsonantal, is quite resistent in the case of III, although in Andalusia cases of interchange of l\J and Irl are not uncommon in popular speech20. According to historical documents and current evidence from border dialects between Spain and Portugal, this partial neutralization was more frequent in the past, before the standardizing effects of mass media, improved communication and public education. In literary and anecdotal 'black talk', neutralization of III and Irl is a prominent element, not only in syllable-final position but also in intervocalic and postconsonantal cases, as seen in the following examples: Hacemi favol, no Pancho de aplical mi tu papeli polque yo soy bosalona y no lo puedo entendeli.

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20

Canfield (1981), Alonso (1953). Rojas (1982). Canfield (1981: 4 2 - 3 ) , Guitart (1976). The Latin American data are reported in Lipski (1984 b). The Peninsular and Canary Island data were collelcted as part of a Fulbright Fellowship in 1983. In each region, 10 middle-class informants were interviewed, for an average of 30 minutes each, to form the basis for the quantitatives studies. Salvador (1978).

52

Y o quisiela ute me diga lo que ti queli deci porque tio Juan, mi malido, quieli tambien esclibi. El es neglo bosalona pelo neglo fedelä y agladecido a la Patlia que le diö la libeltä. (Argentina, 1839 21 ) Etando sacando agua un animä me pico, jque susto que me he pegao! jque susto me dao a yo! Ve como saca la lengua. jhuy, que miedo que me da! ;ay, si ha sido una culebra! IDejamela a mi matä!

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