Spanish Creole
A number of Creole languages are based on the Spanish language.
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2 Spanish-influenced indigenous languages 3 See also 4 External link |
Spanish Creole languages
List of Spanish-based Creole languages:
Chavacano
Chavacano (also Chabacano, meaning "vulgar" in standard Spanish) is a Spanish-based Creole spoken in the Philippines.
According to a 1990 census, there are 292,630 speakers. It is the major language of Zamboanga City. Chavacano is also spoken in parts of Sabah, Malaysia nearest to the Philippines.
The vocabulary comes from the Spanish language, while the grammar is mostly based on indigenous structures. It is used in primary education, television and radio.
For more information see Chavacano: Ethnologue report on Chavacano.
Palenquero
Palenquero (also Palenque) is a Spanish-based Creole spoken in Colombia.
The ethnic group which speaks this Creole consists only of 2,500 people, as of 1989.
It is spoken in Colombia, in the village of San Basilio de Palenque which is south and east of Cartagena, and in some neighborhoods of Barranquilla.
The village was formed by escaped slaves (Maroons) and sometimes Native Americans. Since many slaves had not been subjected to a lot of contact with white people, the palenqueros spoke Creole languages from Spanish language and their African ones.
Spanish speakers are unable to understand Palenquero. There are some influences from Kongo in Democratic Republic of Congo. A 10% of the population of age under 25 years speaks Palenquero, as of 1998. Most common to the eldery.
For more information see Palenquero: Ethnologue report on Palenquero.
Papiamento
Papiamento or Papiamentu is a Creole language spoken by 329,000 people.
Primarily spoken in Netherlands Antilles by 179,000 people (as of 1998) and Aruba by 70,000 people (as of 1999).
This Creole is reportedly becoming more similar to Spanish language as the time passes, but it is originally a Portuguese Creole. Because of the similarities of both Iberian languages, it is difficult to ascertain where a certain feature came from, after the adaptation to Papiamento rules.
For more information see Papiamentu: Ethnologue report on Papiamentu.
For a discussion about the origins of this language see [1].
The Creole of the island of Ano Bom (Equatorial Guinea) acknowledged as Falar de Ano Bom (Fá d’ambô or even Fla d’Ambu) is analogous to the Portuguese Creole Forro, spoken by 9,000 people in Ano Bom and Fernando Póo Islands. In fact, Fá d'Ambô is derived from Forro as it shares the same structure (82% of lexicon). In the 15th century, the island was uninhabited and discovered by Portugal but, by the 18th century, Portugal exchanged it and some other territories in Africa for Uruguay with Spain. Spain wanted to get territory in Africa, and Portugal wanted to enlarge even more the territory that they saw as the “New Portugal” (Brazil). Nevertheless, the populace of Ano Bom was against the shift and was hostile towards Spaniards. This with the isolation towards mainland Equatorial Guinea and São Tomé and Príncipe is just 400 km from the island as assured the maintenance of its identity.
Fá d’ambô has gained some words of Spanish origin (10% of lexicon), but some words are dubious in origin because Spanish and Portuguese are also based on the same language (Spoken Latin or Vulgar Latin).
see also: History of Equatorial Guinea
Linguistically it belongs to the Austronesian family, Western Malayo-Polynesian.
Taught at the University of Guam. Some Bible portions are translated in Chamorro.
For more information see Chamorro: Ethnologue report on Chamorro.
Tagalog, the most widely spoken indigenous language in the Philippines has adopted into its vocabulary a large number of words from Spanish. Other indigenous languages in the Philippines, such as Cebuano, have also adopted Spanish words, but to a lesser degree. Tagalog was the most-influenced language because the center of the Spanish colonial government was in Manila, in the heart of the Tagalog-speaking region.
The adoption of Spanish words into Tagalog was so prevalent that many Filipinos do not even realize that they can vaguely understand rudimentary Spanish. Most often the words adopted referred to foreign concepts such as the names of the days of the week and months, such as Huwebes and Mayo, which came from the Spanish Jueves (Thursday) and Mayo (May). The counting system frequently uses the Spanish numerals in counting currency, revealing one's age or telling time.
This adoption also gave rise to the curious phenomenon of two or more words referring to the same concept. For example, the Tagalog word for chair is either the native upuan or the Spanish-based silya (from silla). Another example is the Tagalog words for city: lungsod and syudad (from the Spanish ciudad).
Tagalog became the basis of the Philippine's national language, Filipino.Fá d'Ambô
Spanish-influenced indigenous languages
Some indigenous languages are deeply influenced by the Spanish language, but seems to be classified as different than Creole by linguistic writers.Chamorro
Chamorro (or Tjamoro) is a Spanish-influenced language spoken by about 78,000 people in Guam and Northern Mariana Islands. According to a 1991 publication, 62,500 of the speakers live in Guam, which is roughly the half population. Based on a 1990 research, the speakers in Northern Mariana islands are 14,205.Tagalog