Chapter · Colombia · Language
Spanish words, Bantu grammar
The only Spanish creole on the continent, born behind a stockade
An hour's drive from Cartagena, people speak a language Spanish speakers cannot follow, although its vocabulary is almost entirely Spanish. This path explains how that happens, reading a linguistic description and Unesco's file on the village where it is spoken.
Context first
A lesson to read before the others, to set the scene.
- The place
- The era
- The people
The lessons in this chapter
- 1The only Spanish creole on the continentSeventy African languages at Cartagena, a village founded between 1650 and 1700 by runaways whose core spoke Kikongo, and one missing trait that proves it: Palenquero has no serial verbs.10 min
- 2Where the negation goesFour rules are enough to make Spanish unrecognisable: the negation at the end, the plural as a particle before the noun, the possessive behind it, and a verb that never conjugates.11 min
- 3What nearly disappearedBetween 1970 and 2000 the young of Palenque stopped speaking their language, with no law forbidding it. Since 2000 they have been learning it again, and nobody now dares call it doomed.10 min
How these lessons are written
Each lesson starts from first-hand sources: Wikisource, Gallica, Persée, archives, museums and institutes. A fact without a source does not get written, and every lesson lists its own as direct links.
The rhythm
A lesson is five minutes of cards and four questions. Those questions then come back the next day, then at 3, 7, 21 and 60 days, and that return is what makes it stick. One a day is enough, and you can do several in a row.