Language Contact and the Making of an Afro-Hispanic Vernacular: Variation and Change in the Colombian Choco

Exploring creole studies from a linguistic, historical, and socio-cultural perspective, this study advances our knowledge of the subject by using a cohesive approach to provide new theoretical insights into language shift, language acquisition and language change. It compares the legal system regulating black slavery in Choco, Colombia with the systems implemented by other European colonial powers in the Americas, to address questions such as what do Choco Spanish linguistic features say about the nature of Afro-Hispanic vernaculars? What were the sociohistorical conditions in which Choco Spanish formed? Was slavery in Choco much different from slavery in other European colonies? Whilst primarily focused on Afro-Hispanic language varieties, Sessarego’s findings and methodology can be easily applied and tested to other contact languages and settings, and used to address current debates on the origin of other black communities in the Americas and the languages they speak.