Isleño Spanish

Isleño Spanish (Spanish: español isleño) is a dialect of the Spanish language spoken by the descendants of Canary Islanders who settled in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, in the late 18th century.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} The dialect was greatly influenced by adjacent language communities as well as immigration from peninsular Spain and other Spanish-speaking countries.^[2][3][4] The dialect spoken by the Isleños who settled along Bayou Lafourche is differentiated as Brule Spanish.^[7][8]

In the present day, Isleño Spanish is approaching complete extinction.^[1][9][10] Throughout the 20th century, modernization and urbanization came to disrupt greatly the transmission of Spanish, coupled with the hardships of natural disasters.^[2][10][11] The remaining Spanish speakers of the community tend to be elderly individuals from fishing communities of eastern St. Bernard Parish.^[2][1]

History[]

The Isleños are descendants of colonists from the Canary Islands who arrived in Spanish Louisiana between 1778 and 1783.^[10][11] It estimated that about 2,000 Canary Islanders were settled into a series of communities, one of those coming to be known as San Bernardo (Saint Bernard).^[2][11]

Early in the establishment of this community, a minority of Acadians were present along with Filipinos from the nearby community of Saint Malo which intermarried with the Canary Islanders.^[12] In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the community was reinforced by immigration from rural, peninsular Spanish regions such as Andalusia, Santander, Galicia, and Catalonia.^[3] A survey conducted in 1850 found at least 63 natives of Spain, 7 Canary Islanders, 7 Cubans, and 7 Mexicans in the community.^[2]

Decline[]

The 1915 New Orleans hurricane destroyed much of the Isleño fishing communities situated in eastern St. Bernard Parish.^[13] Only a couple years later, the Spanish flu pandemic left over one thousand people dead in St. Bernard Parish.^[14] With the adoption of the Louisiana Constitution of 1921, public schooling was conducted in English.^[15]

After World War II, urbanization and modernization played a greater effect on the community and the retention of Spanish.^{[2][11][10][16]} This was compounded by Hurricane Betsy in 1965 which severely damaged much of Isleño community and presence in St. Bernard Parish.^[17] In 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated the community and only a fraction of Isleño families have returned to their original communities.^[1][18]

Currently, the transmission of Spanish has halted completely along with the preservation of many traditions.^[2][1][11] Those who know Isleño Spanish or speak the dialect as a first language are often elderly community members.^[2][1][16]

Phonology[]

In many respects, Isleño Spanish shares an array of similarities with other Spanish dialects, generally of the Caribbean, the Canary Islands, and rural Spain.^[2][3][5]

Like in much of Latin America, the Canary Islands, and southern Spain, Isleño Spanish merges the phonemes /θ/ and /s/ into the single phoneme /s/, a phenomenon known as seseo.^[2][5] Additionally, Isleño Spanish lacks /ʎ/, with /j/ being weak and beginning to approach [ʒ] in the word-initial position.^[2][3][4][5]

• /d/ experiences deletion in word-finally and is elided in words such as usted [uh.ˈte] 'you' and nada [ˈna] 'nothing'.^[2][4][5]
• /g/, just as /b/ and /d/, experiences elision in words like seguro [se.ˈu.ɾo] 'sure, certain'.^[2][4][5]
• /n/ is highly variable, with word-final /n/ being realized more often as [n] and occasionally [ŋ].^[2][5]
• /r/ is realized differently in its preconsonantal forms resulting in [l], [ɾ], [ɸ], and [h], with its word-final form being habitually deleted.^{[2][4][5][19]}
• /s/ has variable behavior since it is aspirated to [h] in preconsonantal and word-final positions, but it is preserved in some instances.^[2][3][4][5]
• /x/ is pronounced [h], which is common in Caribbean Spanish dialects, southern Spain, and the Canary Islands.^[2][4]

Morphology and syntax[]

• The verb ir, meaning 'to go' in most Spanish dialects, has become dir in Isleño Spanish.^{[2][5][8][16]} This is not uncommon among rural dialects of Spanish, which has been attributed to the pattern acaba de ir.^[2][16]
• Pronouns are used redundantly in Isleño Spanish, just as in the Caribbean dialects, for phonological reasons and to maintain the distinction between subjects.^{[2][4][5][16]} Moreover, ustedes is used exclusively with vosotros remaining unknown.^[2][4][5]
• Non-inverted questions such as ¿Cómo usted se llama? rather than ¿Cómo se llama usted? are common in Isleño Spanish, which is a characteristic shared by various Caribbean Spanish varieties.^[2]

Vocabulary[]

Contact with other groups and substantial immigration into the St. Bernard community has shaped their vocabulary to some extent. Some of the largest contributions have been made by English, Louisiana French, Louisiana Creole, regional dialects of Spanish, and the various Castilian languages.^[3][4][5] Additionally, due in large measure to the isolation of the Isleños, several archaic terms deriving from Old Spanish have been preserved.^[2]

1. The comparison of terms below uses the following abbreviations for different parts of speech: (n.) noun, (m.n.) masculine noun, (f.n.) feminine noun, (v.) verb, (adj.) adjective.

Brule Spanish[]

The Isleños who settled in the community of Valenzuela along Bayou Lafourche were greatly influenced by the immigration of Acadian refugees and further isolation.^[3][7][8] The dialect has been considered an "offshoot" of Isleño Spanish and is referred to as Brule Spanish.^[3][8] The dialect is highly endangered if not already extinct as only a few dozen octogenarian speakers were known to exist in the early 1990s.^[3]

The dialect possesses a large number of loanwords from Louisiana French which is seen as the main distinction between it and Isleño Spanish.^[3][7] Even so, an amount of similarities in vocabulary between Brule and Isleño Spanish exist:

1. The comparison of terms below uses the following abbreviations for different parts of speech: (n.) noun, (m.n.) masculine noun, (f.n.) feminine noun, (v.) verb, (adj.) adjective, (adv.) adverb.

Notable Isleño Spanish-speaking people[]

• Frank Michael Fernández, Jr.
• Irván "Puco" Pérez

See also[]

• Isleño (Louisiana)
• Canarian Spanish
• Caribbean Spanish
• Spanish in the United States

References[]

Further reading[]

• Holloway, Charles Edward (1993). The Death of a Dialect: Brule Spanish in Ascension Parish, Louisiana. LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. pp. viii–ix, 43–45, 143. An extensive linguistic investigation of Brule Spanish.
• Lestrade, Patricia Manning (1999). Trajectories in Isleño Spanish with special emphasis on the lexicon. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama. A lexical investigation of Isleño Spanish and a community survey.
• Lipski, John M (July 1, 1990). The Language of the Isleños: Vestigial Spanish in Louisiana. Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University Press. ISBN 0807115347. A linguistic investigation highlighting defining characteristics of Isleño Spanish.
• MacCurdy, Raymond R (1950). The Spanish Dialect in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana. Albuquerque The University of New Mexico Press. ASIN B003BGM7WY. Phonetic and phonological study of Isleño Spanish with an detailed lexicon.
• MacCurdy, Raymond R. (December 1959). "A Spanish Word-List of the "Brulis" Dwellers". Hispania. 42 (4): 547–554. doi:10.2307/335051. JSTOR 335051. A word list of Brule Spanish with its similarities to Isleño Spanish.