Diversification of Mexican Spanish: A Tridimensional Study in New World Sociolinguistics

by Margarita Hidalgo

Overview

This book offers a diversification model of transplanted languages that facilitates the exploration of external factors and internal changes. The general context is the New World and the variety that unfolded in the Central Highlands and the Gulf of Mexico, herein identified as Mexican Colonial Spanish (MCS). Linguistic corpora provide the evidence of (re)transmission, diffusion, metalinguistic awareness, and select focused variants. The tridimensional approach highlights language data from authentic colonial documents which are connected to socio-historical reliefs at particular periods or junctions, which explain language variation and the dynamic outcome leading to change.

From the Second Letter of Hernán Cortés (Seville 1522) to the decades preceding Mexican Independence (1800-1821) this book examines the variants transplanted from the peninsular tree into Mesoamerican lands: leveling of sibilants of late medieval Spanish, direct object (masc. sing.] pronouns LO and LE, pronouns of address (vos, tu, vuestra merced plus plurals), imperfect subjunctive endings in -SE and -RA), and Amerindian loans. Qualitative and quantitative analyses of variants derived from the peninsular tree show a gradual process of attrition and recovery due to their saliency in the new soil, where they were identified with ways of speaking and behaving like Spanish speakers from the metropolis. The variants analyzed in MCS may appear in other regions of the Spanish-speaking New World, where change may have proceeded at varying or similar rates. Additional variants are classified as optimal residual (e.g. dizque) and popular residual (e.g. vide). Both types are derived from the medieval peninsular tree, but the former are vital across regions and social strata while the latter may be restricted to isolated and / or marginal speech communities.

After one hundred years of study in linguistics, this book contributes to the advancement of newer conceptualization of diachrony, which is concerned with the development and evolution through history. The additional sociolinguistic dimension offers views of social significant and its thrilling links to social movements that provoked a radical change of identity. The amplitude of the diversification model is convenient to test it in varied contexts where transplantation occurred.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501504440
Publisher:	De Gruyter
Publication date:	10/24/2016
Series:	Contributions to the Sociology of Language [CSL] , #111
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	437
Sales rank:	745,446
File size:	14 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Margarita Hidalgo, San Diego State University, USA.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements xii

Prologue xiii

Introduction: Sociolinguistic diversification 1

1 Diversification 1

2 Diversification: Social stratification 3

3 Diversification: Stratification and popularization 4

4 Language traditions 5

5 Literary and popular language 10

6 Language reforms and standardization 11

7 After the Wars of Independence 15

8 Schools of thought 17

9 The case of Spanish: from the beginning to New World Spanish 21

10 New World Spanish: spoken and written 22

11 The aim of this book 26

12 The chapters 30

13 Explicative models 33

Chapter 1 The origins of Spanish: Spain and the New World 35

1.1 The origins 35

1.2 The rise of Castilian 37

1.3 Repoputation of Andalusia 40

1.4 Toledano and Old Castilian 42

1.4.1 De-affrication, devoicing and inter-dentalization 43

1.4.2 De-palatalization 47

1.4.3 Yeísmo or de-latelarization 47

1.4.4 Aspiration and omission of /s/ in implosive position 48

1.5 Additional changes 48

1.6 Spanish initial F-: past and present perspectives 49

1.7 Features of Judaeo-Spanish 51

1.8 Features from Spain transplanted to New Spain 52

1.9 The features of Andalusian Spanish 53

1.10 Spanish speakers in New Spain 55

1.11 Spanish speakers and the castes in the 16th century 57

1.12 Theories on the origins of New World Spanish 59

1.13 Koines and koineization in New World Spanish 61

1.14 The use of dialect features in New Spain 63

1.15 Conclusions 65

Chapter 2 The first speakers of Mexican Spanish 70

2.1 The first Spanish speakers in Mesoamerica and social stratification 70

2.2 The Spanish Caribbean experiment 71

2.3 The encomienda in New Spain 73

2.4 The new system of social stratification 74

2.5 Origins of the first Spanish speakers 75

2.6 The New Laws of 1542 78

2.7 Spanish speakers in the 16th century: numbers and regions 81

2.8 The new environment 81

2.9 The process of socialization and diffusion 82

2.10 The center 84

2.11 The Inquisition 87

2.11.1 Matters of routine in and around the Holy Office 88

2.12 Spanish and the Holy Office 94

2.13 The sins recorded by the Holy Office 96

2.14 Spanish speakers and ethnic groups in the Abecedario 97

2.15 Spanish speakers of African descent 101

2.15.1 Afro-Mexicans and the process of acculturation 103

2.15.2 Afro-Mexican enclaves 104

2.16 Conclusions 107

Chapter 3 The Spanish language and its variations in New Spain 110

3.1 The earliest Spanish documents written in Mexico 110

3.2 The First Letter by Hernán Cortés 112

3.3 The Second Letter by Hernán Cortés 113

3.3.1 Salient features in Hernán Cortés' Cartas de Relatión 118

3.4 Adaptation of Amerindian languages 120

3.5 Morphology and syntax 120

3.6 Common verbs in transition 123

3.7 Verbal clitics 124

3.8 Stylistic and dialect variations 125

3.9 Indicative and subjunctive 126

3.9.1 Imperfect subjunctive in adverbial clauses 127

3.9.2 Imperfect subjunctive in translation 128

3.9.3 Conditional sentences with -SE in translation 129

3.9.4 Conditional sentences with -RA in translation 129

3.10 Extinct and current lexical items and discourse markers 130

3.11 Use of Taino borrowings 131

3.11.1 Documentation of Taino borrowings in New Spain 132

3.12 Pronouns of address 133

3.13 General features of 16th century Spanish pronunciation 134

3.13.1 General features of 16th century Spanish: morpho-syntax 135

3.14 Conclusions 136

Chapter 4 Koineization and the first generation of Spanish speakers 140

4.1 The first generation 140

4.1.1 Spanish space and Spanish institutions 141

4.2 The formation of the Mexican Spanish koine 144

4.3 The Spanish spoken and written in the 16th century 144

4.3.1 Evidence of dialect contact and dialect change 146

4.4 Other documents related to Hernán Cortés 147

4.4.1 The features of Cortesian texts 150

4.4.2 Spellings of common verbs 151

4.4.3 Morpho-syntactic features of Cortesian texts 152

4.4.4 Position of verbal clitics 153

4.4.5 Pro-etymological and anti-etymological verbal clitics 154

4.4.6 Variable use of PARA and PA 159

4.4.7 The use of imperfect subjunctive 160

4.4.8 Pronouns of address: from Cortés' letters to 1555 161

4.4.9 Diffusion of Spanish, discourse markers, and lexical items 162

4.4.10 Loans from Taino and Nahuatl 164

4.5 The speech of Diego de Ordaz 165

4.5.1 Morpho-syntactic features of Diego de Ordaz 166

4.5.2 The origins of voseo 168

4.6 Nahuatl loans in the Vocabulario de la lengua castellana y mexicana 170

4.7 The explicative model of proto-Mexican Spanish 173

4.8 The Gulf of Mexico 175

4.8.1 The sibilants in the Gulf 177

4.8.2 Leísmo in the Gulf 178

4.8.3 Use of subject pronouns: vos, vosotros, vuestra mereed 179

4.8.4 Imperfect subjunctive: variations in -SE and -RA 179

4.8.5 Lexicon 180

4.9 Conclusions 181

Chapter 5 How Spanish diversified 184

5.1 Occupational activities and social networks 184

5.2 Mining and metallurgy 185

5.2.1 Mining centers and ethnic groups 190

5.2.2 Taxco 193

5.2.3 Pachuca 193

5.2.4 Sultepec 193

5.2.5 Puebla 194

5.2.6 Queretaro 194

5.2.7 San Luis Potosi 194

5.2.8 Guanajuato 195

5.2.9 Zacatecas 195

5.3 Forms of labor and language contact 196

5.3.1 Losing the ties to the land 199

5.3.2 Labor and agriculture: indigenous vs. Spanish crops 201

5.3.3 The obrajes 201

5.4 Formal education 203

5.4.1 Education for women 206

5.5 Additional activities promoting the use of Spanish 206

5.6 Spanish literature in Spain and in New Spain 207

5.7 Conclusions 209

Chapter 6 Continuity and change: The second generation 211

6.1 The innovations of the second generation 211

6.2 Linguistic documents: the Central Highlands 212

6.2.1 Pronunciation traits 212

6.2.2 Other pronunciation features 213

6.2.3 Morpho-syntactic features 215

6.2.4 Imperfect subjunctive 217

6.2.5 Pronouns of address 217

6.2.6 Original letters by Alonso Ortiz 218

6.2.7 Mixing tú, vos and vuestra merced 220

6.3 Suárez de Peralta's Tratado del descubrimiento de las Yndias y su conquista 222

6.3.1 Relevant features in Suarez de Peralta's Tratado 222

6.3.2 Object pronouns LES and LOS in the second-generation 226

6.3.3 Other object pronouns 228

6.3.4 Verb forms 230

6.3.5 Pronoun of address in the Tratado 230

6.3.6 Vuesa(s) me reed (es) 232

6.3.7 Use of imperfect subjunctive 233

6.3.8 Conditional sentences ending with -RA 233

6.3.9 Discourse markers, idiomatic expressions and other features 233

6.3.10 References to ethnicity 234

6.4 Linguistic documents: the Gulf 235

6.4.1 Miscellaneous traits in the Gulf 236

6.4.2 The system of pronouns of address: tú, vos, vosotros, vuestra merced, sumerced 237

6.4.3 Clitic pronouns as direct objects 240

6.4.4 Imperfect subjunctive: variations of -SE and -RA 241

6.4.5 Lexical items referring to ethnicity 242

6.5 More examples from the second generation 242

6.6 Conclusions 243

Chapter 7 Religion, bilingualism and acculturation 249

7.1 Religion as a driving force 249

7.2 Population losses and language shift 250

7.3 Factors contributing to maintenance: new political organization 251

7.4 New religion and language maintenance and shift 254

7.5 Rescuing the past for the future 258

7.5.1 The second generation and the good memories about Tlatelolco 259

7.6 Strategies of Hispanization 261

7.6.1 Religion and the indigenous masses 262

7.6.2 Hispanicization of the indigenous 264

7.7 Transculturation and miscegenation 265

7.8 Language contact, bilingualism, and socio-ethnic groups 271

7.8.1 Bilingual individuals and bilingual groups 272

7.9 Ethnicity and socio-ethnic labels 274

7.10 Hispanization of the Afro-Mexican population 275

7.11 Conclusions 276

Chapter 8 Diversification and stability: 17th century 278

8.1 Spanish speakers in the 17th century 278

8.2 Education of Spanish speakers 280

8.3 Uprooting and integration of the castes 281

8.4 Colonial Spanish in the oldest Spanish-speaking regions 284

8.4.1 The spelling of the sibilants in Castilian 285

8.4.2 The spelling of the sibilants in the Central Highlands 286

8.4.3 Sibilants in the Gulf 288

8.4.4 "Regular" seseo 289

8.4.5 Residual verb forms 290

8.4.6 Leísmo in the Central Highlands and in the Gulf 291

8.4.7 Inanimate objects and leísmo 297

8.4.8 Pronouns of address: tú, vuestra merced, su merced, Usted 298

8.4.9 Vuestra merced, Usted and vosotros 299

8.4.10 Change of pronouns in the personal domain 301

8.4.11 Imperfect subjunctive with -SE and -RA 302

8.4.12 Ethnic groups 304

8.5 Literature in Spanish 305

8.6 Conclusion 306

Chapter 9 The end of the colonial period: 18th century 308

9.1 Attrition of peninsular Spanish variants 308

9.2 The growth and decline of the colony 309

9.3 Spanish emigrants to New Spain 310

9.4 Population of New Spain 312

9.4.1 The Revillagigedo Census 312

9.5 The growth of the cities 317

9.6 Education 318

9.7 The Bourbon reforms, the economy and ethnicity 319

9.8 Language attrition in the Central Highlands and in the Gulf 321

9.9 Attrition of morpho-syntactic variants 323

9.9.1 Direct object pronouns LE and LO 323

9.9.2 Pronouns of address 325

9.9.3 Use of-SE and-RA in conditional clauses and imperfect subjunctive 328

9.9.4 The use of -SE and -RA in official documentation 331

9.10 Lexicon 332

9.11 Language reforms, journalism and literature 335

9.12 Spanish-accented Nahuatl 338

9.13 Conclusions 341

Chapter 10 Diversification, attrition and residual variants 343

10.1 Attrition-focused variants 343

10.2 Optimal residual variants 354

10.2.1 The prepositions PARA and PA 357

10.2.2 Dissolution of hiatus 358

10.2.3 Addition of-sin the preterit 359

10.2.4 Duplicate possessives 359

10.2.5 Amerindian loans 360

10.3 Residual variants belonging to the vernacular realm 360

10.3.1 The diphthong/we/ in various positions 365

10.4 Verb forms 365

10.4.1 The endings-RA and -RA in protasis and apodosis 367

10.5 Lexical items and idiomatic expressions in popular speech 368

10.6 The common denominator: residual variants 369

10.7 Infrequent variants in modern Mexican Spanish 371

10.8 Variants discarded in Mexican Spanish 372

10.9 Modern Listed 373

10.10 Conclusions 374

11 Conclusions 376

11.1 A tridimensional study 376

11.2 The role of history: direct external factors 376

11.2.1 Creole and semi-creole varieties 377

11.3 From the past to the present: indirect external factors 379

11.4 Peninsular, New World and Latin American Spanish 384

11.5 Stages of diversification 385

11.6 PARA and PA in Venezuela 388

11.7 Diversification of the New World Spanish tree 388

11.8 Final conclusions 390

Appendix 394

References 401

Index 415

Editorial Reviews

"La monografia contribuirà certamente a sollecitare altre ricerche nella medesima direzione. Non soltanto servirà a mettere a fuoco le reciproche imbricazioni tra lingua e società nel Messico, ma sarà in grado di riverberare i propri riflessi anche nella storia sociolinguistica della Spagna."
Remo Bracchi in: Salesianum 80 (2018), Heft 1, S. 188

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