Palenque

Claudia J.
Castaño
A characteristic we can see in the Palenquero Language is Vitality, it is a vital language, since there
is a living community of speakers, around 3.500, which 3.400 are natives and 100 are local youth
and foreign researches. It is a official language in San Basilio de Palenque, that is the territory
where it is spoken. its Language family is Creole language, Spanish-based Creole languages. San
Basilio de Palenque represents the tenacity and joy of a people who, through their history, culture
and language, have been able to prevail over time as a strong example, until being declared by
Unesco intangible cultural heritage of humanity. The gastronomy of Palenquera is an important
point to highlight of this beautiful culture, since, preserving its African roots and the characteristic
flavor of its people, it has managed to cross barriers, until influencing today the gastronomy of the
entire Colombian Caribbean. His report is so relevant that the palenqueros have been recognized
with their book 'Kumina ri Palenge Pa Tó Paraje' (Palenquera cuisine for the world) which was
chosen as the best gastronomic publication worldwide, after competing with more than 15
thousand books from more than 187 countries.
Characteristics: According to studies, the Palenque de San Basilio language is a Spanish lexical
Creole with morphosyntactic characteristics of indigenous languages of the African continent,
specific to the Bantu language family, for the long stay of their descendants in a region where
Spanish language predominates as well as words with the Kikongo and Kimbundu languages.
Shares linguistic elements of Romance languages such as Spanish and Portuguese, having a large
substrate of Old Portuguese for the months that the kidnapped Africans had to spend on the ships
of traffickers and a Spanish lexical base as well as indigenous languages of the African continent
(especially Bantu).
It is spoken not only in San Basilio but it has survived in urban settlements in the Caribbean. In
Mequejo and Nueva Colombia, for example, neighborhoods in the southwestern town of
Barranquilla.
It is characterized by the nasalization of the / l /, the / g / and the / b /; the plural is indicated with
the particle ma before the noun; it has Portuguese elements like bo -tu-; use double negation.
Historicity: During the slave trade, the slaves spoke a kind of pidgin, which they used to
communicate with other. This eventually became a Spanish-based Creole spoken by the people of
San Basilio de Palenque; a settlement established by runaway slaves from Cartagena. Palenquero
is a mix between African Bantu languages and European languages. It borrows from Spanish,
English, French and Portuguese. For the Palenquero, language has been seen as a source of
cultural resistance, identity and self-belonging, so when you ask to palenque speakers if this
makes them identify as Palenque or Colombian. they say "First I am Palenquero, then Colombian,".
Autonomy: El Palenque has been independent and autonomous since its origins. The autonomy
was officially sealed by means of the Royal Certificate of 1691, with which the King of Spain
himself grants independence to the armed palenqueros of the Crown and large territories in order
to end "the maroon war" and guaranteeing peace in the province of Cartagena , has generated
until recent times the isolation conditions necessary for the conservation of cultural expressions
very own turals, such as funeral rituals, music, social organization in "cuagros" and the language
Another characteristic is facto norms where people establish who are 'good' speakers or 'poor'
speakers, according to the getting information and the obtained statistics, An estimated of 7.730
Palenqueros live at the San Basilio de Palenque or near to it. Only 18% (1390) of the Palenqueros
older than 2 years are good speakers of the Palenquero; 32.1% (2.481) are not good speakers and
do not understand this language; 24.9% (1.926) can understand but do not speak the language and
24.3% (1.882) understand and are 'poor' speakers of their native language.
Some young people do not know how to speak Palenquero since their parents do not speak them
in Palenquero, due to they think to do not have a useful function in society. However, at this time
most of Palenqueros people are trying to reconstruct and growing the number of Palenqueros
speakers, thanks to the importance they give to the history that had their language despite the
discrimination and marginalization that they suffered, today for them is pride. Three important
aspects for them are: first, the role of the language during the time of slavery how a strategy to
communication; second, their function how the platform of cultural expressions and artistic, being
oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity; and third, It is a differentiator element of their
community.

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Claudia J.

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