110186 SE Linguistics Seminar (MA) - Spanish (2019S)

Course provides a detailed overview of the history and grammar of Palenquero, and touches upon its extraordinary relevance for the study of (Black) Latin American Spanish as well as related creoles (Papiamentu on the ABC islands) and Chabacano (in the Philippines). Examines the major hypotheses (e.g., McWhorter’s monogenetic West-Africa genesis model) that have sought to explain the baffling scarcity of Spanish creoles in the New World, and explains how and why Palenque is now playing a major role in pioneering genetic (DNA) studies that link the ancestral origins of Afro-Latino populations to highly specific ethnic groups in sub-Saharan Africa. Finally, the course also contextualizes Palenquero within the history of creole studies at large, beginning in the 1980s with Bickerton’s bioprogram hypothesis, and ending with the latest theoretical approaches that are currently in vogue. This will raise perplexing questions that the field of creolistics has been debating for about a decade, including: "Do creole languages really exist (as a typological category)?".

Taught in Spanish and as a "Seminar" (with reading assignments in Spanish and English), this course is designed for students who wish to deepen their knowledge about creolistics, language contact, Palenquero, Latin America’s slave trade, Spanish multilingualism, and so forth.

The course will draw on Prof. Schwegler’s (numerous) publications on Palenquero, as well as his extensive recordings and transcriptions from Palenque. An important aspect of the Seminar will be to enlighten students about how to acquire (intermediate) speaking command of Palenquero, how collaborative research across multiple disciplines can be carried out successfully, and how and why such work at times poses special challenges and, more importantly, unusual opportunities.

Class meetings will typically consist of a lecture (in Spanish) by Professor Schwegler, with frequent interaction and discussion of topics with the students. Course is highly visual (lots of graphic content in form of PowerPoint presentations, audios, videos, etc.).