Bozal Spanish is a possible extinct Spanish-based creole language or

pidgin A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a grammatically simplified means of communication that develops between two or more groups of people that do not have a language in common: typically, its vocabulary and grammar are limited and often drawn from s ...

that may have been a mixture of Spanish and Kikongo, with Portuguese influences. Attestation is insufficient to indicate whether Bozal Spanish was ever a single, coherent or stable language, or if the term merely referred to any idiolect of Spanish that included African elements.

Etymology

''Bozal'' is the Spanish word for " muzzle", and shares it etymology with the word bosal. In their New World colonies, the Spaniards distinguished between '' negros ladinos''
esclavo ladino
' in the Diccionario de la Real Academia Española. ("Latinate Negros", those who had spent more than a year in a Spanish-speaking territory) and ''negros bozales'' (wild, untamed Negroes; those born in or freshly arrived from Africa). Similarly, the Portuguese distinguished between (tamed, domesticated

Indians Indian or Indians may refer to: Peoples South Asia * Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor ** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country * South Asia ...

) and (untamed, wild Indians), and between or (Black creoles born in the territory of a European empire) and or (blacks born in Africa) ( has now become the main anti-black slur in Brazilian Portuguese, whereas the Spanish

cognate In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymology, etymological ancestor in a proto-language, common parent language. Because language c ...

, '' criollo'' came to refer to Hispanoamerican whites and

castizos ''Castizo''Pronunciation in Latin American Spanish: is a racial category used in 18th-century Colonial Mexico to refer to people who were three-quarters Spanish by descent and one-quarter Amerindian. The feminine form of the word is ''castiza''. ...

Historic use

Bozal Spanish was spoken by

African slaves Slavery has historically been widespread in Africa. Systems of servitude and slavery were common in parts of Africa in ancient times, as they were in much of the rest of the ancient world. When the trans-Saharan slave trade, Indian Ocean sl ...

in Cuba,Clements, J. Clancy
"Bozal Spanish of Cuba"
''The Linguistic Legacy of Spanish and Portuguese'', Cambridge University Press, 2009. 9780511576171 Uruguay and other areas of

South South is one of the cardinal directions or Points of the compass, compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Pro ...

and Central America from the 17th century up until its possible extinction at around 1850.Lipski, John M
"Where and how does bozal Spanish survive?"
''Spanish in Contact: Policy, Social and Linguistic Inquiries'', John Benjamins Publishing Co., 2007. Although Bozal Spanish is extinct as a language, its influence still exists. In some Cuban folk religious rituals today, people speak what they call "Bozal". Similarly, many songs of the afro genre, which flourished in Cuba in the 1930s and '40s, contain lyrics reminiscent of the language. In Puerto Rico ''esclavos bozales'' were slaves ("esclavos") brought from Africa, as opposed to those born in Puerto Rico from slaves. Such slaves spoke different languages, other than Spanish, which they eventually learned while enslaved. These slaves were primarily used in the fields and agriculture as opposed to those born under bondage who were generally used in domestic chores.Fernando Picó. ''Ponce y los rostros rayados: sociedad y esclavitud, 1800-1830.'' San Juan, Puerto Rico: Ediciones Huracán. 2012. p. 151.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bozal Spanish Afro-Cuban culture Afro–Puerto Rican Afro-Uruguayan culture Democratic Republic of the Congo diaspora Republic of the Congo diaspora History of Puerto Rico Kongo language Portuguese-Caribbean culture Spanish-based pidgins and creoles Languages extinct in the 1850s Languages of the African diaspora Spanish language in the Americas

Etymology

Historic use

See also

References