Tag: language contact

A book on the languages of the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula

I am happy to announce the release, 11 months and one day after the SIALNI1 event (Genoa, May 21, 2021), of ‘El Mapa Ling眉铆stico del Noroccidente Ib茅rico: Contacto, Variaci贸n y Cambio’, a volume that collects some contributions to the SIALNI1 event + a few essays by some invited authors. It was an extraordinary experience to collaborate with all of them and, of course, prof. Alfonso Zamorano Aguilar, the director of the LINCOM series Studies in Spanish Linguistics. On November 18, we’ll be back with SIALNI2, this time in Oviedo, Asturias! I hope to see you all there! 馃檪

A new book review on the horizon

I will soon receive and review for the LINGUIST List the book A Grammar of Fa d’Amb么 written by T. Hegemeijer, P. Maurer-Cecchini, and A. Zamora Segourbe. I am looking forward to reading the first grammar of Fa d’Amb么 ever written in English. I will post the link to the review as soon as it is published (I guess it will take about 6-8 months)… By the way, what is Fa d’Amb么?

Fa d’Amb么 is a Portuguese-based creole language, spoken in the Isle of Ano-Bom, in Equatorial Guinea, and this is its history in a nutshell. As the Portuguese found the island uninhabited in the 15th C., they brought in slaves from S茫o Tom茅 e Pr铆ncipe (and, to a much lesser extent, Angola). With the Tratado de El Pardo, signed in 1778 by King Carlos III of Spain and Queen Maria I of Portugal, Spain gave Portugal lands in South America, receiving territories in the Guinea Gulf in exchange. Consequently, the Isle of Ano-Bom and what is today Equatorial Guinea went under Spanish rule. Over time, the local population adapted to the new culture and the Spanish language, giving rise to a new mixed language. The new language is mostly based on S茫o-tomense, a Portuguese-based creole also known as Forro. However, approximately 10% of its lexicon is based on Spanish, the official language of Equatorial Guinea.