Isleño Spanish
Isleño Spanish is a dialect of the Spanish language spoken by the descendants of Canary Islanders who settled in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana during the late eighteenth century. This dialect was greatly influenced by adjacent language communities as well as immigration from peninsular Spain and other Spanish-speaking countries. The dialect spoken by the Isleños who settled along Bayou Lafourche is differentiated as Brule/Bruli Spanish.
In the present day, Isleño Spanish is approaching complete extinction. Through the twentieth century, modernization and urbanization came to greatly disrupt the transmission of Spanish along coupled by the hardships of natural disasters. The remaining Spanish speakers of the community tend to be elderly individuals from fishing communities of eastern St. Bernard Parish.
History
The Isleños are descendants of colonists from the Canary Islands who arrived in Spanish Louisiana between 1778 and 1783. It estimated that about 2,000 Canary Islanders were settled into a series of communities, one of those coming to be known as San Bernardo.Early in the establishment of this community, a minority of Acadians were present along with Filipinos from the nearby community of Saint Malo which intermarried with the Canary Islanders. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the community was reinforced by immigration from rural, peninsular Spanish regions such as Andalusia, Santander, Galicia, and Catalonia. A survey conducted in 1850 found at least 63 natives of Spain, 7 Canary Islanders, 7 Cubans, and 7 Mexicans in the community.
Decline
The 1915 New Orleans hurricane destroyed much of the Isleño fishing communities situated in eastern St. Bernard Parish. Only a couple years later, the Spanish flu pandemic left over one thousand people dead in St. Bernard Parish. With the adoption of the Louisiana Constitution of 1921, public schooling was conducted in English.After World War II, urbanization and modernization played a greater effect on the community the retention of Spanish. This was compounded by Hurricane Betsy in 1965 which severely damaged much of Isleño community and presence in St. Bernard Parish. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated the community and only a fraction of Isleño families have returned to their original communities.
Currently, the transmission of the Spanish language has halted completely along with the preservation of many traditions. Those who know Isleño Spanish or speak the dialect as a first language are often elderly community members.
Phonology
In many respects Isleño Spanish shares an array of similarities with the other Spanish dialects generally of the Caribbean, the Canary Islands, and rural Spain.Similar to much of Latin America, the Canary Islands, and southern Spain, Isleño Spanish merges the phonemes /θ/ and /s/ into the single phoneme /s/, a phenomenon known as seseo. Additionally, Isleño Spanish lacks /ʎ/, with /j/ being weak and beginning to approach in the word-initial position.
- /d/ experiences deletion in word-finally and is elided in words such as usted 'you' and nada 'nothing'.
- /g/, just as /b/ and /d/, experiences elision in words like seguro 'sure, certain'.
- /n/ is highly variable, with word-final /n/ being realized more often as and occasionally .
- /r/ is realized differently in its preconsonantal forms resulting in , , and , with its word-final form being habitually deleted.
- /s/ is possesses variable behavior where it is aspirated to in preconsonantal and word-final positions, but is preserved in some instances.
- /x/ is pronounced , which is common in Caribbean Spanish dialects, southern Spain, and the Canary Islands.
Morphology & syntax
- The verb ir meaning 'to go' in the majority of Spanish dialects, has become dir in Isleño Spanish. This is not uncommon among rural dialects of Spanish which has been attributed to the pattern acaba de ir.
- Pronouns are used redundantly in Isleño Spanish, just as in the Caribbean dialects, for phonological reasons and to maintain distinction between subjects. Moreover, ustedes is used exclusively with vosotros remaining unknown.
- Non-inverted questions such as ¿Cómo usted se llama? rather than ¿Cómo se llama usted? are common in Isleño Spanish, which is a characteristic shared by various Caribbean Spanish varieties.
Vocabulary
| Isleño Spanish | Canarian Spanish | Caribbean Spanish | Standard Spanish | Louisiana French | Louisiana Creole | English |
| candí | dulce | dulce | caramelo dulce | candi | dou, doudous kandi trit | candy |
| colorado | rojo | rojo | rojo | rouge | rouj | red |
| grocería | supermercado tienda de comestibles | bodega colmado supermercado | supermercado | boutique grosserie, grocerie | grosri, lagrosri | grocery store |
| jaiba | cangrejo azul cangrejo | jaiba cangrejo | cangrejo azul cangrejo | crabe | krab | blue crab crab |
| lacre | lago | lago | lago | lac | lak | lake |
| liña | liña | sedal | sedal | fil de pêche ligne de pêche | ling, liñ lalign a pèche | fishing line |
| mancar | extrañar fallar | extrañar fallar | extrañar fallar | manquer rater | manke rate | to miss to fail |
| miquá, micuena | pato cuchara | pato cuchareta | cuchara común | micoine | kana mikwonn | northern shoveler |
| peje | peje pez | pez peje | pez | poisson | pwason | fish |
| seña letrero | seña letrero | letrero cartel | letrero cartel | signe | sign, siñ signal, siñal | sign |
| titi, tite tío | titi, tití tío | tío | tío | oncle nonc | nonk | uncle |
Brule Spanish
The Isleños who settled in the community of Valenzuela along Bayou Lafourche were greatly influenced by the immigration of Acadian refugees and further isolation. The dialect has been considered an "offshoot" of Isleño Spanish and is referred to as Brule or Bruli Spanish. The dialect is highly endangered if not already extinct as only a few dozen octogenarian speakers were known to exist in the early 1990s.The dialect possesses a large number of loanwords from Louisiana French which is seen as the main distinction between it and Isleño Spanish. Even so, an amount of similarities in vocabulary between Brule and Isleño Spanish exist:
| Brule Spanish | Isleño Spanish | Canarian Spanish | Standard Spanish | Louisiana French | Louisiana Creole | English |
| ajena, ansí | asina | así asina | así | donc | donk | so thus |
| cambar | cambar | cambar | doblar torcer | plier tordre | pliyé torkèt | to bend to twist |
| coquilla | coquilla | concha | concha | coquille | kokiy, lékay, ekay | shell |
| costumbre | costumbre | costumbre | costumbre | coutume | labitud, labichud koutumm | custom habit |
| dir | dir | ir dir | ir | aller | ale, alé | to go |
| grocería | grocería | supermercado tienda de comestibles | supermercado | boutique grosserie, grocerie | grosri, lagrosri | grocery store |
| mesmo, mehmo | mesmo, mehmo | mismo mesmo | mismo | même | mème parèy | same |
| pandil | pandil | reloj | reloj | pandule | lapandil, lapendil lòrlòj | clock |
Notable Isleño Spanish-speaking people
- Frank Michael Fernández, Jr.
- Irván "Puco" Pérez