Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures Online

1. Introduction ⇫ ¶

Zamboanga Chabacano is one of the varieties of the Spanish-based creole on the Philippines commonly known as Chabacano (see also Sippola, this volume, on the two Manila Bay creoles, Ternate Chabacano and Cavite Chabacano). Despite its pejorative original meaning, ‘tasteless, vulgar’, the name Chabacano is used by the speech community as a self-designation. Alongside Papiamentu and Palenquero in the Americas, Chabacano, with its variety Zamboangueño, is one of three Spanish-based creoles worldwide with the highest number of speakers. It shares interesting features with other European-based creoles in Asia, a fact that distinguishes it from the Atlantic creoles. Furthermore, unlike these, Zamboanga Chabacano has been acquiring a mixed character, especially from the 20th century onwards.

     The total number of Zamboanga Chabacano speakers can be estimated to be around 300,000. In scientific publications, Zamboanga Chabacano is also named Southern Mindanao Creole. Zamboanga Chabacano is spoken on the island Mindanao in the south of the archipelago. The highest degree of vitality of Zamboanga Chabacano, and of Chabacano generally, is observed in the city of Zamboanga and the surrounding area in the extreme western part of Mindanao. Outside Zamboanga there are at least two subvarieties in Cotabato City and Semporna (Sabah, Malaysia) which do not differ much from it. Zamboanga Chabacano is also used in the region as a lingua franca by diverse ethno-linguistic groups. It is codified for public and private purposes with an anarchic Hispanic orthography; there are Bible translations and literary writings, and there were also, until recently, press publications in Zamboanga Chabacano. Public oral use has recently been increasing in broadcasting, in church, and in some public schools.

2. Sociohistorical background ⇫ ¶

The Spanish-based creoles in the Philippines developed after the Spanish conquest in the 16th century. The development of Chabacano is somewhat complex due to different contact situations in time and space; this is especially true for Zamboanga Chabacano, which, to our knowledge, was first mentioned by Adolf Bastian (1870: 51). Whinnom (1956) suggested that Chabacano grew out of the Portuguese Creole of the Indonesian island of Ternate; this creole had been transported to the Philippines in the 17th century. Whinnom considered Zamboanga Chabacano a layer of the Manila Bay creoles (Cavite and Ternate Chabacano). This theory was contested, principally by John Lipski (1992), who posited a typical creolization of a Spanish-based pidgin with Tagalog influences in the Bay of Manila. For the special case of Zamboanga Chabacano, Lipski proposed a development of different stages from the 18th century onwards: It arose in the garrison of the city of Zamboanga and absorbed elements from Manila Bay Creole later. During the 19th century, Hiligaynon elements were introduced through contact with ships coming from Manila which had made a stop in the Central Philippines. Afterwards it was re-Hispanicized by native speakers of Spanish who came to Zamboanga from Europe and Mexico. It was also influenced by Cebuano, a Visayan language similar to Hiligaynon; Cebuano was introduced by large-scale immigration. From the 1930s onwards, the influence of English and, after the Second World War, that of the national language Pilipino (= Tagalog) increased and especially affected the lexicon. Consequently, Zamboanga Chabacano does not fit into the classification of plantation, fort, and maritime creoles, nor can the dichotomy of exogenous and endogenous creoles adequately describe the situation of Zamboanga Chabacano, but it can probably be classified as a complex mixture of maritime, fort, and maroon creole. In contrast to the Atlantic creoles, slavery played a marginal role, but it was not totally absent, as claimed by McWhorter (e.g. 2000: 14, fn. 1; for more details see Scott 1997). Recently, Fernández (e.g. 2006) has suggested a creolization in situ due to strong immigration from the Visayas (Central Philippines) around 1900. Whatever the different theories on the origin of Chabacano, in the beginning there was most probably a pidginized form of Spanish and/or Portuguese which was used for intercommunication by different ethnic groups, namely European Spaniards, Mexicans (including native speakers of Nahuatl), different speaker groups of Western Malayo-Polynesian, and Chinese settlers who were mostly Hokkien speakers. For a comparison of all varieties of Chabacano and a comparison of these with Portuguese-based creoles in Asia, see Steinkrüger (2013+).

3. Sociolinguistic situation ⇫ ¶

Zamboanga City has a total population of 600,000 inhabitants (official census 2000). Approximately two thirds of the population are Christians, mostly Catholics, and the remaining part are Muslims. Besides Chabacano, the main languages in Zamboanga are Cebuano, Tagalog, and Hokkien Chinese. English is a widespread second language. There are also a small number of older speakers with Spanish as their first language. Other languages, especially spoken by Muslim immigrants from the smaller islands in the region, are Tausug, Samal, Yakan, and Maranao. All of the languages mentioned above, except English, can be acquired as a first or second language depending on one’s family background. Zamboanga Chabacano is the dominant language of about half of the population; it is decreasing as such but expanding as a second language, even in wider areas of the Sulu and Celebes Seas. Nearly all inhabitants are at least bilingual. For more details see Valles-Akil (2000).

4. Phonology ⇫ ¶

Zamboanga Chabacano has five (potentially) phonemic vowels in stressed syllables, namely /e, i, a, o, u/. In unstressed syllables /i/ vs. /e/ and /u/ vs. /o/ are neutralized. It is still open to debate whether there are really minimal pairs contrasting /i/ vs. /e/ and /u/ vs. /o/ even in stressed syllables. Taking into consideration spelling “mistakes” such as gropo ‘group’ (< Spanish grupo) or the two variants salí and salé (both meaning ‘leave; get out’ < Spanish salir), these two phonemes are only potentially differentiated by the speakers (see also Forman 1972: 89).

There are 16 phonemic consonants in the language. The glides /j/ and /w/ in some cases show the same function; for example, uwí and uyí both mean ‘to hear’ (< Spanish oír). The glottal stop is, in nearly all cases, only a boundary marker between syllables starting with a vowel, and there are only a few cases with phonemic contrasts, but these occur exclusively in words of Austronesian origin such as bátaq ‘child’ vs. báta ‘(woman’s) nightgown’. In cases where the trill /r/ etymologically derives from Spanish /ṝ/, it can be articulated with preaspiration as in péro ['pe^hro] ‘dog’ (< Spanish perro). In syllable final position, /r/ is realized by many speakers as a retroflex, as in muhér [mu'heɻ] ‘woman’.

Word stress is distinctive; for example: nadá ‘to swim’ (< Spanish nadar) vs. náda ‘nothing’ (< Spanish nada).

Orthography is more or less anarchic and follows mixed principles: Sometimes it follows the system of Spanish, sometimes that of English, and sometimes that of Tagalog (Pilipino). Neither word stress nor accent is usually indicated (in contrast to the spelling system used in this article and the database).

5. Noun phrase ⇫ ¶

The noun is invariable. Natural gender is usually distinguished by different words, as nána ‘mother’ vs. tay ‘father’, or by muhér ‘woman’ and ómbre ‘man’ following the noun, as in karabáw ómbre ‘male water buffalo’ vs. karabáw muhér ‘female water buffalo’. There are a few exceptions referring to humans like méstra ‘female teacher’ versus méstro ‘male teacher’, which are morphologically distinguished.

Nominal number marking is expressed by the Philippine particle mga [maŋa], which is preposed directly to the noun: el mga kása ‘the houses’.

There is an indefinite and a definite article: un hénte ‘a person’ (úno would be the numeral ‘one’) and el hénte ‘the person’.

Generic nouns are expressed with the preposed definite article with a singular noun, as in el muhér kyére ómbre ‘women like men’.

There are three adnominal and pronominal demonstratives: éste (1), ése (2), and akél (3), which occur predominantly before the noun. More or less as in Spanish, (1) corresponds to objects located near the speaker, (2) to objects located near the hearer, and (3) to others. This three-dimensional system is supported by those Philippine languages in contact with Chabacano (e.g. Cebuano) that also have three demonstratives.

Possessive constructions: In adnominal possessive constructions, the possessor follows the possessed, as in el kása del ómbre ‘the house of the man’. There are different possessive pronouns, short and long, with and without article, which mostly follow the Spanish pattern; for example: el ditúyo kása, el túyo kása, túyo kása, and tu kása, all meaning ‘your house’. The plural forms are of Austronesian, i.e. Hiligaynon origin together with di- (< Spanish de ‘of’) as in diíla ‘their’. The only exception is diustédes ‘yours (polite)’ (see Table 3).

The numerals are all of Spanish origin: úno, dos, tres, kwátro etc. Besides these, English and Austronesian numerals are used in certain contexts (e.g. years are mostly expressed in English). Ordinal numbers are formed with the Austronesian prefix ika- (e.g. ika-dos ‘second’).

Except for a small set referring to humans (e.g. gwápa ‘nice (f.)’; cf. example 1), adjectives are invariable. Unlike in Spanish, the order is always adjective-noun as in un gránde kása ‘a big house’. The comparative construction is frequently marked with kóntra (< Spanish contra ‘against’), which is also found in non-standard varieties of Spanish. In most cases the standard gets the object marker kun; the standard follows the comparative marker. Consequently, the order is subject-marker-standard, as in mas gránde éle kóntra kunéle ‘s/he is bigger than him/her’.

There are no indefinite pronouns. The word úno (< Spanish uno ‘one’) is exclusively used as a numeral meaning ‘one’. Equivalent expressions for ‘somebody’ and ‘something’ are tyéne kyen and tyéne kósa respectively, whose literal meaning is ‘there is who/what’.

     The personal pronouns are of mixed Spanish and Austronesian (mostly Hiligaynon) origin, as seen in Table 3.

The different uses of the pronouns for the second person are motivated by degrees of intimateness: bo is the most intimate pronoun, whereas the unmarked addressing form is tu with its variant etú. Instead of these, many younger speakers use the Austronesian form ka (enclitic form of ikáw) as a subject pronoun. The forms usté and ustédes only occur in formal contexts.

6. Verb phrase ⇫ ¶

Zamboanga Chabacano has three verbal markers relating to tense, aspect, and mood: ay- (irrealis marker), ya- (perfect(ive) marker), and ta- (progressive marker), plus the zero marker. Morphonologically, the markers can be defined as prefixes. Combinations of the markers are not possible at all. Unmarked non-stative verbs mostly do not occur with past reference. The temporal adverb ya ‘already’ behind the unmarked dynamic verb or a verb prefixed with ya- marks a completive. Table 4 summarizes the meaning of the verbal prefixes, i.e. their respective tense, aspect, and mood functions, and the Spanish etymon.

The following examples illustrate the different uses of the verb with and without a marker:

For verbal negation there are at least three different strategies: The negator hendéq, which is of Austronesion origin, is used for propositions referring to the present or the future. The negator nuwáy (< Spanish no hay ‘there is not’) is used for propositions referring to the past; this is obviously a pattern of Visayan origin (John U. Wolff, p.c.). For negative imperatives no is used. For a small set of verbs like pwéde ‘can’, kyére ‘want’, and sábe ‘know’, no- [nu] could be analyzed as a prefix: nupwéde, nukyére, nusábe.

Volition is expressed by the verb kyére (< Spanish quiere ‘s/he wants’) or keré ‘want’ (< Spanish querer). Another modal category is potentive, which is unknown to Spanish but widespread in Austronesian languages. It is expressed by the verb pwéde (< Spanish puede ‘s/he can’) as in ya-pwéde le asé kebrá el ditúyo báso ‘s/he unintentially broke your glass’ (Forman 1972: 209). Epistemic modality is expressed by one the many particles of Austronesian origin, as for instance sentence final daw for reported information. An important and frequent optative particle is éra:

In most cases, no copula is used. Nevertheless, for emphasis, there is amó, which is a particle of Austronesian origin: si Grace amó mi nána ‘it is really Grace who is my mother’ (more details in Aoto 2002). For constructions referring to the past, the form estába (< Spanish estaba ‘(s/he) stayed, was’, the imperfective past of estar) can be used: estába le méstra ‘she was a teacher’. Its use does not conform in all cases to the uses of estar in Spanish, where this copula is mostly used for temporary qualities, as for instance with estar de mal humor ‘to be in a bad temper’ (for the other cases there is ser ‘be’). In the last example, Spanish would apply ser (more precisely, the form era) and not estar.

There are no directional serial verb constructions in the language. Nevertheless, up to five verbs can be combined, and constructions with three verbs are quite frequent: ya-mandá le dále sabé ‘s/he ordered to inform him/her’.

7. Simple sentences ⇫ ¶

The unmarked word order is VSO, which is the typical Philippine pattern. The order SVO is also possible, but it is pragmatically marked, and this is also true for any other order: andá le na pwéblo ‘s/he goes to the city (of Zamboanga)’ versus éle andá na pwéblo ‘it is her/him who goes to the city’.

In Zamboanga Chabacano, double object constructions are ungrammatical. In constructions with ditransitive verbs such as dále ‘give’, one of the objects, normally the recipient, has to be marked with the object marker kon (< Spanish con ‘with’): ay-dále yo kontígo ágwa ‘I will give you water’.

In experiencer constructions, with or without special verbs, the experiencer is sometimes treated as a subject and sometimes not: kyére yo mángga ‘I like mangoes’, dwéle mi kabésa ‘I have a headache’, and ta-myédo kitá ‘we (incl.) are afraid’.

There is no morphosyntactic passive in Zamboanga Chabacano.

The constructions marking reflexivity and reciprocity are clearly distinguished from one another. The lexeme kwérpo ‘body’ (< Spanish cuerpo) is sometimes used for reflexive constructions but shows a low token frequency. The most frequent strategy to express reciprocity is to use the circumfix ma-X-han, of Austronesian origin.

The verbs dále ‘give’ and mandá ‘order’ are used for causative verb constructions (see the remarks on serial verbs above), as in dále sabé ‘to inform’ (lit. ‘give know’) and mandá kumprá ‘let buy’ (literally ‘order buy’).

The structure of content questions follows the pattern of Spanish and most Philippine languages: The question word (e.g. kyen ‘who’ or kósa ‘what; which’) is sentence initial, as in Kósa kyére bo kumprá? ‘What / which one do you want to buy?’ or Kyen a-bení este ága? ‘Who came this morning?’.

All polar questions are intonationally marked with a high pitch at the end of the phrase, without word order change. Additionally, there is the optional question marker ba of Philippine origin, occurring in second position of the interrogative sentence: Tyéne ba tu sen? ‘Do you have money?’ or Éste ba ditúyo ermáno? ‘Is this your brother?’

8. Complex sentences ⇫ ¶

There is no difference between sentential coordination conjunctions and those of noun phrases: In both cases, it is pati (of Philippine origin) and in acrolectal texts, i (< Spanish y ‘and’). The adversative conjunction is péro (< Spanish pero ‘but’), which exists as a loan element in many Philippine languages. The coordinator ‘or’ is o (< Spanish o).

With verbs of speaking (such as ablá ‘say’) and knowing (such as sábe/sabé ‘know’), complement clauses show zero-marking or marking by the complementizers ke (< Spanish que) or kay, of Philippine origin. Complement clauses headed by preguntá ‘ask a question’ and kyére/keré ‘want’ are marked by kay or are zero-marked. The complementizer ke is more frequent in acrolectal texts.

Adverbial clauses are introduced by (enden)ántes ‘before’, kwándo ‘when’, or the subordinators kay or porkáwsa ‘because’, si ‘if’, básta ‘lest’, and some others.

Relative clauses generally follow the head. With a human subject which is to be relativized, there are three markers used to construct the clause: First, kyen ‘who’ (only for humans), second kel ‘that’, and third a zero relative marker. Direct objects can be relativized both with or without the object marker before the marker. Pied-piping of instruments is possible but not very frequent.

9. Other features ⇫ ¶

Besides the prototypical features which Chabacano shares with other creole languages, especially of Ibero-Romance origin, all the features and structures which differ from Spanish phonology, grammar, lexicon, and pragmatics are due to the influence of Austronesian languages in the Philippines. For instance, the agent marker of proper names is si (e.g. si Teresa). There are about a dozen derivational morphemes of Philippine origin, like maka- for causatives or -han for locatives (for more details, see Steinkrüger 2003). There are another dozen frequent discourse markers which are also of Philippine origin (especially for epistemic modality; see also §6 on verbs), like daw, which marks quotativity in a postposed position (see Forman 1972: 95–97 and 214–218 on these particles). Other Philippine features have already been mentioned in the sections above.

10. Lexicon ⇫ ¶

As for the lexicon, apart from Spanish, the major input from Philippine languages comes from the Visayan language Hiligaynon (also called Ilonggo), which was used formerly as a lingua franca in the region (following Frake 1971; also Lipski 1992). Besides Spanish and Hiligaynon, national, regional, and various local contact languages have influenced the lexicon of Zamboanga Chabacano. Cebuano, the major Western Visayan language in the southern Philippines, has especially had an important impact on the lexicon, as has Tagalog (Pilipino), which only recently began influencing the Philippine languages all over the islands. Despite close geographical contact with Zamboanga Chabacano, the local languages Tausug, Subanon, and Yakan have had very little influence on the Zamboanga Chabacano lexicon. In her analysis of a basic vocabulary of more than 6,000 entries, Riego de Dios (1989: 188) states that 83% of the items are of Spanish origin, about 15% of Philippine origin, and 2.5% of English origin. More than 30 years after her analysis, it can be assumed that English influence has increased and Spanish influence has diminished. A very small number of words, albeit structurally important ones, are certainly of Portuguese origin: kiláya ‘how’ < Portuguese que laia ‘what kind’; ele < Portuguese ele ‘s/he’; and na, a multifunctional locative preposition, < Portuguese na, which is a merger of the preposition em ‘in’ and the feminine singular article a. The importance of Mexican input is shown by words like chángge ‘market’ < tiangue (a Mexican Spanish word of Nahuatl origin) or konsikíya ‘thirsty’ < Spanish con sequía ‘with dryness’, also widespread in Spanish varieties of Mexico. The most complete dictionaries to date are Riego de Dios (1989) (which takes the variety of Cotabato (Mindanao) into consideration and also includes all the items of Ternate and Cavite Chabacano) as well as the forthcoming dictionary compiled by the Chavacano Reader Project at Ateneo de Zamboanga University.