The Spanish of Equatorial Guinea(1): Research on la Hispanidad's Best-Kept Secret

Abstract

Introduction The Republic of Equatorial Guinea is sub-Saharan Africa's only Spanish-speaking nation, which makes it somewhat of a linguistic curiosity, and which has contributed to its political isolation from neighboring countries. At the same time, the role of the national, ex-colonial language is significantly different in Equatorial Guinea than in most of English, French and Portuguese-speaking Africa, and the linguistic situation of Equatorial Guinea has considerable importance for theories of creolization of European languages, and the diversification of Spanish and Portuguese throughout the world. As a result, a detailed description of the status of Spanish in Equatorial Guinea transcends the limits of this tiny nation and reflects a potential impact on more general areas of study. Equatorial Guinea consists of the island of Bioko (formerly named Fernando Poo), which contains the capital, Malabo (formerly Santa Isabel), and the continental enclave of Rio Muni (with capital Bata), between Gabon and Cameroon, as well as tiny Annobon Island, located to the south of Sao Tome. In 1964 Spanish Guinea (as the colony was known) achieved status as an autonomous region, and the nation became independent in 1968, when Spain yielded to international pressure. Despite the lack of colonial independence wars, Equatorial Guinea lurched violently into the post-colonial era with a nightmarish 11-year regime, headed by Francisco Macias Nguema, which nearly destroyed the country's infrastructure, expelled all foreigners and exiled, jailed or murdered nearly half of the Equatorial Guinean population. Following the overthrow of Macias in 1979, Equatorial Guinea continues to struggle under the crushing weight of postcolonial destruction, and while highly dependent on Spanish technical aid, moved gradually into the French sphere of influence in Africa, underlined by the entry of Equatorial Guinea into the Communaute Financiere Africaine (CFA) monetary zone in the late 1980's. Like most other African nations, Equatorial Guinea contains a variety of ethnic groups, each speaking its own language. The major group on Bioko is the Bubi. Also found in Malabo and its environs are numerous Fernandinos, descendents of pidgin English-speaking freed slaves from Sierra Leone and Liberia, who arrived in Fernando Poo in the 19th century, as well as a handful of natives of Sao Tome and Principe, Cape Verde and other African nations.2 During the colonial period, nearly half of the island's population consisted of Nigerian contract laborers (largely Ibos and Calabars), who worked on the cacao plantations, and although nearly all Nigerians were expelled by the Macias government (and few have returned), this group reinforced the English spoken by the Fernandinos, with the result that nearly all residents of Fernando Poo speak pidgin English, known as pichi, pichinglis or brokeninglis, which constitutes the true lingua franca of Fernando Poo/Bioko (Lipski 1992). The principal ethnic group in Rio Muni is the Fang, also found in Gabon and Cameroon, who have dominated the remaining groups and have formed the strongest nuclei in the national government; the Fang have also emigrated in large numbers to Fernando Poo, although not originally native to that island. The playero groups (Ndowe/Combe, Bujeba, Benga, Bapuko, etc.) are found along the coast of Rio Muni, and most of their languages are at least partially intelligible mutually. There are few remaining pygmies in Rio Muni, and those that are found live in scattered areas of the interior and do not constitute a linguistically or culturally influential group. Pidgin English is not widely used in Rio Muni, except in Bata, due to the influx of residents of Fernando Poo and of natives of Cameroon, Nigeria and other Englishspeaking areas. Most playero speakers and a large number of Bubis also speak Fang, due to the impact of the latter group in the national government, and the forced learning of Fang during the Macias government, although the Fang rarely speak other indigeneous languages. …

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 20 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.