RICHARD J. FILE-MURIEL


 Did the Palenqueros strive to acquire native fluency in a pre-existing
language? It is of great relevance to our discussion that the Palenqueros
of PSB were geographically isolated from their oppressors at the early
stages of the colony's formation. Certainly, contact with their former
Castilian-speaking captors was going to be limited. Until the abolition
of slavery (1814) and probably beyond, there was certainly little
incentive for the majority of Palenqueros to strive for native like fluency
in Spanish (nor in Portuguese). It would be ludicrous to claim that
Palenqueros aimed to acquire Spanish. Their incentive was clearly to
communicate with members of their own group, and maybe with
outsiders for the purpose of conducting trade.
 At the initial stages, the tendency was surely to use the ancestral
language with those who spoke common ancestral languages. But as
time passed, the MFIC register would have been seen as the practical,
essential and consequently the prestigious language by children,
allowing them to communicate with the other children. This would
partially explain why the African languages that were not numerically
dominant faced an early death (probably within the 1st or 2nd
generation). Even the dominant African languages in PSB were probably
displaced relatively early.
 Although there were some Palenqueros that had a supposed
command of Spanish, the incentive for learning Spanish probably did
not present itself to the majority of Palenqueros until well after the
abolition of slavery (1814), when they began working and trading
outside of their community. As interactions with outsiders increased
and as more work opportunities outside the community became
available, Spanish probably began to represent social mobility. As
Schwegler (1997) suggests, Palenquero is a case of language shift that
is resulting in death, not decreolization.
 Schwegler has demonstrated that there are clear Portuguese features
in Palenquero. This is undoubtedly due to the fact that a substantial
number of Palenqueros had some varying knowledge of Portuguese-
pidgin. But in 1772, the report was that Palenqueros spoke a particular
language (which we can assume refers to Palenquero) and Castilian. It
is unclear, then, why for some relexification led to the acquisition of
Castilian, while for others it resulted in the formation of Palenquero.
The evidence suggests that there were two coexisting languages. Finally,
I doubt the idea that Palenquero was Portuguese-based and underwent
relexification.
 The goal of this paper has been to illustrate that the sociohistorical
evidence strongly suggests that Palenquero was a creation for