The History of the Spanish
Language in Alabama
The Spanish language
has existed in Alabama,
since the colonial period
as individuals have immigrated
and settled here,
but the little Spanish community
was never numerous
nor concentrated.
Once these individuals
married an American, the
language usually became
extinct within the first
generation. If it was
indeed passed down, it
became a “dead” language
as only passive bilinguals
had limited knowledge of
it. I have also searched for
any survivals of Basque,
Galician and specifically
Catalan, in the local area,
with no success.
The Spanish language
in Alabama from the
Spanish Colonial Period
(1780-1813) and the pre-
1860 period, died out
in the late 1940’s. This
language was still spoken
by grandchildren of the
Spanish colonists as late
as the Second World War.
My research into “Alabama
Spanish” shows that
the last fluent pre-1860
Spanish speaker died during
this period.
I found and interviewed
two grandchildren
of Colonial Spanish
speakers. Both are in their
mid-eighties who are vestigial “rememberers” who,
although they themselves
cannot speak Spanish,
they were able to follow
a simple conversation
in Spanish and answer
questions posed to them.
Both of them remembered
parts of a popular
children’s song which was
sung to them by their
grandfathers and one was
able to remember parts
of a popular “Decima”
song he heard growing
up. They pronounced
the little Spanish words
they put together in what
can best be described as
the atypical Caribbean
Spanish whose beginnings
were in the Canary Islands
and southern Spain
with a admixture of the
northern Spanish dialects.
There are about ten or
so “rememberers” whose
Spanish ancestors arrived
between 1860 and 1900.
I have been unable to
find any other “Alabama
Spanish” survivals. There
has never been a study
of this vestigial “Alabama
Spanish,” and I fear that
the last living memories
of the men and women
who left Spain and her
colonies for a new life
in Alabama will die with
them.
The Spanish Ladino
dialect still exists among
Sephardic Jews, who live
and worship in Alabama,
but I have been able to
identify only one individual
in Mobile who speaks
it fluently. There is a small
Sephardic community, in Montgomery, but they
arrived after 1910. The
Ladino dialect spoken by
the original immigrants
which is based on the
dialect of the Island of
Rhodes exists, but is
presently in irreversible
language death. |