Equatoguinean Spanish (Spanish: Español ecuatoguineano) is the variety of Spanish spoken in Equatorial Guinea. This is the only Spanish variety that holds national official status in Sub-Saharan Africa. It is regulated by the Equatoguinean Academy of the Spanish Language and is spoken by about 90% of the population, estimated at 1,170,308 for the year 2010[1] (though population figures for this country are highly dubious), all of them second-language speakers.[2]
History
Centro Cultural de España (Cultural Center of Spain) in Malabo.
Spanish Guinea (along with the island of Bioko, formerly Fernando Pó) became a Spanish colony after being obtained from Portugal in exchange for American territories in 1778 under the First Treaty of San Ildefonso. Full colonization of the continental interior was not established until the end of the 19th century. The present nation of Equatorial Guinea became independent on October 12, 1968.
1000 Equatoguinean pesetas banknote from 1969
While the country has maintained its indigenous linguistic diversity, Spanish is the national and official language. Spanish is spoken by about 90% of the population in Bioko and coastal Río Muni and between 60% and 70% in the interior of Río Muni.[3]
Syllable-final /s/ is alveolar [s], rather than the glottal [h] found in southern Spain and much of Latin America.
Intervocalic /d/ is generally pronounced as a stop [d] or a tap [ɾ]. The fricative/approximant [ð~ð̞] realization found in most other Spanish-speaking countries seldom occurs.
/ɾ/ and /r/ are merged. The merged phoneme is most commonly realized as [ɾ]; [r] occurs less frequently.
Like most dialects of Peninsular Spanish, Equatoguinean Spanish has no seseo or ceceo: /θ/ is distinguished from /s/.
Most of the Bubi ethnic group pronounce the "r" in the guttural form [ʀ], like the sound of the initial "r" in French.
Syllable-final /ɾ/ and /l/ are generally distinguished despite the native Bantu languages having no such distinction. Both phonemes are very occasionally elided in word-final position.
The preposition en replaces a to mark a destination: voyenBata instead of voyaBata.
Comparison to Caribbean Spanish
According to John Lipski, a comparison between the Spanish spoken in Equatorial Guinea and Caribbean Spanish does not hint at an influence of African languages in Caribbean Spanish, despite some earlier theories. Both varieties of Spanish are very different. The main influence on the Spanish spoken in Equatorial Guinea seems to be the varieties spoken by native Spanish colonists.[5] In a different paper, however, Lipski notes that the phonotactics of African languages might have reinforced, in Caribbean Spanish, the consonant reduction that was already taking place in Spanish from Southern Spain.[6]
^Penny, Ralph (2002) [1991]. A History Of The Spanish Language (2 ed.). p. 33. Spanish is spoken by part of the population of Equatorial Guinea. Spanish is the language of education and the press and is the only common language in an otherwise linguistically diverse country. However, those who speak Spanish use it as a second language, often acquired in adulthood and therefore not always in a fully native manner.
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