SPANISH LOANWORDS IN LANGUAGESOF THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES1 CECIL H. BROWN NORTHERNILLINOIS UNIVERSITY 1. Introduction. Twenty Spanish words have yielded loans found in two or more of nineteen languages of the Southeastern (SE) United States. Distributional evidence indicates that for the most part these were not bor- rowed directly from Spanish, but rather diffused from one SE language to another, often in a strikingly unidirectionalmanner.2 While some aspects of this finding have been briefly explored by both Sturtevant(1962:50-54) and Martin (1994:17-18), it is here exhaustively investigated and fully de- scribed for the first time. This entails a detailed consideration of the role of Amerindian-language-based lingua francas in the spread of Spanish terms (cf. Brown 1996a; 1996b) and discussion of documented contacts facilitating diffusion. In addition, all known Spanish loanwords recordedfor SE languages (save those reported for Apalachee and Timucua) are assem- bled (Appendix A). Diffused French loanwords are discussed as well (Ap- pendix B). (Appendix C provides lexical sources.) Sturtevant(1962:50-54) identifies sixteen of the twenty diffused Spanish loanwords. However, for the most part, his analysis focuses on the transfer of these items between only two of the nineteen languages, Creek and Hitchiti, both of which belong to the Muskogean genetic grouping. Three other Muskogean languages, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Apalachee, and non- Muskogean Cherokee and Timucua are also briefly noted as recipients of Spanish loans (Sturtevant 1962:54, 66-67). Martin (1994:17, 24) recognizes fewer (ten) of the twenty loanwords but charts their spread across more SE 1I am grateful for support provided for this research by the Center for Latino and Latin American Studies, the Department of Anthropology, and the Graduate School of Northern Illinois University and by the National Science Foundation through grants BNS-9020699 and SBR-9222311. I am a newcomer to research on languages of the Southeastern United States so I was particularly gratified by the number of scholars of the area who responded to a re- quest for comments on earlier drafts of this paper. These include W. L. Ballard, George Aaron Broadwell, Wallace Chafe, Emanuel J. Drechsel, John H. Hann, Heather Hardy, Clark S. Larsen, Jack Martin, Blair A. Rudes, Janine Scancarelli, William C. Sturtevant, and three anonymous reviewers-all of whom I am pleased to thank here. I would also like to thank Heather Hardy for supplying unpublished materials otherwise not available to me, and Pamela Brown and Jenny Tomkins for editorial comments. 2 Shipley (1962) describes a similar finding for languages of Central California. [IJAL, vol. 64, no. 2, April 1998, pp. 148-67] ? 1998 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0020-7071/98/6402-0004$02.00 148 SPANISH LOANWORDS 149 TABLE 1 RECORDED LANGUAGES OF THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES (AFTER CRAWFORD 1975) PIDGIN LANGUAGE:*Mobilian Jargon (Mbj) MUSKOGEAN FAMILY: *Alabama (Alb), *Apalachee (Apl), *Chickasaw (Chs), *Choctaw (Cht), *Creek (Crk), *Hitchiti (Hch), *Koasati (Kst), *Mikasuki (Mks), *Seminole (Sml) SIOUAN FAMILY: *Biloxi (Blx), Catawba (Ctb), Ofo (Ofo), *Quapaw (Qpw), Tutelo, Woccon IROQUOIANFAMILY: *Cherokee (Chr), Nottoway, Tuscarora(Tsc) ALGONQUIAN FAMILY:Pamlico, Powhatan, *Shawnee (Shw) CADDOAN FAMILY: *Caddo (Cdd) LANGUAGEISOLATES: Atakapa (Atk), *Chitimacha (Chm), Natchez (Ntz), *Timucua (Tmc), *Tunica (Tnc), *Yuchi (Ych) *Language shows at least one Spanish loanword found in at least one other language of the area. languages. The latter include eight of the nineteen languages, all of which are Muskogean: Creek, Seminole, Mikasuki, Koasati, Alabama, Apalachee, Choctaw, and Chickasaw. Neither of these partial treatmentsmentions non- Muskogean languages, other than Cherokee and Timucua, which have par- ticipated in Spanish loanword diffusion (these include Biloxi, Quapaw, Shawnee, Caddo, Chitimacha,Tunica, and Yuchi). Nor do these studies dis- cuss the role of native-language lingua francas, such as Mobilian Jargon, in the diffusional process. Crawford (1975:1) describes the SE as a "cultural province" geographi- cally encompassing the area "from the Potomac and Ohio rivers to the At- lantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico and westward beyond the Mississippi River for some two hundred miles or more." He (1975:5-6) lists twenty- nine recorded languages (about which more than merely a name is known today) spoken in the region at least as late as 1700 A.D. Twenty-two of these are associated with five different language families, six are language iso- lates, and one is a native-language-basedpidgin. These languages and their genetic affiliationsare given in table 1 and, with the exception of the pidgin, are located on the accompanying map in figure 1 according to where they are believed to have been spoken roughly between 1700 and 1800. Other languages of the area, perhaps many, became extinct during the postcontact era leaving little, if any, trace of their existence (Crawford 1975:1-2). Table 1 also identifies from among the twenty-nine languages (through use of *) all those languages, nineteen in number, which show at least one Spanish loanword also found in at least one other language of the area. (Abbreviations used for these nineteen languages and five others are keyed in table 1.) There are, then, ten recorded languages for which such loans have not been found. Sources for these ten, with the major exception of 150 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AMERICAN IINGUITSTICS FIG. 1.-Location of recorded Native American languages in the SE from roughly 1700 to 1800 (after Crawford 1975:x). that for Tuscarora(Rudes 1987), are typically highly incomplete and frag- mentary, possibly explaining in part why loanwords of interest are not forthcoming for them. In some instances, sources for the remaining nine- teen languages are also inadequate, especially those for Apalachee, Caddo, Chitimacha, Hitchiti, and Quapaw and, somewhat less so, those for Mika- suki, Seminole, Shawnee, Timucua, and Yuchi-which should be kept in mind when evaluating data (or lack thereof) from these languages. 2. The data. The twenty Spanish words, each of which has UNAMBIG- UOUSLYyielded loans found in two or more SE languages, are listed in figure 2. Languages in which loans are found are also identified.3The loan- 3 Some European language loans in SE languages of possible Spanish origin may just as likely be from other European languages such as English or French. These ambiguous items SPANISH LOANWORDS 151 Espanol1'2 3, 6,78 Tnc Blx 7 l 2 7 vaca, 2, 3, Mbj arro 3 5Cht capitdn, 3, 6 Alb chivato3 5 }Kst 5 naranja3' tocino3'5 trigo1'2 }Crk cimarronl 3, 5, 11 soldado3, 9, 10 aZulcar1,azucar 3, 4, 5 capa345capa3, 4, 5 Dios9 5 frasco3, jarro3 5 5 platano3, caballo3, 4 7, 9 chinche1 (also in Cht) 7 miz(alo)2 Mexicano7, 12 FIG. 2.-Twenty Spanish words, each one yielding loans found in at least two SE languages. 1 = Chs; 2 = Chr; 3 = Mks; 4 = Hch; 5 = Sml; 6 = Ych; 7 = Cdd; 8 = Qpw; 9 = Tmc; 10 = Apl; 11 = Shw; 12 = Chm. words themselves are presented in Appendix A and discussed there when appropriate. While the Spanish loans indicated in figure 2 are not exhaustive of those occurring in SE languages, they constitute the only clear-cut loans from Spanish found in MOST of these languages. Spanish loans in addition to those derived from the twenty words of figure 2 are relatively common only in two SE languages, Timucua (Tmc), showing fifty such items, and Apalachee (Apl), with seven (see Sturtevant 1962:66-67 for respective lists). Sources for other SE languages only very occasionally attest to lexi- cal items that are true or possible additional Spanish loanwords. The latter are also presented and evaluated in Appendix A. are not included among Spanish loans in figure 2. However, they are presented and dis- cussed in Appendix A. 152 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AMERICAN LINGUISTICS 3. Analysis. Among the nineteen SE languages having Spanish loan- words indicated in figure 2, Creek (Crk) shows the largest number with six- teen, followed by Mikasuki (Mks) with fifteen, Koasati (Kst) and Seminole (Sml) with ten each, Alabama (Alb) and Chickasaw (Chs) with eight each, Choctaw (Cht) and Caddo (Cdd) with five each, Cherokee (Chr) with four, Mobilian Jargon(Mbj), Hitchiti (Hch), and Timucua (TMC) with three each, Biloxi (Blx) and Yuchi (Ych) with two each, and Chitimacha(Chm), Tunica (Tnc), Shawnee (Shw), Quapaw (Qpw), and Apalachee (Apl) with one each (see figure 2). A rough correlation between number of Spanish loans and language location is apparent:number of loans generally decreasing with a shift from southeasternlanguages of the region (e.g., Creek and Mikasuki) to western languages (e.g., Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Biloxi) and northern languages (e.g., Cherokee and Shawnee). Spanish loanwords (hereafter referring just to those of figure 2 unless otherwise indicated) in ten SE languages constitute PERFECTsubsets of the sixteen found in Creek. Thus, for example, ALL ten of Koasati's loans also occur among the sixteen pertaining to Creek, ALL eight of Alabama also occur among those of Creek, as do ALLthree of Mobilian Jargon. Another six languages show NEAR-PERFECT subsets of Creek loanwords wherein only one member of each respective set is not also found in Creek. Only one language, Caddo, shows a set of Spanish loans from among the twenty that is neither a perfect nor near-perfect subset of those in Creek. Since it is extremely unlikely that individual SE languages would have independently borrowed the same words from Spanish, the observed distri- bution for the greatest part must be due to diffusion of loanwords across SE languages (cf. Brown 1998). Thus, these languages have only rarely bor- rowed terms directly from Spanish (cf. Sturtevant 1962:51-52 and Martin 1994:17-18). Indeed, Spanish loanwords in the vast majority of instances appear to have diffused from Creek (directly or indirectly) to most other languages of the region.