Roquetas Pidgin Spanish

Immigrants attracted to work in the greenhouses of the area come from many countries in north and west Africa and eastern Europe, and few speak any Spanish before arrival.

Although the migrants are divided by nationality and native language of origin, they maintain relationships marked by a high degree of solidarity familiarity, and there is no internal hierarchy among them.

Their common life circumstances make them form a social group within Almería and lead to a homogenous pidgin language.

[1][2] These immigrants typically have studied no Spanish before arriving in Andalusia, but have been able to adopt it to maintain a minimum of communication with fellow workers, with employers and with native speakers on the bus and in stores.

[2] This common pidgin language is generally restricted to the work environment and to the few other interactions migrants have with native Spanish-speakers.

Roquetas Pidgin Spanish has been studied by Alexander Haselow who worked for three months in the greenhouses with these migrant workers.

In the local native variety of Roquetas de Mar, the elision of syllable-final -/s/ is compensated by lengthening of the preceding vowel.

In any case, it is clear from the lack of inflection of surrounding elements and especially of the verb that plural nouns are not present in Roquetas Pidgin Spanish.

Some example sentences demonstrating this are: Todo habla español 'we all speak Spanish', and, in response to a question about mountains in Mali, Sí, tiene muntaña.

[1] Three indefinite pronouns in particular are widely used in Roquetas Pidgin Spanish: todo 'all', mucho 'a lot', poco 'few'.

A categorical use of the third-person singular is found in basilectal forms of the creole spoken by many Afro-Bolivians living in the Yungas.

[1] Roquetas Pidgin Spanish has a strict subject–verb–object word order, which has been speculated to be due to a mental model inherent in the immigrants' brains.

When standing atop a hill overlooking Roquetas de Mar and asked ¿Dónde está tu casa?

[2] When giving directions, immigrant workers in Roquetas also use physical gestures such as pointing their finger or glancing towards a certain area.

For example, when asked to give directions to the nearest bus stop, an immigrant worker in Roquetas may say Marcha así y a la derecha 'Go there, to the right', accompanied by a gesture pointing to a certain area.

[1] The speech of the migrant workers in Roquetas generally avoids antonyms, instead preferring simple negations.