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“Palenquero is a Spanish-lexicon creole…spoken in the village of El Palenque de San Basilio, Colombia. Located 60 km inland from the former slave trade center of Cartagena de Indias, this ethnically homogenous Afro-Hispanic community is inhabited by descendants of runaway African slaves who, around 1700, established their first palenques [maroon societies] in the interior of the Caribbean coast. Palenquero is unique in that it is the only known Spanish-based creole on the South American mainland….
It is now clear that the Kikongo (Kongo) language, spoken in central west Africa, played a pivotal role in the genesis of Palenquero. As in Cuba, in El Palenque Bakongo slaves seem to have passed down their African language for several generations, either as a ritual code or as a full-fledged everyday means of communication. Scholars have also been able to determine that Bantu (rather than west African) fugitives must have had the most profound impact on El Palenque’s early language and culture.”
-A Schwegler, Palenquero from Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World
