The Influence of French on Cuban Spanish through Esteban Pichardo’s Dictionary

Abstract

Introduction: This study analyzes the influence of French and Haitian Creole on 19th-century Cuban Spanish through Esteban Pichardo's Diccionario provincial casi razonado de voces cubanas (1875), addressing the question of which words of French origin were recorded and under what criteria, within the context of Franco-Haitian migration following the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804). Materials and methods: A philological-textual approach using historical lexicography methods was employed on the fourth edition of the dictionary (1875), selecting the 30 entries that Pichardo explicitly marks as being of French or Haitian Creole origin. Results: Thirty words of French origin were identified, distributed across the semantic fields of coffee farming (31%), clothing and fabrics (22%), games and social life (19%), household furnishings (12%), and other (16%). The classification revealed 26 adapted loanwords, 2 unadapted ones (ecarté, complot), 2 extreme phonetic deformations (basicor, fuá), and 1 word of Haitian Creole origin (cocoyé). Discussion: The findings confirm that the French influence was intense but localized, concentrated in specific productive and social activities stemming from Franco-Haitian migration; Haitian Creole acted as a vehicle for the transmission of many words, explaining the extreme phonetic deformations; Pichardo's decision to label these words as "Cubanized" constitutes a critical stance against the purism of the Royal Spanish Academy and demonstrates the construction of a distinct linguistic identity in Cuba during the 19th century. Conclusions: The analysis demonstrates that 19th-century Cuban Spanish was a dynamic variant shaped by cultural and linguistic mixing, and that Pichardo's dictionary constitutes an invaluable testimony of Franco-Cuban linguistic contact. The study opens new avenues of research in historical lexicography and linguistic creolization, although it is limited to the voices explicitly marked by Pichardo, which leaves out possible unmarked loans.