Tracing the origins of Loíza Spanish and the Afro-Hispanic varieties of the Americas

Abstract Loíza Spanish (LS) is an Afro-Hispanic vernacular spoken in Loíza, Puerto Rico, by the descendants of enslaved Africans brought to the region during the colonial era. This variety provides a compelling case study for examining language evolution and its implications for Creole studies. This paper investigates the historical and linguistic development of LS, challenging the prevailing view that its contemporary features represent vestiges of an earlier Creole stage ( de Granda 1968 et seq .). By synthesizing sociohistorical and linguistic evidence, this study argues that the grammatical characteristics of LS are more accurately explained as instances of vernacular universals ( Chambers 2001 , 2003 ) — linguistic features that recur across different languages in informal, non-standard speech due to shared cognitive, social, and physiological constraints — rather than as evidence of a prior creolization phase ( Sessarego 2021 ). This interpretation aligns with findings on other Afro-Hispanic contact varieties ( Díaz-Campos & Clements 2008 ; Sessarego 2013a , 2014 , 2015 , 2019 , 2025 ), where sociohistorical conditions, including those in Puerto Rico, appear to have been unfavorable for the emergence of a Creole language. The paper underscores the key role of social factors in shaping specific linguistic traits of LS while exploring how certain constructions may have arisen as a result of universal cognitive constraints on language acquisition and processing. By integrating linguistic, cognitive, and sociohistorical perspectives, this work contributes to a broader understanding of Afro-Hispanic dialects and their place within the continuum of contact linguistics.