Kriolu in New England: Contact and Innovation in the Cabo Verdean Diaspora

Cabo Verdean Creole—called Kriol in the Northern Islands and Kriolu in the Southern—is a Creole language native to the nine-island archipelago of Cabo Verde. Since the mid-1800s, economic and climate hardships have driven Cabo Verdeans to migrate, particularly to the eastern United States. Today, the New England community is believed to be the largest Cabo Verdean diaspora in the world. Despite its size, little research has addressed the language practices of Cabo Verdeans in this region. This dissertation addresses that gap by documenting diasporic language and examining how language and dialectal contact shape Cabo Verdean American speech. I focus on two main situations: (i) language contact between Kriolu and English, and (ii) dialectal contact among Kriolu varieties. First, I investigate bilingual Kriolu–English phenomena. More than 200 years of English contact has produced many contact effects, especially widespread language mixing (often called code-switching or code-mixing). I examine how interactional factors—such as a preference for same-language conversation—influence the structure of mixing among bilinguals. This analysis uses a mixed-methods approach combining quantitative and qualitative analyses. Second, I explore dialectal contact with two experimental phonetic studies on word stress production in diasporic island communities from Fogo and Santiago. Fieldwork revealed strong attitudes toward these varieties and identified word stress, especially verb stress placement, as a key dialectal marker. The first study analyzes the acoustic correlates of word stress. Fogo and Santiago diasporans completed a production task using nonce words altered to place target vowels in stressed and unstressed positions. I measured vowel duration, vowel quality, intensity, and pitch. This provided the first acoustic account of word stress in Kriolu and established resources for the next study. The second study investigates dialectal contact between Fogo and Santiago speakers. Interviews suggested mutual convergence, with both dialects holding prestige. Some claimed that newcomers “become Fogo by default,” while others said Fogo speakers adopt a Praia (Santiago) accent “to sound more educated.” To test these claims, I examined which verb stress pattern diasporans produced: Fogo’s final-syllable stress or Santiago’s penultimate-syllable stress. Using the acoustic model from the first study, I evaluated stress placement from another nonce word experiment. This five-year project, involving three fieldwork trips, leads to three main conclusions: (i) There is a distinct variety of Kriolu spoken in the diaspora, recognized by community members and outsiders alike. (ii) This variety is shaped by both language contact with English and dialectal contact among Kriolu varieties. (iii) Cabo Verdean American language practices are highly variable. Influences from English, multiple Kriolu varieties, bilingual and bicultural identity, language attitudes, and ongoing change processes give speakers a wide repertoire of linguistic resources. New England Cabo Verdeans draw from this rich pool to express themselves in creative and unexpected ways.