Pedro Henríquez Ureña and the Whitening of Dominican Identity

Abstract

Pedro Henríquez Ureña’s characterization of Spanish in the Dominican Republic, as I show in this chapter, revolves around two themes. The first theme is the archaic nature of its lexicon and, the second, the scarcity of features of African origin. Through his focus on these themes, Henríquez Ureña produced an image of what he regarded as the standard Dominican dialect of Spanish in which its formal similarities with northern Peninsular varieties were highlighted and its consistency with the Spanish (Castilian¹ and Andalusian) base was affirmed. Spanish in the Dominican Republic is indeed a complex linguistic entity and as such a number of different approaches to its study could be emphasized. And in fact, other scholars, contemporaries of Henríquez Ureña, chose to focus on or at least further investigate other aspects of Caribbean varieties of Spanish (such as their African elements), or their uniqueness (as some Argentineans were doing with respect to their speech). In this chapter, in keeping with the approach to critical linguistic historiography and methodology outlined in Chapter 2, my focus will be less on the accuracy or inaccuracy of these alternative approaches and more on the question of why Henríquez Ureña chose to emphasize those particular features (archaisms and non-Africanness) and not others.

Nothing is vital for science; nothing can be. Its accepted propositions, therefore, are but opinions at most; and the whole list is provisional. The scientific man is not in the least wedded to his conclusions. He risks nothing upon them. He stands ready to abandon one or all as soon as experience opposes them. Some of them, I grant he is in the habit of calling established truths.

Charles S. Peirce

Reality is greater than what we can describe.

Pedro Henríquez Ureña