De cómo el habla cotidiana de los limonenses llegó a categorizarse como idioma criollo: recuerdos de una lingüista en su trabajo de campo

Abstract

This paper narrates the experiences of the author during her stay in Costa Rica, not only in her capacity as visiting professor —as the result of an agreement between the University of Costa Rica and the University of Kansas— but also as the consequence of her contact with the people who are speakers of the creole language of Limón in that region, given her desire to learn and study their language. The admiration and interest she felt when she approached the Limonese community and their language /mekaytelyuw/, so called by its speakers, changed the course of her life. From that contact, determined to write her doctoral dissertation on that language, the author shares her field experience on her one-year stay in that Caribbean province. Thus she relates daily events in that environment and her relationship with the native speakers, while she applies the appropriate methodology for collecting samples of the language. All these experiences culminated in multiple texts which describe the "Creole Language of Costa Rica".