Language of the Voiceless: Traces of Taino Language, Food, and Culture in the Americas From 1492 to the Present

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and a paragraph in Chapter VII of BDC’s text about the language of the island of
Cozumel. This is perhaps one of the most solid pieces of evidence about the linguistic
knowledge and familiarity of the Spanish crew with the Taino languages and their
variants. The text reads as follow:
Pues estándoles aguardando, vino una india moza, de buen parecer, y comenzó
de hablar en la lengua de la de Jamaica, y dijo que todos los indios e indias de
aquel pueblo se habían ido huyendo a los montes de miedo. Y como muchos de
nuestros soldados e yo entendimos muy bien aquella lengua, que es como la
propia de Cuba, nos admiramos de vella y le preguntamos que cómo estaba allí;
y dijo que habría dos años que dio al través con una canoa grande, en que iban
a pescar desde la isla de Jamaica a unas isletas diez indios jamaicanos, y que
las corrientes les echó en aquella tierra… 134
In the quote, BDC states that on the island of Cozumel they found a beautiful
young Indian woman that spoke the language of Jamaica. However, what is truly
impressive about this paragraph of the narrative, is his annotation that the language of
Jamaica was like that of Cuba and that he and many of his soldiers spoke it very well.
It is of extreme importance to note that the writer of the text not only admits that he
speaks the Taino language, but he uses the emphatic expression “very well” to describe
how much it is spoken. Another element to note is that the writer chose to employ the
quantitative indefinite pronoun “many” instead of using “some, about, roughly, or a
specific number”. Therefore, this combination of “many + very well” used by the writer
to describe the extent of Taino speakers seems to hint to a prevalence of bilingualism
among the crew that reached the mainland along with Cortés and Diaz del Castillo. Also,
we cannot ignore that both Columbus and Diaz del Castillo, appear to be referring to a
134
(Diaz del Castillo, Historia Verdadera de la Conquista de la Nueva Espana| Aparato de Variantes, 1632)