Overview

As rich as the development of the Spanish and Portuguese languages has been in Latin America, no single book has attempted to chart their complex history. Gathering essays by sociohistorical linguists working across the region, Salikoko S. Mufwene does just that in this book. Exploring the many different contact points between Iberian colonialism and indigenous cultures, the contributors identify the crucial parameters of language evolution that have led to today's state of linguistic diversity in Latin America. The essays approach language development through an ecological lens, exploring the effects of politics, economics, cultural contact, and natural resources on the indigenization of Spanish and Portuguese in a variety of local settings. They show how languages adapt to new environments, peoples, and practices, and the ramifications of this for the spread of colonial languages, the loss or survival of indigenous ones, and the way hybrid vernaculars get situated in larger political and cultural forces. The result is a sophisticated look at language as a natural phenomenon, one that meets a host of influences with remarkable plasticity.

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9780226126203

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Reviews

"""Together the chapters in this book give a well-thought-out overview of the complexity of the social ecologies and linguistic development within Latin America, of the differences between the Portuguese and the Spanish empires, and of those within the Spanish viceroyalties. With this volume, Mufwene brings to English-language readers the missing piece in the discussion of language ecologies in excolonial regions."" (Anna Maria Escobar, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)"""

Together the chapters in this book give a well thought-out overview of the complexity of the social ecologies and linguistic development within Latin America, of the differences between the Portuguese and the Spanish empires, and of those within the Spanish viceroyalties. With this volume, Salikoko S. Mufwene brings to English-language readers the missing piece in the discussion of language ecologies in excolonial regions. --Anna Mar a Escobar, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Author Information

Salikoko S. Mufwene is the Frank J. McLorraine Distinguished Service Professor of Linguistics in the College as well as professor in the Committee on Evolutionary Biology and the Committee on the Conceptual and Historical Studies of Science at the University of Chicago. He is the author of several books, including, most recently, Language Evolution: Contact, Competition and Change.

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