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This volume brings together scholars working on Latin America including the relevant Atlantic islands to examine the ways in which the particular conditions of the colonization of the region by the Portuguese and the Spaniards since the 16th century have influenced both the fate of Native American languages and the differential evolution of Portuguese and Spanish into various colonial varieties. The volume is motivated by leading linguist Solikoko Mufwene s vision of a historical, geographical, and anthropological linguistics. Collectively the contributors address the question of to what extent general processes of language evolution can be correlated with different styles of colonization not only between (Anglophone) North America and Latin America but also within Latin America itself. The result is an integrated body of chapters reflecting on complementary, though not comprehensive (especially geographically) aspects of language evolution in Latin America. It is designed to identify by means of controlled comparison, the principal parameters of language evolution."
About the author
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.
Summary
Exploring the many different contact points between Iberian colonialism and indigenous cultures, this title features contributors who identify the crucial parameters of language evolution that have led to today's state of linguistic diversity in Latin America.
