Contacto y pérdida: el español y las lenguas indígenas en el Río de la Plata entre los siglos XVI y XIX

Abstract

ResumenEste trabajo analiza el contacto lingüístico histórico entre las lenguas indígenas y el español en el actual territorio uruguayo y las razones de su resultado, a saber, el desplazamiento y pérdida de lenguas indígenas autóctonas en el Río de la Plata. Propone dos etapas en la historia lingüística del contacto entre españoles e indígenas de diversas etnias. Una de acercamientos iniciales (siglo xvi) y otra que se corresponde con el establecimiento y colonización europeos (siglos xvii y xviii) y que culmina con la aculturación lingüística de los indígenas (siglo xix). Se identifican cuatro tipos de circunstancias que explican la pérdida de las lenguas indígenas: las circunstancias sociodemográficas, las circunstancias etnolingüísticas, las circunstancias histórico-culturales y las circunstancias tecnológicas. La identificación de estas últimas es el aporte más original al considerar la apropiación de la escritura como una razón para el desplazamiento hacia el español.

Hispanic place names of Uruguay in the context of linguopragmatics

“…Consequently, in the modern era, scientists are trying to find the original meaning of 4 See, for example: Blixen (1956), Ganson (2003), Coll (2013 and2014), Curbelo (2013), Entre Ríos (2013), Rona (1960).…”

Language contact and the indigenous languages of Uruguay

“…We cannot be certain about the number of groups inhabiting the area by the time of the European arrival, due to the shortage of sources from the 16th century (in which there is no mention of the interior of the country) ( Bracco 2004 ). Through documents from the explorer Félix de Azara, we learn that there were at least six indigenous groups in the region: the Charrúa s, the Yaros, the Bohanes, the Chanás, the Guenoas, and the Guarani, each of them with their own language (Bertolotti and Coll 2014). During the inauguration of the fi rst public library in Montevideo in 1816, Larrañaga, a Montevidean priest, gave a speech that predicted the imminent death of those peoples' native languages:…”

“…The process through which the indigenous populations replaced their native tongues with Spanish has been addressed by Bertolotti and Coll (2013 ). Their work is the only one to analyze the possible reasons for this outcome, proposing sociodemographic, ethnolinguistic, historical, cultural, and technological circumstances that could have favored the disappearance of the aforementioned languages.…”

“…Uruguayan Spanish is the product of Peninsular Spanish dialects in contact with African languages, other European languages, and autochthonous languages. Bertolotti and Coll (2014) classify the linguistic history of Uruguay in three stages: (1) the exclusive presence of indigenous languages;…”

“…At this stage, Spanish and Guarani worked as vehicular languages for interethnic communication ( Bertolotti 2014 ). During the second stage of the linguistic history of Uruguay, there were Europeans and Indians who learned the other group's language(s) to serve as intergroup mediators (Bertolotti and Coll 2013). There are records of this mediation since the late 18th and 19th centuries (Bértola and Fernández 2011;Bertolotti and Coll 2014 ).…”